BREEDING FOR PRODUCTION...EGGS AND OR MEAT.

[Fire Ant Farm]

Those recommendations on the feed bags are meant to be guidelines, not strict rules, and they are meant to sell feed. Granted, if the companies did not try to base their recommendations on some kind of research, not only could they not sell feed, they could also be held liable for killing people's poultry if something went awry. This way, if they have the recommendations listed on the bag, and a person fails to follow the recommendations and has a bad outcome, the company can protect itself. The company can use the defense that they do their own research and the consumer does not have the education that the company employees have, and thus the consumer killed their own birds because they failed to follow the guidelines issued by the feed company.

Have you seen the cute little houses that Purina has of their test flock? They post photos of their testing flock on Facebook and I have looked at their setup and wondered just how accurately they think that they can determine what is best for the majority of chickens. Their flock seems pretty small, is penned in what the photos show as somewhat small groups in correspondingly small pens, and they are most likely not breeding for specific goals of SOP or production like some of us are. From what I have seen of their testing flock, their birds and their setup, is quite different from what I have and I would not take their word as gospel because their testing situation is different from my real life situation. Yes, they employ people with educations, including veterinarians, but they cannot account for all the different variables of chicken breeds, husbandry, weather, breeding for specific traits, etc. There's just too many different things to account for. All they can do is to find a happy medium that doesn't kill large numbers of people's poultry and then it's up to the individual owner to look at their birds and see how their husbandry practices, including choice and amount of feed, is working for those birds and tweak things until their birds are meeting the goals that they have.

Oh, i get that, re: not following the bag blindly. I'm just saying that it is unlikely that they would have a recommendation on there that would cause everyone's chickens to bleed from the mouth. That wouldn't work well, I think...

- Ant Farm

 

[bnjrob]

money can make data be skewed, lost, changed, and made up. When a company bases all their information on their own data, without any 3rd, disinterested party corroboration - that company has a vested interest in making people believe that everything they say is gospel. Otherwise they could lose money and really piss off their shareholders.


Here is your answer!!!!

Yeah, money is a driving factor for good and bad. More and more I have to admit that I am cynical of what comes out of companies' mouths though.

 

[bnjrob]

Oh, i get that, re: not following the bag blindly. I'm just saying that it is unlikely that they would have a recommendation on there that would cause everyone's chickens to bleed from the mouth. That wouldn't work well, I think...

- Ant Farm

LOL - nope, that probably would not fly well.

 

[DesertChic]

Try some buckwheat. The chickens love it.

Oh! I hadn't even thought of buckwheat. Thanks!

 

[TNBielefelder]

High proteins feeds can be pretty corrosive to the digestive tract, causing scours and possible bleeding of the intestinal walls. That's so for many animals. Old timers used to refer to that as "burning an animal up"...not sure why they call it that. I know we used to use calf manna to get our meat rabbits ready for show but you couldn't use too much of it as it would give them the runs and cause the opposite effect desired.

I've read that high proteins diets in birds can increase occurrence of bumble foot due to gout and also cause visceral gout. I sometimes think a lot of the leg problems experienced by broiler birds are due to a high pro diet combined with young, developing kidneys. Same for the heart disease they experience.

http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=15+1829&aid=2497
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/pic/article.cfm?aid=571
http://www.poultryshowcentral.com/chicken_gout.html

Everyone gets all excited about a balanced diet when discussing chickens but they refuse to see that proteins need to added to that list of balanced ingredients in the feed. For some reason in recent years there's been a huge switch to giving ever increasingly more protein to chickens...I think folks believe that will cause better laying and better health, but it's just not so. Too much of a good thing can kill ya. As with all things, a chicken can only metabolize so much of it before the excess is excreted in the kidneys and sometimes they cannot handle the overload, which is where uric crystals come in to play.

I was at a 4H chicken show recently and the judge for the show and for the eggs told everyone the reason that all the pullets were not laying was the low 16% laying feed. I'm not saying he is right I am just saying that is what he believed and he is the judge for several counties.

 

[ronott1]

Now it is light hours that slows lay rates.

 

[DesertChic]

Now it is light hours that slows lay rates.

And molting. That said, when I upped the protein content of my chickens' feed because of the molt, the egg production did actually increase. I went from 6-9 eggs per day to as many as 15 now.

 

[ronott1]

I turned on lights.

Getting over the molt more likely increased production for you.

Going over 18% protein is supposed to lower production.

 

[moms3cuties]

 
I know the Sussex have long been "finished" with a thin gruel made of milk, finely ground oats, and a bit of lamb tallow.
 I think that's because they are  a white skinned bird.
 What I am trying to figure out is if the "finishing ( and slaughtering at an older age) is the only difference between raising broilers and roasters?
 Or are there differences in the earlier raising  before that time that I should know about?
 Best,
 Karen

A lot of it has to do with age.

[ATTACHMENT=498]cookingwheritagechicken.pdf (20k. pdf file)[/ATTACHMENT]

Thank you for the info on cooking the different ages of chickens!!

 

[moms3cuties]

I turned on lights.

Getting over the molt more likely increased production for you.

Going over 18% protein is supposed to lower production.

I've talked to some different breeders and they also encouraged higher protein for certain or most of their flock. I'm learning something new everyday!