can a chicken who eats gluten producing gluten free egg?

[mhamilton]

So I am wondering if my chickens consume gluten, does it produce a gluten free egg? Should I specifically look for special food for them? Would any of the meat have gluten too? Is it true... "you are what you eat"?

 

[IDaho ChickieMom]

Howdy!
As an owner of registered dairy goats that has my Idaho State Permit to sell unpasteurized (REAL) milk and I raise chickens for egg sales, I do know that wheat, oats, barley and rye passes thru to the products. I have had customers with celiac disease and gluten intolerances. My sister-in-law has this. At the time she told me, she only talked about cutting out wheat. So when a milk customer told me about her 8 mth old grandson with severe celiac disease, I told her the goats don't have wheat in their diet. I delivered the milk and later got a panicked call from the grandmother. The baby was projectile vomiting as soon as the milk hit his stomach. Their feed was oats, barley, corn, field peas & a protein pellet.

My feed mill is 190 miles away so checked with local feed mills and found none carried anything but the standard grains that livestock use. So, I called my feed mill. They use only local, non-GMO grains and carried other types. I told the owner what my problem was and he came up with Milo, field peas & small amount of corn along with a protein pellet. A dairy goat needs 16% protein with 2.5% fat. I fed the goats for a week and the people brought the baby to my house. They stood by my kitchen sink & fed him little bits of milk & he didn't vomit. They kept him on the milk for 1.5 yrs and then put him on Almond milk. Other customers have stated that even tho they feel they aren't gluten intolerant, store milk has given them tummy aches, but my gals milk doesn't. I believe it's their diet.

The above customer told me that when the baby got old enough to start eating eggs, they bothered him with diarrhea. I put some of my chickens on my dairy goat feed and dedicated the eggs for the family. They were able to eat the eggs without any problems! Since they have stopped buying (80 mi one way trip for them), I have gone back to feeding regular chicken feed. Not every gluten intolerant person is that sensitive to eggs and farm/home chickens usually are fed better feed than factory chickens.
IDLaura

 

[U_Stormcrow]

At the risk of being incredibly insulting, the sheer amount of ignorance and yes, stupid, in this ages old thread is frightening to me, when I consider that some portion of these commentors likely vote, helping to set the policy direction for their cities, counties, state, and nation...

@Nuescolina you are not allergic to "shellfish". You are, at best, allergic to something commonly found IN shellfish, some part of their overall chemical makeup, which is likely concentrated in some parts of the offending ingredient more than others. Many people with allergies to "shellfish" (shrimp, lobster, crab, etc) may eat mollusks (clams, oysters, mussels, etc) without any concern whatsoever.

Other people can't eat mollusks, but CAN eat shellfish. Interestingly, some of those persons can eat mollusks harvested from different locations without incident. In those cases, the person is not allergic to the mollusk itself, but rather something the mollusk consumes in the environment and concentrates within itself. Typically, this is some toxin produced by another species present in the local waters - domoic acid from various plankton, the production of various dinoflagelates including brevitoxins (in large quantity, these are what makes "red tides" so dangerous, but in tiny quantities, they are almost always present in US Gulf Waters), and saxitoxins in the New England waters, Northern CA to AK, etc....

Still others *think* they are allergic to both due to prior cross-contamination - fish mongers and restaurants tend to store them side by side, and prepare them with the same methods and tools.

And some people truly are alergic to both the flesh of shellfish and the flesh of mollusks due to a common shared family of molecules, most commonly the unique expresion of tropomyosins found in those species. You have tropomyosins (expressed differently) in yourself, by the way - they are part of the process that controls skeletal muscle movements. Again, DETAILS MATTER.

Now, for practical reasons, it may be perfectly adequate to claim a "shellfish" allergy, because its largely unimportant in your personal food consumption as to what, specifically, you are *actually* allergic to. Alternative foods are easily sourced, there is normally no need for you to have greater understanding in your day to day life.

That ignorance does not, however, assist you in determining whether something that consumes a food you are alergic to will then move the offending molecule/class of molecules into itself in a way which is potentially harmful to you, or if instead its biological processes denature the molecule in ways which render it safe to you - or pass the chemical thru their digestive tract and out into waste - or store it in a portion of themselves that you don't consume.

