Can dog food be used to supplement chickens calcium intake?

[Folly's place]

And in the USA. good chicken food is cheap, compared to good dog food, much less good cat food. Just from a cost/ pound standpoint, I see no advantage at all, even as an addition.
Mary

 

[LaFleche]

Animal cadaver utilization plants work on the basis of 3 different categories, of which category 3 defines all kinds of material that will be processed into animal food just as I described above:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tierkörperverwertung#Kategorisierung

And here in Europe we had several animal feed (i.e. chicken and cattle feed) scandals which led to enormous amounts of products being recalled because they contained toxic or other unauthorized and illegal substances that were later found in the products such as eggs, beef etc.

 

[Arlen1234]

I give mine a little bit of dog food, mostly since I don't have a cat and the dog food dust gets tossed otherwise. Good enough for the dogs, good enough for the chickens. I wouldn't use it as a calcium supplement though.

ya thanks I also think it is good enough for chickens .

 

[Arlen1234]

And in the USA. good chicken food is cheap, compared to good dog food, much less good cat food. Just from a cost/ pound standpoint, I see no advantage at all, even as an addition.
Mary

I am in South Africa I will check what goes into our dog food

 

[Arlen1234]

Animal cadaver utilization plants work on the basis of 3 different categories, of which category 3 defines all kinds of material that will be processed into animal food just as I described above:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tierkörperverwertung#Kategorisierung

And here in Europe we had several animal feed (i.e. chicken and cattle feed) scandals which led to enormous amounts of products being recalled because they contained toxic or other unauthorized and illegal substances that were later found in the products such as eggs, beef etc.

wow ! I am in South Africa and I will check what goes into our animal feed I never thought so many stuff goes into it.

 

[LaFleche]

There seem to be some brands of dog and cat food that advertise to only process meat that would be fit for human consumption. Maybe investigate a little further and it might turn out to be true. Those are very pricey though.

 

[Mossy Dell]

I've heard of cat food being fed to chickens as treats but nothing about dog food was mentioned. Anyone know why cat food is on the list of safe treats but dog food isn't? Is dog food safe?

Think this goes back to chicken expert Gail Damerow's advice to feed cat food but not dog food because dog food contains so much grain. Her logic seems to be you are already feeding grain, so why pay so much for it in dog food.

Except there are so many grain-free dog foods, if that bothers you. I tend to get them for diversity for my fowl but have no problem with my dog getting some corn in his kibble.

I typically run 5% Diamond Small Breed Puppy chow in my homemade feed mix to get some animal protein. This food has very small kibble.

The issue to be aware of feeding cat and dog food is fat. These foods are very high in fat, and chickens getting too much fat can develop problems over time. Hence I use dog food at a modest level in my grain-based mix. During breeding, for less than 2 months when I am saving eggs, I have run it up to 10% as a protein booster with no problems.

By the way, I have heard some warn about cat food because of very high taurine levels. Most animals don't need much taurine but cats do. But, again, that would not bother me if the cat food was kept to a modest level. As I recall, Damerow's advice in her book was to use it during the molt.

 

[LaFemmeKatia]

I believe a good chicken feed with a side of crushed oyster shells would be the ideal diet.
To improve the protein a bit, I would give treats of scrambled eggs, and some tasty bugs. A little alfalfa hay is nice too.

 

[cottontail farm]

Well, taking in account that what you put inside the hens comes out enveloped in an eggshell...

I do not know what exactly the ingredients of dogfood in the US are, but I would not want to eat all kinds of animal lymphatic glands, gonads, thyroid glands, eyeballs, grated hoofs, stinking used fat of dubious origin, chicken feathers, claws and beaks and euthanized pet animals... just to name a few... All this "spiced" up with all kinds of artificial colourants, flavours and

I used to supplement with cat food. It was high quality and the chickens loved it. In fact, they still steal it out of the cat's bowl on the porch.

I can tell you with 100% certainty that pet food produced in the US is held to the same standards as people food as far as ingredients, testing and even the cleanliness of the warehouses and semi trucks the bagged food is moved in.
I was able to supplement in this way because if a fork truck pierced just *one* bag of food on a pallet the company was forced to call the entire lot of undamaged items a loss.