chicken 'meals'?

[chicklover16]

I have a friend who feeds her chickens two meals a day and doesn't give them access to food other than that, I never heard of doing this before, is it healthy for the chickens? does any one else do this?

 

[Medicine Man]

I personally disagree with this practice, as does Animal Welfare Approved, but whatev's.

Chickens want to forage throughout the day, they don't really understand the concept of mealtimes.

 

[KenK]

Interesting that AWA prohibits feeding animal protein to chickens.

 

[Medicine Man]

Quote:
actually, that's not entirely true. They will allow crustacean meal, as well as farming your own fish, or some other such sustainable practices.

But youre right, on the face of it, they do seem to prohibit that and that's why I am not AWA approved. My chickens most certainly are not vegetarians and fish meal is already stretching my budget.

eta: this infor is not published in their guidelines, but the basic gyst is that they don't want people to support the exploitation of another animal in order to feed the AWA approved chickens. Thus, no fish meal, bone meal, blood meal, feather meal, etc. If you're raising your own fish, then cool. If you're using crustacean meal (a byproduct of human food), then cool.

 

[LottieDa]

Chickens don't sit down for a scheduled dinner time like humans. They are foragers. Not only is good for them to forage but it makes them happy. And happy chickens make yummy eggs!

 

[KenK]

Quote:
Since you are privy to their unpublished guidelines; what do they suggest that farmers do with bones, feathers and offal?

Also, what kind of crustacean's are allowed? I have some problems with shrimp trawling because they tear up the ocean bottom so badly.

I guess this thread is pretty well on a sidetrack and I apologize for that. To answer the original post; I like for my birds to have food and water available at all times and I give them some extras a couple times a day.

 

[Medicine Man]

Quote:
I'm not privy to their unpublished guidelines, I just happened to be familiar with the fact that they will grant a variance on the use of crustacean meal. The logic being that it's a byproduct of the human food industry, thus whatever damage is done by harvesting has already been done and feeding the resulting offal to chickens does not encourage further damage, vis-a-vis the overharvesting of menhaden, et al, for fish meal.

I guarantee you that they will not bite your head off if you shoot them an email with your questions.

 

[dragonlair]

Mine get fed in one meal what they need for the day. By roosting time, the bowls are empty. I have rats who love to clean up while the birds are sleeping, and I am sick of fat healthy rats that are as big as the cats.

Because I feed a wet meal, in the colder weather, they get 2 smaller meals a day.