To begin with the adage "you are what you eat" (which conveys an important, if inexact, message) and then jump to the conclusion that you can't eat things which have eaten things which you want (or need) to avoid is a logical fallacy so great I lack words to convey it. To put it in vary basic terms, apple seeds contain cyanide, yet we eat apples. It vary rarely kills any of us, and most for reasons other than cyanide poisoning.

Life is **COMPLICATED**.

A shrimp's carapace, largely chitin, does not chemically resemble a mollusk's shell in any significant ways. The flesh of neither should be present in your oystershell in any detectible quantity, and moreover, processing (likely heat) of the shells into what we find in the bag at the feed store may have itself denatured the offending chemical(s).

To answer your question, you are going to have to put more effort into understanding yourself, before you can then do the research to discover the answer you seek regarding the feeding of your fowl.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

As a fellow scientist I find this an excellent and incredibly well written response.

"The Dosage is the Poison" - I contend that I am still best in small quantity, and I thank you for your kind words. I'm no scientist, I just read things. ...and am wired "oddly".

 

[Chicken Heel]

"The Dosage is the Poison" - I contend that I am still best in small quantity, and I thank you for your kind words. I'm no scientist, I just read things. ...and am wired "oddly".

Appreciate the information. As for me, I can consume shrimp and oysters with no issues, yet scallops and crab bother me in terms of terrible flatulence and sometimes diarrhea. My poor wife has forbade me to ever eat the latter pair again.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Appreciate the information. As for me, I can consume shrimp and oysters with no issues, yet scallops and crab bother me in terms of terrible flatulence and sometimes diarrhea. My poor wife has forbade me to ever eat the latter pair again.

I am *NOT* a Dr. either. Or a lawyer. But next time you wander by the seafood display where you normally do your buying, look at the sources for the mussels and the crab. Guessing Alaska/extreme north west coast of the US. US harvested oysters are generally the "Eastern" variety, from either the Gulf of Mexico or the stretch between MA and NY. (Western oysters are harvested and highly valued by some - smaller, "sweeter", less salty - but also in lower numbers - mostly coming out of Washington). The shrimp in your store could come from, well, pretty much anywhere.

If the mussels and the crab are coming from the same area, your culprit is liely not the critters, but the waters....

(I do enjoy eating, and once managed a restaurant. You learn things.)

 

[susienoe]

http://etd.ohiolink.edu/view.cgi/Vargas Galdos Dante Miguel Marcial.pdf?osu1236706764

I beg to differ. There are studies that show that the food consumed by the chicken is passed into the egg. It really makes sense. I know that soy passes into eggs. My daughter has severe reactions to soy containing eggs and does fine on those raised soy free. I don't know of any studies specifically showing gluten in eggs, but the above article descibes soy isoflavones present in eggs of chickens raised on soy feed.

Hope that helps.

 

[LadiesAndJane]

At the risk of being incredibly insulting, the sheer amount of ignorance and yes, stupid, in this ages old thread is frightening to me, when I consider that some portion of these commentors likely vote, helping to set the policy direction for their cities, counties, state, and nation...

@Nuescolina you are not allergic to "shellfish". You are, at best, allergic to something commonly found IN shellfish, some part of their overall chemical makeup, which is likely concentrated in some parts of the offending ingredient more than others. Many people with allergies to "shellfish" (shrimp, lobster, crab, etc) may eat mollusks (clams, oysters, mussels, etc) without any concern whatsoever. A shrimp's carapace, largely chitin, does not chemically resemble a mollusk's shell in any significant ways.

Other people can't eat mollusks, but CAN eat shellfish. Interestingly, some of those persons can eat mollusks harvested from different locations without incident. In those cases, the person is not allergic to the mollusk itself, but rather something the mollusk consumes in the environment and concentrates within it. Typically, this is some toxin produced by another species present in the local waters - the production of various dinoflagelates, domoic acid from various plankton, brevitoxins (in large quantity, these are what makes "red tides" so dangerous, but in tiny quantities, they are almost always present in US Gulf Waters), saxitoxins in the New England waters, Northern CA to AK, etc....

