Fish Meal in Feed

[minus10gmt]

Hi All,

A feed I'm buying has fish meal from "wild caught Pacific whitefish" according to the supplier. I'm trying to find out if this is "sustainable" or if it possibly has a high mercury content. The feed is advertised as organic and non-GMO.

Respecfully, I don't want to get into arguments about the organic or non-GMO part, I know we all have our concerns about those labels regarding accuracy or necessity. Reallly just interested in the fish meal and if anyone has insight to offer.

Thanks!

 

[azygous]

All fish will be exposed to mercury. However, the larger, older, fattier fish, especially the species that eat other smaller fish will contain much more mercury than those fish that eat mostly plankton and aren't oily fleshed. Whitefish are in this latter category.

In addition to this, mercury accumulates in an animal's body over a long period of time. While humans live decades longer than chickens do, we have more concern about mercury accumulating in our bodies than our chickens do.

Bottom line is, in my opinion given these facts, whitefish meal is an excellent source of animal protein for chickens and a very minimal hazard as a source for mercury poisoning.

 

[featherhead007]

I eat it myself all the time, and so do my HEALTHY hens! I wouldn't worry.
they get the leftover imitation crab meat i use for sushi, made of such fish!
just don't feed them canned tuna, they get very bad beak breath!

 

[minus10gmt]

While humans live decades longer than chickens do, we have more concern about mercury accumulating in our bodies than our chickens do.

Thanks! I live in Hawaii and both my husband and I have had a lot of fish that's higher in the food chain, and we both have tested positive higher mercury levels than we'd like, so I'm paying attention to this.

Also, "wild caught" doesn't necessarily mean it's caught in the best of ways, it's just wild not farmed. It's so hard to track these sources.

 

[minus10gmt]

bad beak breath

Nobody wants bad beak breath!

 

[RoosterML]

I eat it myself all the time, and so do my HEALTHY hens!

No way, I don’t care how much fish meal is in it, you won’t catch me eating chicken feed.

 

[azygous]

 

[featherhead007]

No way, I don’t care how much fish meal is in the feed, you won’t catch me eating chicken feed.

read on!

 

[RoosterML]

read on!

Come on, that was alittle funny!

 

[featherhead007]

crab meat imitation, but what I feed my chickens, some actual people would die for!
Steak, shrimp, lobster, and so much more.. reason? My chickens can play piano, and drums. so talented, I have no bearing to describe