Feeding protein

[sixsisters]

It was suggested (by the wonderful peeps at BYC) that I feed my girls some protein (their organic food is vegetarian, whoops!) so I picked up some cat food. I'm wondering how much to feed them. They go absolutely NUTS for it, more so than the plain yogurt they occasionally get. It's crazy! The stuff is organic and obviously ridiculously priced. The 6 of them wolf down a half of a can in under a minute. They have plenty of food and clean water, get garden scraps daily, a bit of scratch each day and yogurt when I'm feeling generous.

How much is too much, and would it be a good idea to avoid cat food with chicken in it? It seems way wrong to feed my chickens, chicken.
GRACIAS!

 

[Imp]

Quote:
Mine head for the catfood as soon as I let them out. I think it's mostly OK, but I'd be a little concerned that cat food might have too much salt for a steady diet or not quite meet their nutritional needs. They will eat dry catfood as well. No need to avoid chicken, they are perfectly happy being cannibals. You could give them other sources of protein:
Meat
Fish
Cheese
Milk
Cooked beans (no raw, they can be toxic)
Seeds
Nuts
Whole Grains

Imp

 

[Olive Hill]

Are your chickens penned? If they get out and about (free range or pasture) chances are they're getting all the "animal" protein they need on their own.

 

[sixsisters]

They don't get out much. A couple of hours in the evening and not every evening at that. They used to roam in our backyard, but the droppings got hugely out of control. We have kids over constantly and it just got g-r-o-s-s with kids and adults stepping in chicken poop all the time. So much for my dream of cage free chickens! Thanks for the feedback!

 

[elmo]

Hard boiled eggs, cooled, peeled and mashed up. I feed one egg a day to my flock. It's inexpensive, you can use extra eggs from your own hens, and it's a very natural, healthy, high protein supplement. After all, nature makes eggs as the perfect food for developing chick embyros!

 

[Tdub4chiks]

I read this on the BYC Chicken Treat chart:


* Regarding feeding CAT FOOD to chickens,

the following is from DLHunicorn in response to the listing of cat food in this Treats Chart: (A word to the wise, and thank you, DLHunicorn)

"You all know how I feel on cat food and I have posted the links and reasoning behind my objections several times ...it can potentially be detrimental to your birds health and even deadly in the right circumstances and for this reason I feel it should be left off the chart (as when you put it on it is as if you are condoning its use) I will repost here one of the sources for my objection:
http://www.omri.org/Amino_acids_livestock.html
..."While it is nutritionally essential, methionine excesses are far more toxic to poultry than similar excesses of tryptophan, lysine, and threonine (National Research Council, 1994). Force feeding methionine to excess can result in death to chicks (National Research Council, 1994). A dosage of 2 g / mature cat / day (20 to 30 g / kg dry diet) for 20 days induces anorexia, ataxia, cyanosis, methemoglobinemia and Heinz body formation resulting in hemolytic anemia (Maede, 1985). ..."

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

Feed mealworms; it just may be the cheapest and easiest source of protein. Check out my BYC page to learn how.

 

[squiqwe]

A good souce of plant protien is clover. I did a nutritional search and found red and white clover has about 26% protien plus vitamins a,e and k

 

[Organics North]

Quote:
Sprouts some Black Oil Sunflower seeds. The sprouting boosts the already good protein in BOSS. Also BOSS is a good source of Methionine, which is a needed amino acid often found in animal protein.

I personally would not feed cat food, chicken kind or not. If you want more protein in animal form, order some fish meal, or look for an organic feed with fish meal. (Lots of good omega 3's in fish meal...

)

ON

 

[Chris09]

Quote:
That protein amount would be when sprouted.
I believe that Red Clover is closer to 11 to 18 percent protein depending on when it is cut.. ( Early bloom or Late Bloom)

Chris