What Causes Runts?

The word ‘runt’ has a lot of negative connotation to it. Runts are thought of as weak and sickly. I’m here to tell you that this is not true! The official Google definition of a runt is “an animal that is smaller than average”. A runt is just a smaller version of the same breed. That doesn’t mean it is sick or weak, just small.

What causes this? Our veterinarian’s theory is that it has to do with the flora in the gut. Everyone has bacteria in their stomach, both good and bad. The good bacteria colonizes in the stomach and helps with digestion. Runts, however, do not seem to have as much good bacteria or it has the wrong kind of bacteria colonizing in its gut. This means that it doesn’t digest its food as well and therefore does not grow as fast as its siblings.

There is a way to fix this. By providing the correct probiotics, runts are capable of catching up in growth with the rest of the flock. You can find probiotic supplement packs at your local feed store or Amazon. The probiotics help to develop the good bacteria in the bird’s gut that will help with digestion and facilitate growth. You can mix this in the communal feed as the extra probiotics may benefit your other birds, too.

Other potential causes include hatching from small eggs, viral infection, genetics, coccidiosis, and bacterial infection during incubation. While these are valid causes, our veterinarian believes they cause far fewer runts than improper bacteria in the gut.

For further information, Andy Schneider, the Chicken Whisperer, has an article in his Chicken Whisperer Magazine that goes further into probiotics for poultry. While this article is about chickens, the same applies to ducks and geese.

The main question is what this means for you. If you are a commercial producer, we suggest culling the runts if only because their growth rate will be off of your expected processing date. For example, Pekin are ready for processing at 7 weeks, but your runt may not catch up until about week 12.

The following picture is from one of our customers, a Hutterite colony in Montana in 2014. They and other colonies order Pekin ducklings by the thousands and you can clearly see in the photo that there were several ducklings that were not growing as fast as the others. They were 4 weeks and 4 days of age for the picture. When it came time for processing at 12 weeks, however, they could not tell which had been the runts!

If your main concern is egg production, a runt’s egg production start will probably be delayed. If the runt is treated, however, and catches up in growth, they should be on time to start laying with the rest of the flock.

Both the meat and eggs are still good to eat. Remember, a runt is simply smaller.

Whether your birds are pets or not, make sure you keep them all fed, watered, and warm. It will take time for them to catch up in growth, but it will be worth it in the end.

Determining How To Supplement Your Duck’s Diet With Niacin

-John Metzer

There are four easy ways to supplement your bird or flock’s diet with niacin (vitamin B3) if you feel it is necessary: tablets, liquid, vitamin packet or Brewer’s Dried Yeast. We will explain how to supplement with each of these.

We are going to assume:

1) Your current feed has no niacin and therefore we we have supply 100% of their niacin needs. This is not accurate as all poultry feeds have some niacin but this way you know the maximum you should supply and we found no research that indicates a double or triple dose of niacin will harm your birds.

2) Your bird is eating about .35 pound of feed a day. This is typical of a Pekin at about three weeks of age when niacin deficiencies normally appear. Other breeds are probably eating .2-.3 pounds per day at the same age and an adult laying Pekin is eating about .45 pounds per day.

Niacin Tablet

If your duck is eating .35 pounds of feed per day and they need about 55 parts per million (ppm) of niacin a day, this means they need about 9 mg of niacin a day (.35 x 55 / 1,000,000 x 454 x 1000)).

Tablet

Most tablets contain 500 mg of niacin. So if you divide 500 by 9 you get 55. This means that one tablet can supply enough niacin for 55 doses. Those 55 does can be used for 55 ducks in one day or 55 days for one duck. Or you can simply mix it into feed. If one dose is for .35 pounds of feed, then one tablet is for 19 pounds of feed (.35 x 55). Just make sure you grind the tablet well and ensure it is mixed thoroughly in the feed.

Liquid

Liquid B3 Vitamins

In one liquid supplement product we found, there were 12 mg of niacin in 10 drops of liquid. This means that each drop has 1.2 mg of niacin (12 / 10). Therefore, the daily dosage is about 8 drops (9 / 1.2). The problem with adding niacin to the water is that ducks typically don’t drink all the water they use. How much do your ducks splash and waste? Of course if you use nipple waterers waste is minimal and you can assume they drink all the water they use. Then you can add liquid niacin to their water. As they drink about .17 gallons per day at this age, then you need to add 47 drops per gallon of drinking water (1 / .17 x 8). Of course you can always add eight drops to each duck’s feed each day. But don’t mix more than one day at a time as the increased moisture might lead to mold which is not good for waterfowl.

Poult Vitamin and Mineral Packet

Another alternative would be to use the PoultVitamin and Mineral Packet we sell. This packet has 7500 mg of niacin in it and is designed to be added to 128 gallons of water or 1/2 teaspoon will treat 3 gallons of water. If you treat using this method, your birds will be consuming about 10 mg of niacin a day (7500 / 128 x .178) in addition to supplemental levels of other vitamins and minerals.

Brewers Dried Yeast

There are two types of Brewers Dried Yeast – human grade and livestock grade. Human grade has 5 mg of niacin per 15 grams of yeast (one tablespoon). Livestock grade has 1.5 mg per 15 grams of yeast. So if your duck needs 9 mg per day, they need slightly less than two tablespoons of human grade (9 / 5) or 6 tablespoons of livestock grade yeast (9 / 1.5) per day. If you want to mix the yeast in 50 pounds of feed, you would need to add 285 tablespoons of human grade yeast (50 / .35 x 2) or 855 tablespoons (50 / .35 x 6) of livestock grade yeast. As there are 64 tablespoons in a quart, this amounts to 4.5 quarts of human grade or 13 quarts of livestock grade yeast added to each 50 pounds of feed. As this is a significant amount of feed you have added to a balanced ration, you have now thrown off the balance of all other nutrient levels. Hence it is probably best to add additional niacin with tablets, vitamin packets or liquid niacin.

Brewer's Yeast

As stated earlier, these formulations are for a bird that is not getting any niacin in its feed. This is not realistic so if you are wanting to merely supplement in case your feed is short in niacin, then you may want to add half the recommended amounts of supplemental niacin. In addition, niacin deficiency problems normally only occur when your birds are growing at their most rapids rates - from two to seven weeks of age. Therefore, supplementation is rarely needed past ten weeks of age.