Its day twelve of the tylan and the first day of the poultry zest. I had asked for something that didn’t need to be administered to their beaks as getting anything in to all four little girls’ beaks would be a stressful task for them and me.
The poultry zest is in pellet form and it says to put a heaped spoon (measuring spoon enclosed) into the food for ten hens. We have six and four of them are very small so I guessed a slightly less than level spoon would do.
Poultry zest
I had a feeling that I would need to disguise it but as it smelt quite sweet (aniseed), I decided to try it, as it is first, and see and if they would go for it. I sprinkled it with some sunflower hearts on to the girls’ patio area.
As I expected they all picked out the sunflower hearts first. After they had gone the two bigger girls, Emerald and Speckles, hoovered up all the pellets and the little girls ignored them. Well that went well!
On to plan B. I then measured out another small spoon and put them on top of their mash, made with the tylan water and mixed them a bit. The little girls tried to avoid the poultry zest pellets. I can tell because they are yellow (turmeric) compared to the brown of their normal pellets. I’m not sure if it’s just because they look and smell different.
By the end of the day they had eaten nearly all of the mash so I was happy that they had had enough of the poultry zest. Tomorrow I will grind the poultry zest pellets to powder with my pestle and mortar and mix them into the mash made with tylan water. Hopefully that way they won’t notice them.
The girls seemed about the same as yesterday. They are still sneezing, Freckles the most, but I haven’t seen any bubbles in the eyes and I can only hear a very tiny whisper to Freckles breathing when she eats. They seem generally brighter. I think they are very slowly improving.
Click here to see the history of my flock.
Good to hear that there’s no regression, at least. Grinding up the poultry zest is a great idea – makes me remember the strategies we used to use in order to get medicine into some of our children!
It is a bit like that with children and chickens.
Sounds more promising Carol – hope tomorrow is even better!! xx
Thank you xx
I think my local Countrywide store has Poultry Zest, or I’ve seen something similar. I’m very interested to see if there’s a marked change with using it. I hope it does help them.
I am using it as there is nothing to lose but to be honest I don’t really believe in these kind of products. The ingredients are:
Micronised wheat, wheatfield meal,aniseed,molasses,sunflower oil, ginger,fenugreek and turmeric.
Not sure how much this can help with a deep seated problem but I am willing to give anything a go.