Chickens eating meat, ok to compost litter?

[Tadler]

We are getting dual purpose chickens in May and I am trying to find a good balanced diet for them - both bagged and/or homegrown. I've seen many threads stating how useful and/or good raw meat is for chickens (whether it's the frog they hunt vs. leftovers of the rabbit you just processed). I've also seen composting manure from carnivores is a health risk waiting to happen. I know chickens are omnivores, but they still eat meat. Are there any compelling arguments for, or against, composting the manure of meat supplemented birds? Or eating meat birds, who eat meat, in general? Bonus question: do you feed chickens their brethren after processing... Not sure how I feel about that one

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

No concerns with composting manure of chickens who eat meat. Their digestive systems are totally different than carnivore mammals.

Also, not a LOT of concerns about feeding chickens raw meat, although cooked is slightly lower risk.

 

[MaggieMoo21]

Ours get cooked meat scraps. I make homemade dog food and bone broth plus we hunt so the birds always get the trimmings. Our girls prefer cooked scraps to raw scraps. The preference may just be lack of exposure to raw scraps. I do not feed them raw chicken but I will feed them cooked chicken, especially bones. Once the bones have gone through the pressure cooker or crock pot, they tend to soften enough that the hens will eat them.

We compost everything that comes out of the chicken pen. Typically, this ends up being lots of poo, straw, larger bones or seafood shells, and tough plant material that wasn't eaten. From a zoonotic (diseases and bacteria that humans can get from animals) safety perspective, organic farming practices recommend composting manures for at least 6 months before applying to food crops.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

Chickens likely prefer cooked meat for the same reasons people do…it’s easier both to eat and to digest/absorb nutrients from.

It also kills germs…but that may be less impactful if part of the meal is a tackle football game across the chicken run.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Its a matter of risk management, and risk tolerance.

As @Red-Stars-in-RI correctly notes, chickens aren't like many carnivores, their digestive system is substantially different, resulting in different concerns with composting their litter.

I do, personally, then use that soil to fill garden boxes where I grow plants, most dsestined for my own consumption.

Rare that they get meat scraps from my own table, the wife and I don't waste much. They can picj thru the ash pile after I've had a burn, it frequently contains charred bones (chicken and pig, most typically) which have been weakened by first stewng, and then high heat burns. If they don't, the ash pile gets added to the materials breaking down with their waste and the leaves I gather for deep litter.

Do they get raw chicken from birds I process??? Again, yes, with caveats. Though there are no known prion diesease (think "mad cow" as example) in chickens, I don't feed the skull or spinal cord. Neither do I feed the gall bladder, the liver, or the kidneys - the gall bladder is "radioactive" (ok, not really, but I am really careful to dispose of it cleanly when culling), the liver and kidneys are where heavy metals tend to accumulate, I don't want to pile on, by placing concentrated sources back into the food chain.

The things I don't feed (head, backbone, feathers, etc) go into a seperate bin which gets a very hot fire once a season or so - and then the ashes are mixed in with some of my clay soils, not shoveled on top of their litter. How hot? I'm building a new rocket fire pit because the existing pit won't make a ham bone crumble to dust at a touch. I'm hoping to be able to reduce goat femurs to complete ash with the new one.

 

[Chullicken]

It scares me some days what chickens will eat...meat, whole mice...each other...poop and urine.

 

[AGeese]

I'm hoping mine will grab a mouse or two.

 

[MaggieMoo21]

It scares me some days what chickens will eat...meat, whole mice...each other...poop and urine.

I have a pet milk snake and sometimes she doesn't eat her frozen/thawed mouse. That mouse gets thrown in the chicken pen and the girls love it! It's like a million dollars just rained from the sky. They run around the pen squawking and taking it from each other before it's finally eaten.

I found part of a dog turd in the chicken pen the other day. The dog doesn't get access to the pen so I'm thinking that the dog pooped close to the pen and one of the chickens reached through the chain link to get it. That gave me the ickies.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

I found part of a dog turd in the chicken pen the other day. The dog doesn't get access to the pen so I'm thinking that the dog pooped close to the pen and one of the chickens reached through the chain link to get it. That gave me the ickies

Dog and cat poop is best to avoid, but any herbivore poop is fair game. I know some cow farmers who run chickens through the pastures after the cows even add a grain cows can’t digest (can’t think of which grain off top of my head) so it passed it through the cow and “motivates” the chicken to scratch up the cow patty.

 

[MaggieMoo21]

Dog and cat poop is best to avoid, but any herbivore poop is fair game. I know some cow farmers who run chickens through the pastures after the cows even add a grain cows can’t digest (can’t think of which grain off top of my head) so it passed it through the cow and “motivates” the chicken to scratch up the cow patty.

Yes, I am aware that dog and cat poop is best to avoid. Like I said, the birds must have reached through the chain link to get it. They can reach almost a foot outside of the pen while stretching their necks.

I have a friend that runs her pet pig and chickens together so yes, I also know that chickens are used as a cleanup crew. Just seems that they don't care who they are cleaning up after. Haha