Calcium deficiency/worms?

[Tania]

Several posts lately have mentioned possible calcium deficiency, but the hens all seem to have been eating a good diet. Is it possible that the hens have worms and this is leading to them losing out on the nutrients they are eating? Just wondered.

[melons]

Most seem to be youngsters, they do weird eggs coming into lay & going off lay for the winter sometimes, you should see what one of mine produces & she's a mad ole bird

[TassieDev]

It did get me thinking too.
I used to volunteer at a wildlife rehab centre here and we used to get a lot of (Australian) magpies in with calcium deficiency. The theory is that people were feeding them in their backyards with meat , which does not have the correct calcium/phosphorus balance for magpies whose natural diet is insects. Apparently the insects with exoskeletons eg beetles, crickets, make up a large portion of their natural diet and are higher in calcium.
I know some people here do misguidedly feed wild birds , but I always thought it was/is a disproportionately large number of birds getting the problem.
Could there be some larger environmental reason for a calcium/phosphorus imbalance in mulitple bird species?
I have no idea!!! But it would make an interesting study.

[Al B]

On this topic - has anyone ever fed dried insects to their chooks? I do mealworms but maybe grasshoppers / crickets etc. like you feed to lizards woud be good for them? Mine aren't completely free range so they don't find many insects naturally - good idea or not??

[Willow]

Al B - I'd say it would be a good idea - though probably expensive (unless you want to collect a load of insects in the nearest field) but it would be the most natural way for the birds to get all the correct nutrition they need...
Tassie dev, that is a thought but part of the problem could well be that with more and more natural areas being 'manicured' into lawns or generally flattened, there are less places for the insects to live / breed... therefore the birds are more reliant on the food provided by the households... perhaps more specialised wild bird food should be available.. (but at what cost?) or would our 'complete' chicken pellets fit the bill? perhaps not as they are usually made with extras for chooks laying habits...

[TassieDev]

Willow yes it may well be a factor for wild birds that there are just less insects (at least those of the kind birds would normally have eaten) before we humans changed the landscape so radically (at least here in Aus).
In the wildlife rehab centre the magpies with calcium deficiency were given a type of calcium powder supplement. Their diet was mainly a mixture of a range of goodies - meat did play a part but with other supplements. Ideally they would have been fed on a more natural diet, ie a range of insects and maybe some mice, but as has been pointed out it gets really expensive buying insects. The centre did of course raise some insects themselves, but it's amazing how many you need when you have a lot of birds to feed!!!

I dont really know about the situation in other countries, but in Australia it would be hard to provide a catch all 'wild bird food' cos it really depends what species of bird you are feeding. There are some recipes out there on the web if people are feeding magpies, and we did try to say to people please use these if you really must put food out, as with plain meat they will get very sick. Personally I think not feeding them is still the best way, and planting your garden with native plants and not spraying poisons to kill all the insects so the birds can come and eat them instead. Which gets back to your point I think!
In Aus a lot of birds are insectivores, and most birds will catch insects around breeding time, as they are high in protein, even if their normal diet is purely grain or nectar.