Can I feed meaties Lupin beans/seed?

[Jschaaff]

Someone in a nearby town is selling 55lb bags of lupin beans/seed (40% protein) for $4.00/bag. I am picking four bags up next Thursday, but now I am wondering if anyone on this forum has ever used this before ...fed exclusively, or combined with other feeds? What a drastic difference that would make in my feed bill... so I am sure it's too good to be true that it could replace their current broiler feed.

At the very least, I would like to mix it with their current feed.... but I am wondering also..will they even eat it? Is it TOO high in protein? I assume they are too large and I would have to grind them...?

So many questions.....


-Jessa

 

[bigredfeather]

I didn't know anything about these until I saw your post and googled it. I would have to think if they where suitble for chicken feed and that cheap, somebody out there would already be making feed out of it. My cousin runs a feed mill. I just emailed him about it. I'll let you know what he says.

Please don't shoot or cut me. LOL

 

[Bossroo]

Sweet blue, white and yellow lupin is rised in Mediteranian countries as animal feed, as well as for human consumtion since the Roman times. Bitter lupine are toxic. In testing, one bitter lupine seed per 100 sweet lupine is considered toxic. Nervous syndrome is caused by an Alcaloid in the bitter lupine. Also the fungus diaporthe toxica on the lupine will cause liver damage. Wild lupine in pastures will also cause abortions in livestock. When raised as a crop, It is very important to keep the crop away from the wild forms to prevent cross polination. Make very sure that is from a safe sweet crop and use with caution.

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

wow good info

 

[Erica]

Sweet lupins can be fed raw, but the birds often avoid them, especially to start with. They shouldn't be fed above 10% of the diet, because although they've been bred to have low levels of toxins there are still some. I'm currently cooking sweet lupins and that seems to make them more palatable and (I hope) better for the birds as a long term staple.

Lupin beans or lupinis (or lupines), often eaten in the Mediterranean, have to be cooked for a long time with a change of water. A woman was hospitalised recently for not cooking them for long enough.

Even with the best low-toxin lupins, legumes like lupins only make a complete protein source if combined with grains like wheat. Even there you'll soon see signs of amino acid shortages unless you add meat protein (though they can get a good deal of meat protein if there's bug-rich free range). Lastly the birds will need sunlight, greens and a source of B vitamins like horse droppings or yeast.

I agree with others, there's no single miracle (or cheap) feed...

best wishes
Erica

 

[Jschaaff]

Thank you all so much. That was a lot of great information BossRoo and Erica, I really appreciate that you took the time to write all that, and thank you bigredfeather, for emailing your cousin...I promise, there'll be no violence (if you were referring to my blog, I took that post down, as a lawyer friend said it could be used as a great arguement for premeditated murder if i ever....well, you get the picture LOL..anyway, Who knew!?!?!

LOL.

Okay, so the lupin...The beans/seed are being sold for animal and human consumption. Other than that, I am waiting to hear back from the farmer to get more specifics. At this point, I am thinking i might have to tell the gentleman I don't want it at all. I would have been perfectly happy just feeding it too all my birds, layers and broilers as a treat, but the safety factor seems a bit confusing. However, I am easily confused....


So while I was writing this post, I found this study where broilers were fed a base diet of lupines, with no adverse effects, beyond slower growth rate.

http://ps.fass.org/cgi/reprint/84/11/1707.pdf

There were some thickening of organs, etc. Obviously after all the info from posters, and from this study, and other articles I found on google, I can not feed this as any major part of my chickens diet, but perhaps I can buy just one bag, and toss it as a treat once in awhile. If not, well, I'll have one more thing laying around (a 55 lb bag, no less) that my husband can say "Now what the heck are you gonna' do with THAT"?!?!

Thanks for taking the time to share all that info!!
-Jessa