I am sure that chicken feed and all the other things chickens eat on free range are not anything I'd eat myself & chicken feed is not fit for human consumption either. Does anyone think humans should consume chicken feed? I don't eat any of my animals' food. I saw a Buckeye hen running with a small snake in her mouth the other day. I am sure she ate it. I wouldn't eat it.
Years ago, I had someone, better in math than myself, compute the amount of sodium in cat and dog foods and what a chicken could rid its body of according to what has been written in some scientific journals & concluded that the amount of sodium in such foods (and what they are capable of consuming) was no danger to chickens. I keep reading about the the "way too much sodium" thing but as far as I am concerned, it is a myth propagated and repeated ad nauseum on poultry and group websites.
I have been treating my chickens to dry dog food for years. It started with them stealing the dogs food while the dogs were eating (so I gave the chickens a bowl so they would leave the dogs alone). I have groups of hens 5, 6 & 7 years old who are healthy & still laying well for their age so it doesn't seemed to have harmed them. My chickens also consume the treats the cows and donkey drop (their sweet feed, alfalfa & oats) and hang out dangerously under the big animals competing for the drops.
My chickens also stay in the compost pile all day. I wouldn't eat out of the compost pile either.
I wouldn't make other animal foods the basis of my chickens diet, but my Buckeyes particularly are real pigs -- i.e. they seem to enjoy eating everything and anything. The important thing is that they free range and are not consuming one thing, whether their feed, the cows sweet feed, the dogs' food, the snakes, etc., as their sole food.
