Arizona Chickens

[Banaynaychicken]

Quote: I believe the meat thing.

My school has a flock, and the teacher feeds them a lb of meat per month.

they eat eachother alive :/ and the teacher wont listen to reason and experience. Just continues to feed them meat.

like WHY

WHAT DOING

WHY YOU DO

 

[BlueBaby]

I didn't know you could give chickens noodles. ...

NEED TO TRY NOW MUCH YES

oh and COMING SOON -

Pictures of my new Buff Laced bearded polish hen and Sultan hen!!

Yes, you can. I give some to my hens and rooster too sometimes as a treat. Most of the time, when given to chicks one will grab a noodle and then the keep-away game begins. This batch of chicks didn't eat it until after I got my arm back out of the door of the brooder and closed it. As long as my arm was there, they wanted to roost on it?

 

[Banaynaychicken]

Quote: My three grown standard roos perch on my arm too.... especially when i have pomegranate or strawberry in my hand.

 

[BlueBaby]

My three grown standard roos perch on my arm too.... especially when i have pomegranate or strawberry in my hand.

I bet that is a sight! My full grown ones don't try to do that anymore, but I sure have their full attention when I bring the treats. They stand right by my feet, looking up at me and talking away at me. lol They would be too heavy if they would try roosting on my arms now. These Australorps that I have are bigger then the hatchery ones are.

 

[DesertChic]

I don't know how "good" it is for them.... but mine certainly enjoy them...
It's an old habit, from when I was younger...
my mom gave them all the table scraps that didn't have meat in them.
We were told that eating meat makes them mean....

I believe the meat thing.

My school has a flock, and the teacher feeds them a lb of meat per month.

they eat eachother alive :/ and the teacher wont listen to reason and experience. Just continues to feed them meat.

like WHY

WHAT DOING

WHY YOU DO

I feed meat to my birds and they love it, and there's not a mean one in the bunch. Meat is the best source of protein for them and much healthier than a diet exclusively of soy and other plant-based protein. Mine also LOVE pasta, crusty bread and pretty much anything that comes out of my kitchen.

 

[MagicChicken]

Went to the storage closet to get the Ecoglow chick brooder out because tomorrow is hatch day. Realized I had stored the brooder on top of a box stamped "Tyson Chicken Tenders."

 

[Banaynaychicken]

Quote: How much and what kind?

Every once in a while my birds catch a mouse or a lizard and eat it, they love the cicadas and grasshoppers as well, I catch loads for them and watch them have at it.

But my ag teacher feeds them straight up a lb of raw hamburger meat once a month....

all of the hens minus a few who dont like the meat all look like battery hens because they basically eat each other from the feathers down. once their meat is gone.

 

[nicollee]

How much and what kind?

Every once in a while my birds catch a mouse or a lizard and eat it, they love the cicadas and grasshoppers as well, I catch loads for them and watch them have at it.

But my ag teacher feeds them straight up a lb of raw hamburger meat once a month....

all of the hens minus a few who dont like the meat all look like battery hens because they basically eat each other from the feathers down. once their meat is gone.

ick ;(
do they only look like that when she feeds them?
or all the time?

 

[Banaynaychicken]

Quote: They basically look like that all of the time.


It's like when they eat the hamburger, they calm down for a week like they got their fix and start to grow feather stubs again, and then they crave it and start to eat eachothers feathers and even break skin..... I've been trying to explain what a bad thing this is for the chickens (Their normal diet isn't very chicken kosher either, pure scratch grains.....) but she basically tells me to pound sand and continues what she is doing.

I've been very tempted to complain to our principal about the practices but I doubt he would know what to do.

 

[DesertChic]

How much and what kind?

Every once in a while my birds catch a mouse or a lizard and eat it, they love the cicadas and grasshoppers as well, I catch loads for them and watch them have at it.

But my ag teacher feeds them straight up a lb of raw hamburger meat once a month....

all of the hens minus a few who dont like the meat all look like battery hens because they basically eat each other from the feathers down. once their meat is gone.

Sometimes beef, sometimes pork. I also give my birds scrambled or hard-boiled extra eggs when I have them to supplement their protein, especially when they're molting.

They basically look like that all of the time.


It's like when they eat the hamburger, they calm down for a week like they got their fix and start to grow feather stubs again, and then they crave it and start to eat eachothers feathers and even break skin..... I've been trying to explain what a bad thing this is for the chickens (Their normal diet isn't very chicken kosher either, pure scratch grains.....) but she basically tells me to pound sand and continues what she is doing.

I've been very tempted to complain to our principal about the practices but I doubt he would know what to do.

Well that explains a lot. It's not the meat that's causing them to act that way, but the poor diet as a whole. A diet of just scratch plus meat is woefully insufficient from a nutritional standpoint. They need a balanced layer feed on a regular basis at the very least, especially if they're penned up in any way. If you look at the research in poultry nutrition, much of it conducted in the early 1900s, studies were done to examine the impact of feeding only specific foods to chickens exclusively. The least healthy food to given exclusively was corn, followed by oats, and scratch is typically comprised mostly of corn. Those poor chickens are being starved nutritionally. On those occasions when they're offered the much-needed additional nutrients found in meat they're probably desperate for it. I wouldn't be surprised if they acted similarly if offered a handful of kale or other greens, and maybe even breads and pastas. Their crops may be full, but nutritionally they're actually starving.