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What about all the icky things chickens manage to eat ON THEIR OWN? lol
I've seen my birds eat things that I'd certainly consider "unfit for humans".....or dogs & cats for that matter. Chickens will eat ANYTHING they can peck at & swallow including other chickens (injured/dead), rotting meat, etc. Saw it myself, after a neighbor's dog got in my coop & killed several birds; I didn't find one of the bodies at first since they were scattered out in my 3 acre pen....but I found it a week or so later after the surviving chickens had pecked it clean & dragged the feathery carcass remains up near their coop.
If I stopped to think of everything I've seen my birds peck at & how much of it seems disgusting TO ME, I'd never eat another egg or chicken sandwich in my life, LOL. And if I thought about all the stuff my dogs have eaten or rolled in since we moved to the sticks, I'd probably banish them to the woods forever. I try to keep those thoughts buried. LOL.
Really the "byproducts" definitions sound disgusting to us, but if you think of it in mechanical terms of "nutrient breakdown" it's all just made up of proteins, minerals, fats, etc. Same with all of the "gross" things my free-range chickens are eating in my yard. That dead chicken they ate was the same as the stuff that goes into "chicken byproduct meal" on a smaller scale. Protein is protein & the animal's body utilizes it in the same manner, regardless of whether it's in the form of a rendered byproduct pellet, or a half-rotten chicken carcass in my bird pen.
Don't get me wrong, I am not a fan of many "national brand" pet foods, at least not for feeding pets (someone told me kibble makes for good traction if your car is stuck in the snow, so it's not entirely useless) Some are so incredibly grain-heavy that I'd rather feed it to my chickens before I'd ever think of giving it to my dogs. The use of cheap grains, fillers, artificial colors, chemical preservatives, salt, even sugar! in dog & cat food, is the kind of thing I find most inexcuseable, and I can think of at least 3 foods in every American grocery store right now with these ingredients. Byproducts from *named* meat sources (beef, chicken, lamb, etc) are not necessarily poor quality ingredients. Personally I feed my dogs a raw prey model diet. My dogs eat & enjoy "byproducts" such as organs, feet, necks, heads, etc....all part of maintaining balanced nutrition on the raw diet. Really not too much different from what goes into dog food's rendered "byproducts" except it's raw and I'm able to personally obtain my meat from food-grade sources
. It works for us.
Aaaaaaanyway, I didn't mean to turn that into a novel. For what it's worth, I've fed dog food AND cat food to my chickens with no problems. They liked it. They ate it. They asked for more. Then they demanded more. They threatened to riot & burn down the coop. They egged my house. They went on strike for three weeks. In the end I had to bring in help from the Colonel for intimidation factor, and it was resolved peacefully. And fortunately nobody's eggs came out tasting like dog chow, which would have been both disgusting and disturbing to say the least
What about all the icky things chickens manage to eat ON THEIR OWN? lol
If I stopped to think of everything I've seen my birds peck at & how much of it seems disgusting TO ME, I'd never eat another egg or chicken sandwich in my life, LOL. And if I thought about all the stuff my dogs have eaten or rolled in since we moved to the sticks, I'd probably banish them to the woods forever. I try to keep those thoughts buried. LOL.
Really the "byproducts" definitions sound disgusting to us, but if you think of it in mechanical terms of "nutrient breakdown" it's all just made up of proteins, minerals, fats, etc. Same with all of the "gross" things my free-range chickens are eating in my yard. That dead chicken they ate was the same as the stuff that goes into "chicken byproduct meal" on a smaller scale. Protein is protein & the animal's body utilizes it in the same manner, regardless of whether it's in the form of a rendered byproduct pellet, or a half-rotten chicken carcass in my bird pen.
Don't get me wrong, I am not a fan of many "national brand" pet foods, at least not for feeding pets (someone told me kibble makes for good traction if your car is stuck in the snow, so it's not entirely useless) Some are so incredibly grain-heavy that I'd rather feed it to my chickens before I'd ever think of giving it to my dogs. The use of cheap grains, fillers, artificial colors, chemical preservatives, salt, even sugar! in dog & cat food, is the kind of thing I find most inexcuseable, and I can think of at least 3 foods in every American grocery store right now with these ingredients. Byproducts from *named* meat sources (beef, chicken, lamb, etc) are not necessarily poor quality ingredients. Personally I feed my dogs a raw prey model diet. My dogs eat & enjoy "byproducts" such as organs, feet, necks, heads, etc....all part of maintaining balanced nutrition on the raw diet. Really not too much different from what goes into dog food's rendered "byproducts" except it's raw and I'm able to personally obtain my meat from food-grade sources
Aaaaaaanyway, I didn't mean to turn that into a novel. For what it's worth, I've fed dog food AND cat food to my chickens with no problems. They liked it. They ate it. They asked for more. Then they demanded more. They threatened to riot & burn down the coop. They egged my house. They went on strike for three weeks. In the end I had to bring in help from the Colonel for intimidation factor, and it was resolved peacefully. And fortunately nobody's eggs came out tasting like dog chow, which would have been both disgusting and disturbing to say the least
