Plucked chickens ready to be examined along with healthy hearts, liver, and gizzard.

Chicken health problems are not fun, but sometimes we don’t identify those problems until processing day. You can tell a lot about how a chicken was raised by what it looks like on the evisceration table. While the information you receive won’t benefit the birds being processed, it will give you information to evaluate the flock management, so you can make adjustments in future flocks.

When your chickens are laying on your table naked and unafraid, they hold no secrets. It’s the perfect time to observe them as a way to identify production problems. In this episode, I examine the scratches, bruises, hearts, livers, gizzards, green muscle disease, ascites, and uneven growth and ties it back what happened during the growout period.

Common Chicken Health Problems

Ascites (aka water belly)

You identify ascites by the belly full of fluid and purple skin. Ascites likely happened weeks before and many times can be traced to a traumatic event in the brooder-at least for most pastured poultry producers. Sometimes severe cases of ascites will cause chicken deaths in the pasture with birds dying over night. Look for purple skin and affected birds can either be runts or the largest in the flock.

When you encounter a death in flock after week five, ascites is always a concern. Do a necropsy and look for fluid in the belly.

In a pastured poultry production system, ascites usually ties back to a stressful weather event, and the earlier the event, the more likely the birds will die before processing day. The common scenario goes like this. The birds are in the brooder early in the season and temps drop sharply at night during the first ten days or so of brooding. The birds struggle to stay warm. They move and pile together, as as they struggle, the increased stress causes blood to pump faster and faster and builds pressure on heart. If this cold weather event doesn’t kill the chick outright, problems may be manifested later in life with ascites.

Another common chicken health problem happens in the late fall seasons, typically when cold winds and/or cold rain affect the flock due to improper shelter environments. Even though the chickens are older, they still don’t like to be cold and wet and in a draft. This will be a seriously traumatic event, much like I describe with chickens that get chilled. The increased blood flow creates pressure on the heart that could be fatal or could lead to chicken health problems during the rest of the growout.

If you’ve ever examined the lungs in a chicken, you see the problem with that increased blood flow due to stress. The lungs rest next to the rigid rib cage, and when the heart starts to pump more blood through the lungs, they can’t not expand to handle the flow. The resulting back pressure is the problem.

Solutions to ascites come with grower experience.

• Don’t push the early and late season production if you’re in a northern, four season climate.
• Design brooders and shelter with adequate environmental protections.
• Treat the flock at the first sign of ascites by limiting feed intake and treating the water with Apple Cider Vinegar at the rate of 2 ounces to the gallon of water.

Scratches on Back of Broilers

When the back of your broilers are scratched up, you have feed management problem. It’s time to reevaluate your approach to feeding and management.

This chicken health problem typically results when you restrict access to feed and limit the amount of feed you provide to the flock.  Restricted access might occur when you do not have enough feeder space for all chickens to eat at the same time. When you hear someone say they only feed the amount of feed their broilers can eat within 20 minutes, that is an example of limiting feed.

When you limit feed without enough feeder space for everyone to eat, you create feed competition. The hungry and starving broilers will climb over their flock mates to reach the feed. The scratches on the back will condemned in an inspected processing facility.

Solutions to scratches on the back:

• Don’t believe the internet feeding advice that broilers need to have limited feed. Learn how to feed your broilers properly.
• Provide enough feeder space for all chickens to eat at the same through all stages of their life.

Bruises and Dislocations

Did you know that a bruise requires blood, and the color of a bruise is an indicator of the age of the bruise? It is.

Many times you blame the plucker for breaking your chicken’s wing, but if there is bruising, look at handling errors or other injuries in the field. The lighter the bruise, the more recent the

Light pink bruises on the wing happened during handling of the chicken. The deeper, darker colored bruises are older, and happened sometime in the last week or so of the bird’s life. It may indicate high predator pressure or some other problem that is causing the birds to injury themselves or each other.

Solutions to bruises and dislocations:

• Use the color of the bruise to estimate the age of the injury (Join the Pastured Poultry Talk Facebook Group for help troubleshooting).
• If you’re experiencing handling errors, crate at night and don’t be rough during handling.

Runts and Uneven Growth

Of all the things I talk about on this episode, identifying the cause of uneven growth is the most difficult chicken health problem to diagnose. Rest assured, however, this represents a problem and a generally unhealthy flock.  I share some common places to investigate. It’s not always genetic, and it’s not always your feed.

