Do you feed raw meat to chickens

[theoldchick]

I feed them cooked leftovers. The pigs are not picky.

 

[No Coop No Problem]

Not necessarily. Amphibians are notorious carriers of salmonella, mice carry E. coli in their gastrointestinal tracts and crayfish are known to transmit flukes.

E. coli dies in the presence of oxygen. This is why it thrives on a piece of vacuum sealed chicken unlike on wild animals

Chickens eating such prey and continuing to live healthy lives is direct evidence of it's safety. Try feeding your chickens raw grocery store meat and get back to me

 

[shawluvsbirds]

That wouldn't be a problem if you had a secure setup. Mine is secure and I don't free range, so foxes and coyotes don't worry me in the slightest. On the contrary - I hope they visit more often, to help with the absolute explosion of wild rabbits on my property, which have been destroying everything.

True. My stuff isn't secure since we moved and haven't been able to build a secure barn yet.
And I do free range when I am home in the afternoons.
I actually have ducks not chickens but they like meat snacks too.
That said.. it's still something to consider. Most people's coops are never as secure as they think they are.
Not implying yours isn't..
Just making a general statement.

 

[shawluvsbirds]

Always when I have unusable scraps, they love it and it's much less wasteful. They also like to hang around me on slaughter days and eat all the scraps and whatnot, which saves on cleanup. They even drink the blood if I don't save it for the garden. It would seem gruesome if they weren't so dang adorable as they beg for the blood of their kin.

Back when my grandfather was alive he kept his chickens on laying pellets. Every time they started to cannibalize each other he would grab a raw carcass of some sort, like turkey or chicken or rabbit, and set it in the coop for them. The cannibalizing would stop. I keep my birds on a higher protein diet than he did so I don't think I'd have that issue, anyway, but even so, I figure a steady diet of raw scraps from my kitchen and butcher's table to ward off cannibalization behavior before it starts is better than having to treat with raw meat after the fact.

This was interesting by the way. Those grandparents knew a thing or two about a thing or two I'd imagine. I think we probably do a lot of over thinking and over worrying about how we tend our birds these days.

 

[Altairsky]

I feed my chickens raw non-avian meat. I only feed my chickens cooked bird meat because pathogens can pass from bird to bird if they are not killed with heat.

 

[sean_wonder]

I feed my chickens raw non-avian meat. I only feed my chickens cooked bird meat because pathogens can pass from bird to bird if they are not killed with heat.

Pathogens can pass from raw meat to your birds regardless if avian in origin or not. Just more likely to have something they can contract in there.

 

[sean_wonder]

View attachment 4087314

I feed them cooked leftovers. The pigs are not picky.

Adore this pic btw.

 

[Momsbusiness]

Thanks for posting this question. I was about to post a thread asking if anyone feeds may to their hens. Here's my answer. How much meat, can it be left over from dinner, and how often ?

 

[saysfaa]

Thanks for posting this question. I was about to post a thread asking if anyone feeds may to their hens. Here's my answer. How much meat, can it be left over from dinner, and how often ?

I generally gave mine as much as they wanted. Or as much as I wanted to spend; we eat the vast majority of our leftovers so I count the cost whether I buy it directly for them or serve it to us first because we would have eaten it. I looked for a good source as a guide for how much and didn't find one. Old (1950's or so) textbooks recommend up to 20% of the ration but it is a little hard to tell what they mean by "meat."

It can left over from dinner as long as you don't put much salt on it. You might go easy on the fat too, if most of your scraps are fat; a mix of types of flesh similar to a whole animal is better, I think, if one feeds very much meat and doesn't want to do much ration balancing.

How often doesn't have a one-size-fits-all answer. If you feed it as food (as opposed to a treat), I don't think it matters very much, especially if you regularly offer a very wide variety of foods. They will do pretty well at balancing their diets as long as they have enough options to get what they need of every nutrient without getting too much of any nutrient.

If you feed it as a treat it matters more how much and/or how often you offer it. "Treat" meaning either you don't offer much besides their pellets or you add a social element to giving it to them such as calling them over for it. Other people have different definitions of "treat".

I generally offered bought/leftover meat several times a week near and through molting season and maybe a few times a month the rest of the year. If it was enough that I thought each hen would get all she wanted, like a turkey carcass for the four of them, then I counted it as "food" and just left it to them. If it was not that much (like opening a can of fish for them during molt season), then I counted it as a "treat" and gave each hen about a tablespoon (about 10% of what they would eat that day) so that Spice didn't eat most of it and Mocha get none.

 

[Momsbusiness]

I generally gave mine as much as they wanted. Or as much as I wanted to spend; we eat the vast majority of our leftovers so I count the cost whether I buy it directly for them or serve it to us first because we would have eaten it. I looked for a good source as a guide for how much and didn't find one. Old (1950's or so) textbooks recommend up to 20% of the ration but it is a little hard to tell what they mean by "meat."

It can left over from dinner as long as you don't put much salt on it. You might go easy on the fat too, if most of your scraps are fat; a mix of types of flesh similar to a whole animal is better, I think, if one feeds very much meat and doesn't want to do much ration balancing.

How often doesn't have a one-size-fits-all answer. If you feed it as food (as opposed to a treat), I don't think it matters very much, especially if you regularly offer a very wide variety of foods. They will do pretty well at balancing their diets as long as they have enough options to get what they need of every nutrient without getting too much of any nutrient.

If you feed it as a treat it matters more how much and/or how often you offer it. "Treat" meaning either you don't offer much besides their pellets or you add a social element to giving it to them such as calling them over for it. Other people have different definitions of "treat".

I generally offered bought/leftover meat several times a week near and through molting season and maybe a few times a month the rest of the year. If it was enough that I thought each hen would get all she wanted, like a turkey carcass for the four of them, then I counted it as "food" and just left it to them. If it was not that much (like opening a can of fish for them during molt season), then I counted it as a "treat" and gave each hen about a tablespoon (about 10% of what they would eat that day) so that Spice didn't eat most of it and Mocha get none.