LIST OF VITAMINS FOR HEALTHY CHICKENS
Chicken Vitamins
Vitamins: Yesterday I started a post on chicken feed formulation and components. We will continue on this, though some people want to get the feed formulation straight I think it’s better for us to have the understanding of each of these components so as to formulate the feed yourself with the understanding of what we are actually giving our chickens.
On this note, we will be considering vitamins and carbohydrates today.
Do you know that vitamin was first discovered in the chicken on the island of Java, Christian Eijkman discovered vitamin B1, also known as thiamin. Henrik Dam discovered vitamin K by using chickens.
Vitamins fall into two categories: Water-soluble and Fat-soluble.
Water-Soluble Vitamins
Water-soluble vitamins include biotin, choline, folacin (or folic acid), niacin and the B vitamins (B1, B2, B3, B6 and N12) Normal activity and body action remove water-soluble vitamins from a chicken's body, so these need regular replacement through diet or supplements placed in water.
Fat-Soluble Vitamins
Chickens store fat-soluble vitamins in their body fat, so they need replenishing less frequently than water-soluble vitamins. The most important fat-soluble vitamins help the chicken build the most valuable fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K or A-D-E-K. These vitamins are essential building blocks to the normal life of a chicken.
Appropriate amounts of all these vitamins come in pre-mixes, sold in form of balanced diets.
VITAMIN A
Vitamin A deficiencies affect chicks more than adults because adults have larger fat stores. Also, be careful of Vitamin A toxicity. However, this occurs only when chickens receive 500 times more than they need.
VITAMIN D
This vitamin is often listed on the chicken feed tag as cholecalciferol convert to something useable by a chicken's body. Hence, vitamin D is often dabbled as the "sunshine vitamin" Without adequate vitamin D, the chicken can suffer from rubbery bones or beaks otherwise known as rickets.
VITAMIN E
Vitamin E is essential to build strong muscle and nerve tissue, proper operation of the circulatory system and good hatchability (Important if you breed for chicks)
VITAMIN K
Vitamin K is named as such because it is essential to coagulation. Chicken requires vitamin K even more than usual when they suffer from internal parasites such as roundworms or coccidiosis. If starting chicks without medicated feed (coccidiostats) or if a flock suffers from coccidiosis, the risk of intestinal haemorrhage or increased clotting time increases due to damage caused by the burrowing action of the parasites.
CARBOHYDRATES
The word carbohydrate is synonymous with energy when it comes to poultry diet formulation. Chickens eat to meet their energy needs. simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, glucose, fructose, mannose and galactose are monosaccharides and one of the only types of energy chicken have the enzymes to break down. They can't break down cellulose or lactose.
Corn is the typical energy source for chicken. But other grains may also be fed to your backyard flock. Chicken can also take wheat, however, be mindful of the grain source you choose, Wheat can sometimes be pricky and irritate the chicken digestive tract. Which can lead to gut lining damage and a host of other problems.