Chicken bald back

[LunaKiw1]

Our Daisy, a hybrid Speckled Grey, is about 26 weeks now and we've had her for 7 weeks. Yesterday she was limping badly so we took her to see the vet (who is a chicken expert). He throughly examined her (laying her on her back and feeling her breastbone) but he couldn't find anything particular wrong although he gave her a Metacm injection to ease her discomfort. So far so good, but what surprised and then worried us was that he said she was underweight because her breastbone wasn't covered by much fat. All our chooks have not have much flesh on their breastbones and I thought it was natural with laying hens as all their energy goes into egg production. Daisy has laid every day for the last 3 weeks and she eats well enough as far as we can see. They have free access in their WIR to plenty of layers mash, mixed with bokashi, and they also free range. Daisy and her sisters Marigold and Bluebell don't - much to our disappointment - like any of the normal treats such as sweetcorn, grapes, rice, pasta etc which our previous two girls did, although they do love corn. We give them that to tempt them back to the WIR and also add it to some wet mash in the evening but we have not left loads of it out all the time as I thought too much corn wasn't as good for them as layers mash, especially too early in the day. Now I feel guilty and would like to fatten them all, but Daisy especially, up a bit! Should we give them corn more freely or how else do you make chickens eat more? Or shouldn't we worry on basis that if she's laying well she must be OK?

Edited September 8, 2011 by Guest