Iodine for chickens

Iodine for chickens is one of the traditionally discussed topics among poultry farmers. Judging by the reviews, it is regularly given to both laying hens and meat chickens. If you are going to use the iodization of your poultry, we immediately note: it is important to provide the element in the required amount, otherwise an excess amount of iodine in the body will lead to intoxication, and a lack of this element will limit the productive potential and cause some alimentary diseases. Therefore, after you have read tips on the Internet, seek the advice of a veterinarian.

Signs of iodine deficiency in chickens that you can look for yourself to provide a diagnostic picture to your veterinarian include the following:

In the case when you constantly throw iodine into drinking water at random, the signs of an overabundance will first appear in very small eggs, then intoxication of the body will begin. Therefore, if the eggs are suddenly crushed during your iodization, stop the supplement immediately.

Why do chickens need iodine and how to give

The benefits of iodine for chickens within reasonable limits can improve the health of the bird and increase egg production.

Blue iodine, which is nothing more than iodized starch, is one of the products often used in the poultry industry to regulate metabolism, especially under stress, help keep skin, feathers, spurs and beak healthy, reduce obesity by improving metabolism. Prevents goiter diseases, is used for gastrointestinal disorders and liquid droppings.

Gastrointestinal diseases are common in poultry, especially chickens. One of the most commonly used drugs to solve this problem is blue iodine.

How to give this product to birds depends on their age. For young animals up to one month, the recommended dose is 0.5 ml 3 times a day. For adult chickens, it should be 1 ml and administered three times a day. Blue iodine can be replaced with iodinol, a preparation based on polyvinyl alcohol.

With iodine deficiency, chickens develop diffuse hyperplasia of the thyroid gland. Signs of this disease will be problems in the development and growth of birds, baldness, difficulties with eating, obesity, reduced fertility and hatchability.

To treat this disease, it is important to include iodine-containing supplements in the diet of sick chickens. Blue iodine and iodinol in this case can be replaced with Lugol's solution: 1 drop per 250 ml of birds' drinking water daily for several weeks. In a critical situation, the veterinarian will inject intramuscularly 20% iodine at a dose of 0.3 ml/kg.

In general, iodine as an element is widely distributed in nature, sources are divided into inorganic and organic. Listed below are inorganic and organic sources of dietary iodine.

Inorganic sources of iodine

Organic sources of iodine

Based on the list, you can see that iodine for laying hens or meat breeds is also available in the form of dietary supplements. It was not for nothing that fish days were arranged in Soviet poultry houses so often that the carcasses then also smelled of fish.

In the event that you are not going to go to the lake for duckweed, germinate wheat grain, look for fish leftovers or mess around with adjusting the feed formula, you can enrich the diet with potassium iodide or potassium iodate as a source of iodine in amounts equal to 1, 3 or 5 mg iodine per 1 kg of feed, depending on the situation. The cumulative effect in the form of an increase in the brightness of the color of the yolk and larger eggs will appear from one and a half to three months, depending on the dose and condition of the poultry.

Iodine-salicylic acid is also commercially available, but it is not suitable, since a high percentage of the total amount of ingested iodine is quickly excreted from the body.