Feeding chicken to your chickens?

[CluckerFamily]

If you think about it, eggs are just boneless chicken !

When I typed this, that was a thought I had. I asked myself what the difference truly was. I haven’t gotten an answer back from myself yet

 

[Sally PB]

Next time I make bone broth, I'm going to serve up the solid leftovers to the chickens. Since I only have four, I'll just package it up into single serve amounts and put it in the freezer. Thanks for the idea.

 

[WindingRoad]

In reading stock recipes on this forum, I've come across several folks saying that they give the strained stock contents (bones, giblets, veg scraps) to their chickens after they're done cooking with them. On the one hand, I'm a big fan of not wasting anything and would love for my chickens to benefit from the calcium, protein, and other nutrients in those leavings. On the other hand, feeding chicken to chickens feels a) discomforting and b) like a great way to spread disease in the flock (feeding cow to cows was a big part of how the Mad Cow Disease outbreak took off...). Of course, this would be more of an issue if I fed store bought chicken to my chickens which I'm highly unlikely to do.

So, do you feed chicken to your chickens? If yes, in what contexts? If no, why?

My chickens love hearts, gizzards, and gizzards Opps I mean livers. LOL. I buy them at the grocery store and boil the heck out of them cut them up small bite size and they gobble they right up. Also, they love a roasted leftover rotisserie chicken or just a cooked chicken. YMMMY.

 

[impr3]

A lot of people have misconceptions as to what mad cow disease even was in the first place, and I’m going to attach an informative article that explains it.

I do not entirely agree with your assessment that feeding cow to cows was not responsible for the BSE epidemic. Certainly, feeding any old cow to another cow does not cause it. The meat (well, usually brains and bone marrow) has to come from an infected animal. However, the problem with BSE is that a) it is not destroyed by most cooking methods, and b) it takes years to show symptoms. This is also true for other prion diseases like Kuru (which became it's own outbreak as a result of humans eating human). While some prion diseases can be transmitted between species (hence why a few people got sick from eating BSE infected cow), the higher risk is direct transmission within a species. I am not aware of any prion diseases in poultry, but they don't tend to get discovered very easily as they only become outbreaks under the specific circumstance of feeding x species to x species and, even then, only when an infected carcass is shared widely. So the existence of BSE was not caused by feeding cow to cows, but the fact there was an outbreak was.

Other types of diseases (eg bacterial like salmonella) are highly unlikely to be transmitted by my stock leavings given the stuff has been thoroughly pressure cooked, but could certainly be transmitted by the raw organ meats that another poster mentioned giving their chickens. In that case, there would certainly be an increased risk from feeding chicken to chicken as compared to feeding any other meat source (mice, possum, etc) given that many of the worst pathogens are relatively species specific.

Long story short, I'm not saying that feeding stock leavings to chickens is definitely a bad idea. In fact, after considering the risks I did decide to feed some to my chickens last night (after picking at it for a few seconds they completely ignored it, but that's a separate issue ). However, I am trying to be clear about why I do think the history of BSE in cows is relevant to this discussion.

 

[Curnow]

strained stock contents

I've found that strained stock contents make excellent bait. I use it in snap traps for mice and rats. I've caught rats, raccoons, possum, and skunks in my live traps. I've also trapped feral cats, doves, and once a groundhog but I think the groundhog just blundered inside instead of being attracted by the bait. I wish groundhogs were that easy. The cats and doves get released alive.

do you feed chicken to your chickens? If yes, in what contexts?

Yes. When I butcher chickens I keep two buckets handy. I put the stuff I'll bury in my garden or orchard in one. The other bucket gets the stuff that goes back to the rest of the flock. That includes the digestive tract cut into fairly small pieces (maybe 2"), bits of fat and other "edible" bits, the contents of the crop and gizzard, testicles from the boys, and the lungs. I toss that bucket in the run and try to give them no more than they can clean up before dark. I don't want to attract predators. The run I toss it in is an area about 45' x 65' inside electric netting and covered with grass. It is not one f those tiny backyard runs with bedding.

When I catch a mouse in a snap trap I toss that to my chickens. When I catch something larger I often split it open and toss it in the run for the chickens to pick the meat and internals. Before dark I dispose of what they haven't finished to avoid attracting predators. That keeps everything fresh too. If I find a mouse nest with babies, they babies go to the flock. If I kill a possum that has babies in her pouch those babies go to the flock. I know, I'm a total barbarian.

The way I look at it, chickens are omnivores. They eat both meat and vegetable. They catch small snakes and frogs and eat them. With chickens it is either "do lunch or be lunch". If it doesn't eat them they will eat it. Foraging for their diet means eating whatever they find. As for disease, if one has a disease they all already have it. If what is inside a chicken hasn't killed it then it will not be very likely to kill a chicken that eats it. I try to keep their immune systems strong instead of trying to keep them in a sterile environment. Mien don't live in a sterile environment anyway.

Mine LOVE to clean up the deer carcasses when wer'e done butchering!