How to feed tankage?

[cajuninky]

There are only 2 affected hens. One they have left alone and she is healing nicely. The other I have taken out of the pen and have her in a small pen by herself. She was not mutilated but they pulled out a big feather on her tail and she was bleeding. I knew they would go for it before long so I took her out to keep that from happening. She will go back in the pen tomorrow.
I will check her and decide if she needs any spray on it. Free ranging is not an option for a couple of reasons, though I would sure love to be able to give them that option. We have coyotes and a few other predators around. I have to keep my big guard dog tethered near the pen to keep the coyotes away at night and the dog will kill them if they get close enough for him to grab. They wouldn't know to stay out of his reach and I sure don't want to lose any of them. My roo is a huge EE and I will take him out of the pen when I see he is getting to be too much for them. When they heal up I will put him back in. I can do this every week or so as needed. That way the eggs will remain fertile. I am also going to add some tankage to their feed tomorrow since they are not getting many insects not getting out. I do rake up leaf litter every now and again and bring it into the pen for them. They really enjoy that. I brought them some today. I love to see them scrithing around with such abandon.

 

[sjh]

Quote:
Here's a amazing idea. Since your friend feeds it ask him how he feeds it.

 

[SteveH]

Quote:
Bluekote is good stuff .
You were definately way low on protein unless they were getting tons of bugs ; the horse feed and corn also will require a calcium supplement such as oyster shell fed free choice because horse feeds should have more phos. to cal. . If you're talkin' raw tankage and not dried meat meal , by law it has to be cooked before feeding . You're also going to have a fly and maggot problem if you don't keep it covered but vented due to rising gas . Sounds gross [ actually it IS gross ] but the chickens love to eat maggots . The packing plant I worked at ground bone and all to the tankage pits , probably a pretty good feed with considerable cal. along with the protein but other than it being pumped out of the cookers and then into tanker trucks I don't know where it went . I don't know how much risk there is of botulism in chickens , better to talk to your friend about feeding it and look to see how his chickens are doing . Feeding a cheap and unbalanced diet doesn't save money if egg production suffers or you have sick birds . We fed potatoes , outdated cookies , and shortening purchased by the ton from a potatoe chip factory and cookie factory but that was to cattle and hogs on a timber pasture feedlot plus hay , and I knew of a feedlot feeding fish heads and clams to hogs ; but no experience with feeding that stuff to chickens . I do know the hogs on the fish and clam diet smelled so fishy they had to be held on corn for awhile and blended with other hogs before the packers would take them LOL .

 

[cajuninky]

We moved away from where my friend lives and I have not been able to get in touch with him.

The tankage I bought is a dry powder. I will change to chicken feed as soon as I am able. Right now it's not possible because we have 9 horses we are feeding. We rescued them before feed and hay went through the roof and now we are having troubl rehoming them. We have feed here for them so we are feeding it to the chickens also. Egg production is good considering the weather.

 

[PaulaJoAnne]

i understand trying to make do! Unfortunately it isn't formulated for birdies, so is leaving them deficient in a couple things. One is protein, the other is calcium. Oyster shell added to their diet will give them calcium. For protein, you can feed them any fat or meat table scraps, also if you catch fish at all, they love pecking at the filleted carcasses. There should be the occasional road kill deer in your area. I don't know the laws there, but many states will let you pick them up. Michigan many sheriff's deps will call you if there's a deer kill reported. You can feed them raw venison, or for an even better treat, let it get fly blown and feed them the maggots off it. Leave it raw- chickens don't know how to cook! Problem with the barrel scrapings you're feeding them is the amount of antibiotics that go into cattle: also rendering vats get EVERYTHING. They are not USDA approved- the rotten, diseased, and anything else cattle parts go into them. Do you really want to be eating the byproducts of that kind of diet?

 

[cajuninky]

Thanks for the info. There are often deer killed on the road here abouts. There was one by my barn that coyotes took. So I shouldn't feed them the commercial tankage? Is that what has the antibiotics in it? What problems will lack of calcium cause?

 

[PaulaJoAnne]

Not only does the tankage has antibiotics in it, but also any disease killed cattle that don't pass the grade for human consumption. At least you're feeding it to chickens, which are omnivores (eat everything), so its better than feeding it to cattle, but still pretty bad. Lack of calcium doesn't make them pick each other- my memory lapsed a bit. It makes really weak egg shells, so they start eating their eggs. One will break accidentally, they taste it, then find its very easy to break into the rest.

 

[PaulaJoAnne]

I just wanted to expand on the tankage thing a little bit. At a slaughterhouse, a butcher shop, or farm, they have parts that go to the rendering plant. From the slaughterhouse and butcher shop, the parts that aren't used go to the renderer. Blood, bones, fat, some meat trimmings. Not bad. From the farm, any animals or birds that are found dead in the pasture or barn. Thats bad. Disease of some sort is usually the cause of death. Also from the slaughterhouse, is any animal that doesn't pass the USDA inspection. It doesn't pass the inspection because it has something that could cause a disease outbreak or sickness in humans. All the floor scrapings also go there. (manure) So then it goes to the renderer, gets ground up, cooked, and powdered. This process supposedly kills any disease (but not antibiotic residue). I'm suspicious of that, though. Look at how mad cow disease got spread. Cooking didnt' kill that, despite government agencies' assurances that it couldn't happen.

In a nutshell: animal is sick, could cause human to get sick. Humans can't eat it, animal is thrown out. Animal is ground up, dried, ground again, and fed to other animals. Humans then eat these other animals and their products.

 

[rancher hicks]

Quote:
As far as I'm concerned folks can feed their chickens dynomite if they choose, but if it doesn't specifically say "For Poultry" I'm not feeding it to my chickens. If you have problems w/ sick and dieing chickens then you should start with, 1. Is their water clean (always) and 2. what are they eating. A good commercial feed should have everything they need. A good calcium containing grit should suffice.

Some breeds are known pickers, and there are as many reasons for picking as there are breeds. If you use something it should say for picking or to prevent picking. You should have a medicine cabinet specifically for you birds.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

In IMHO.

 

[Chieftain]

Quote:
<--- What she said, and I could not agree more. They call it tankage for a reason, and it is a polite term to avoid telling you what it really is. I hope that most people here are raising their own eggs precisely because the wish to avoid including things like "tankage" in their own food stream.

You are what you eat.