Potential causes and solutions include:

• Feed competition from limited/restricted feed access. In fact, poor performing birds and uneven growth go hand-in-hand with poor scratches on the back (but you can have one without the other. Provide enough feed and enough feeder space.
• Birds that don’t eat the fines are a problem. Feed so that approximately 5% of the feed from last feeding remains in the feeder. Do not keep dumping new feed on top of old feed, as this will train the birds not to eat the fines. The fines are all the minerals and vitamins and sometimes the protein that lead to healthy chickens and proper development.
• The brooder environment may be too hot or too cold and discourage the chickens from drinking or eating.
• It could be a feed formulation issue or you’re feeding the wrong feed.

Green Muscle Disease

Also called deep pectoral myopathy. Green muscle is discovered by the green decaying tender of large breasted birds. You only see it when you cut open the bird. While green muscle is likely genetically predisposed, a high incidence rate is a signal that you should look for problems in the field.

A lot of times you hear people say that green muscle is a result of flapping their wings. That’s a simpleton approach. Birds can flap their wings and be birds; that doesn’t cause the problems. The problems arise when the birds are in a fight or flight mode in life threatening conditions. This threat could come from anywhere, including rising water, intense predator pressure, a farm dog chasing the pens, and so on.

There is some genetic predisposition to the Cornish cross strains, but the stressful events I described will lead to this unseen chicken health problem.

Woody Breasts

This can affect 10% of the flock and it can be see by the dense, striated, fibrous breast. This is a problem chicken health problem created by the over zealous breeding programs of the modern commercial broilers. By growing birds with unnaturally large breasts at a faster and faster pace, these problems pop up. Generally, if you’re seeing a lot of woody breasts, you could likely decrease the rate by slaughtering the birds earlier. This is one of the problems that become more prevelant as the birds go beyond  eight weeks of age.

Healthy Hearts, Livers, and Gizzards

Always examine the organs for potential chicken health problems. Healthy livers have crisp edges, a uniform color, and are firm. Overfed layers, for example, will have fatty and pale livers.

Hearts should be firm, have a bit of fat on the tip, and muscular walls. A heart with no fat signifies a starving bird.

The gizzard should be firm, large, and muscular. There’s a good test when dealing the organs and judging their health. Ask yourself, “would I eat that?” If the answer is no, then there’s a problem.

Listen the episode (you can come in at the times listed in the timestamps below) for lots of a great information on the organs.

Laying Hens

One time I processing the laying flock of three to four year old hens. About 60% of these old layers had chicken health problems. These production sexlinks are not bred to last beyond two lay cycles, so as they age, they are more susceptible to chicken health problems. Common problems might include egg bound, e-coli, build of fat, chalky yellow substances, caclified masses, twisted intestines, etc.

These birds just drop dead on regular basis usually from problems that you don’t always see from the outside. The best solution for your laying flock is to replace the flock after one or two lay cycles. Practice an all-in, all-out approach.

Episode Timestamps

[mm:ss]: Topic

• 1:00: Pastured poultry news round
• 8:05: Troubleshooting chicken health problemes
• 9:30: Ascites
• 12:50: Back scratches
• 16:10: Bruises and dislocations
• 18:00: Runs and uneven growth
• 20:13: Green muscle disease
• 23:42: Woody breast
• 25:05: Hearts, livers, and gizzards
• 27:15: Livers
• 30:15: Hearts
• 32:20: Laying hens problems

Pastured Poultry News Round Up

• A Small Business Administration report identifies over $1 billion in bad loans for contract poultry barns. At issue is whether or not poultry contract growers are really independent businesses or just affiliates of the integrators. Spoiler alert. SBA calls them affiliates and therefore finds they aren’t entitled to taxpayer subsidized and guaranteed loans. Read article.
• Ding. Dong. The Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices update to the NOP is officially dead.
• Fertrell announces a non-soy protein pellet that doesn’t sacrifice growth. Check them out.
• Poultry Man developed a new universal, round kill cone for broilers, hens, ducks, geese, and heritage turkeys. Contact info@millsidefarm.com for details.

Have some feedback? mike@pasturedpoultrytalk.com