Still others *think* they are allergic to both due to prior cross-contamination - fish mongers and restaurants tend to store them side by side, and prepare them with the same methods and tools.

And some people truly are alergic to both the flesh of shellfish and the flesh of mollusks due to a common shared family of molecules, most commonly the unique expresion of tropomyosins found in those species. You have tropomyosins (expressed differently) in yourself, by the way - they are part of the process that controls skeletal muscle movements. Again, DETAILS MATTER.

Now, for practical reasons, it may be perfectly adequate to claim a "shellfish" allergy, because its largely unimportant in your personal food consumption as to what, specifically, you are *actually* allergic to. Alternative foods are easily sourced, there is normally no need for you to have greater understanding in your day to day life.

That ignorance does not, however, assist you in determining whether something that consumes a food you are alergic to will then move the offending molecule/class of molecules into itself in a way which is potentially harmful to you, or if instead its biological processes denature the molecule in ways which render it safe to you - or pass the chemical thru their digestive tract and out into waste - or store it in a portion of themselves that you don't consume.

To begin with the adage "you are what you eat" (which conveys an important, if inexact, message) and then jump to the conclusion that you can't eat things which have eaten things which you want (or need) to avoid is a logical fallacy so great I lack words to convey it. To put it in vary basic terms, apple seeds contain cyanide, yet we eat apples. It vary rarely kills any of us, and most for reasons other than cyanide poisoning.

Life is **COMPLICATED**.

To answer your question, you are going to have to put more effort into understanding yourself, before you can then do the research to discover the answer you seek regarding the feeding of your fowl.

As a fellow scientist I find this an excellent and incredibly well written response.

 

[Chicken Heel]

I am *NOT* a Dr. either. Or a lawyer. But next time you wander by the seafood display where you normally do your buying, look at the sources for the mussels and the crab. Guessing Alaska/extreme north west coast of the US. US harvested oysters are generally the "Eastern" variety, from either the Gulf of Mexico or the stretch between MA and NY. (Western oysters are harvested and highly valued by some - smaller, "sweeter", less salty - but also in lower numbers - mostly coming out of Washington). The shrimp in your store could come from, well, pretty much anywhere.

If the mussels and the crab are coming from the same area, your culprit is liely not the critters, but the waters....

(I do enjoy eating, and once managed a restaurant. You learn things.)

Very interesting... not sure how to tell my wife that I may not have to give up scallops and crabs after all... the last time I ate scallops almost led to a divorce due to the horrid gas emanating from my body.

 

[Windrider]

Im worried about this but because I am allergic to shellfish and concerned about giving my future chickens oyster shells

While I agree with Stormcrow's long answer, as a fellow "shellfish" allergic person, I'd like to help you simplify this a bit.

You do have to know a bit more about just what you are allergic to. For me, when I was told I was allergic to "shellfish," the allergist meant crustaceans (shrimp, crab, lobster). I can and do eat mollusks (clams, scallops, oysters). Though, like Stormcrow implied, I later found I could eat our local California spiny lobsters no problem if freshly caught, which we do on our sailing trips, so it the diagnosis isn't that cut and dried. Haven't bothered to find an allergist to help me nail down the specific allergen because it doesn't bother me to avoid those foods. I do have to be careful of farmed fish such as trout that have been fed shrimp shells to turn their flesh pink, as I get a mild reaction from that.

Oysters are a mollusk. Mollusk shells are not "alive" in the way, say, a turtle's or a shrimp's shell is, even when the animal is alive. The shell is mostly calcium carbonate, a non-living mineral laid down by the animal's living mantle. A living oyster's shell would be about 98% calcium carbonate and about 2% protein (the only potential allergen). By the time it is dried and processed for chickens, I don't know what the percentage would be or even if any protein would survive at all. Calcium carbonate derived from shells is often included in vitamins and foods, and the FDA does not require that it be labeled as "derived from shellfish" and hence a potential allergen. But the time it has gone through your chicken's digestive system, it would be even less likely to cause problems than when consumed directly.

In short, judging by the FDA I think you are good, unless you are violently allergic to the mere whiff of oysters.