Putting fat chickens on a diet

[NatJ]

I can’t trust MYSELF not to get fat if in an all-you-can-eat-with-no-work scenario (looking at you, cruise ship!), and my dog seems to have the same struggle, so why would chickens be any different?

Most chickens would be different for two main reasons:
--people formulate a feed that works for thousands of chickens, such that "as much as they want" really is right.
--people breed chickens that do self-regulate properly when they are given such a food.

If someone took thousands of dogs, or people, or chickens, and ONLY bred from the ones that could properly self-regulate their food, and they did that for many generations, they would end up with many that are fine and relatively few that have problems. That has basically been done with many chickens, but not with humans or dogs. (Also happens with some other livestock animals.)

It doesn't work perfectly for all chickens, with some individuals and some breeds having more trouble than others, but it really does work well for most of them.

Our bodies are programmed to eat a bit extra when it’s available so that later when food is scarce we have fat stored up. But if the scarce season never happens…health issues.

Hens do store up some fat before they start laying. But many of them seem to stabilize at a certain amount of fat, not a steadily increasing amount. Healthy humans also store up a certain amount of fat. Too much fat is bad, but not fat at all is also bad.

And if a hen goes broody, she does use up that fat (one reason I don't worry too much if a broody hen "loses weight"-- that weight is there to be lost!)

 

[AmeliaBedelia]

Most chickens would be different for two main reasons:
--people formulate a feed that works for thousands of chickens, such that "as much as they want" really is right.
--people breed chickens that do self-regulate properly when they are given such a food.

If someone took thousands of dogs, or people, or chickens, and ONLY bred from the ones that could properly self-regulate their food, and they did that for many generations, they would end up with many that are fine and relatively few that have problems. That has basically been done with many chickens, but not with humans or dogs. (Also happens with some other livestock animals.)

It doesn't work perfectly for all chickens, with some individuals and some breeds having more trouble than others, but it really does work well for most of them.


Hens do store up some fat before they start laying. But many of them seem to stabilize at a certain amount of fat, not a steadily increasing amount. Healthy humans also store up a certain amount of fat. Too much fat is bad, but not fat at all is also bad.

And if a hen goes broody, she does use up that fat (one reason I don't worry too much if a broody hen "loses weight"-- that weight is there to be lost!)

Good point. Hadn’t considered selective breeding/natural selection for hens who aren’t gluttons .

And interesting point about brooding having a weightloss/possible health role. Orpingtons can tend toward broodiness more than the skinny breeds - wonder if that is why they also tend to eat more? If allowed to go broody, it balances out and they don’t die of obesity?

 

[NatJ]

And interesting point about brooding having a weightloss/possible health role. Orpingtons can tend toward broodiness more than the skinny breeds - wonder if that is why they also tend to eat more? If allowed to go broody, it balances out and they don’t die of obesity?

I have wondered about that too, but I haven't found anything definitive.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Actually, unused proteins are stored as fat in all animals.

After they are first converted to carbs. Chickens fat from feed related issues are almost always due to high carb and/or high fat levels at the consumption amounts needed to hit their self-regulating macronutritional targets.

Creating a low fat, low carb, high protein diet providing more than 14 MJ/kg of metabolizable Kinetic Energy that was still low enough in one of the essential nutrients that chickens self regulate such that they would overindulge and start converting excess proteins to carbs and then later store as fat would be quite the feat. I challenge you to do so.

As a practical matter, its not a concern. As a theoretical matter, even the typical Facebook user or Youtube video viewer with interest in poultry would be (I suspect) unlikely to view any such recipe as a serious attempt at a make at home chicken feed.

 

[SourRoses]

I can’t trust MYSELF not to get fat if in an all-you-can-eat-with-no-work scenario (looking at you, cruise ship!), and my dog seems to have the same struggle, so why would chickens be any different? Our bodies are programmed to eat a bit extra when it’s available so that later when food is scarce we have fat stored up. But if the scarce season never happens…health issues.

A cruise ship offers more than all-you-can-eat vegetables which would be really, really hard for people to get fat on (without dressing ).

Balanced feed for chickens is analogous to vegetables for humans. Although a chicken could get fat on vegetables because of the sugars. Birds and mammals are different.

In nature, birds have an energy demanding workload from flying, that makes up for the high fat and sugars present in typical bird-selected food.
If they overindulge enough, they won't be able to get off the ground / migrate, so nature has been selecting for birds that don't gorge themselves long before humans domesticated them. Nature would rather birds fly somewhere else to find food rather than storing extra weight.
That's also why bird preferred food is so bad for domesticated birds that don't / can't fly any distance.

* Junglefowl can fly, and Sumatra chickens have been documented flying thousands of miles.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I found myself eating pizza on the cruise ship for all but dinner. It wasn't very good pizza, (actually, it was pretty lousy pizza), but it was better than the other offerings.

Pizza, btw, is not good chicken food, in case anyone was wondering how the above relates to fat chickens. Too much carbs, too much fat, too much salt. The AA profile is imbalanced as well. Still better than the cruise ship donuts.

 

[Chris2018]

After they are first converted to carbs.

Not all the protein is converted into carbohydrate, If the animal's diet is adequate in carbs, then proteins are converted directly into fat.

Chickens fat from feed related issues are almost always due to high carb and/or high fat levels at the consumption amounts needed to hit their self-regulating macronutritional targets.

And excess amounts of proteins can lead to carbs and or fats since proteins can be converted into both carbs and fats. Also, an abondance of both proteins and carbs will be stored as fat.


I have seen more than a few birds in conducing pens and breeder pens go from underweight to overweight just by feeding a high protein feed.

 

[cooingdove]

It might help if you set up an electro net fence in your yard and let them run around and forage for a couple hours this will give them both exercise and let them eat some of the stuff they would eat in the wild.

 

[Betsy57]

Two options come immediately to mind.

1] If you have huge choice in feed, and actually know the mKe of the feed (rarely disclosed) you can go to a low energy, low nutrient feed, forcing them to eat more to meet their needs.
2] (and this is what I did with my Cx, much to my regret), you can go with a high nutrient , moderate energy feed, and restrict their feed times, forcing them to free range forage most of the day.

and if your feed doesn't disclose its mKe (as most don't), try and avoid corn as the first ingredient, here in the US. Look for something that starts with wheat.

What's mKe?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

What's mKe?

Metabolizeable Kinetic Energy. Think Calories for humans. Lots of. Dispute on this subject though, I'm still learning