is corn as main ingredient good for chickens?

[Chris09]

Quote:
I watched about a 1/4 of that show ( "Food, Inc.") and turned it off. That show was a joke.
For the ones who watched the show,
The netting on the side of the building of big chicken farms is not to keep people from seeing in. The material is a knitted shading cloth that can block up to 90% of the light but still let in plenty of ventilation. By blocking the light the chicken farm can control the amount of light the birds get.
The other thing, the reason the big chicken farms don't want you around or in the barn is do to Bio-security. Just think how fast a disease would spread in one of those barns if someone would carry in a disease from another farm.

Chris

FOOD INC - Give it another try, there is A LOT more to it than just chickens........and it's valuable to see what we are doing.....its a powerful documentary even if all the facts as you say are not exact!!

When a, "documentary" starts out with a crock of lies like that one did, to me it is not worth time watching it because I know that the truth will be all twisted to make the large farms and the big Co.'s look bad.

Chris

 

[BitsyB]

Lazy J- I gotta go to work now, but I do want to thank you for your willingness to engage in this debate, which seems to be of concern to at least some people. (And I'm not being sarcastic!)

 

[Organics North]

Please remember these PRO "GMO" people you are debating with, have their hands in the honey pot.. It is a big honey pot with lots of hands in it. Even the FDA, with its "appointed officials" from the very industry they are to regulate.

OK pro GMO folks.......................Prove to me GMO's are safe for us, are safe for the enviroment, are sustainable, and PROVE we should not have concernes about cross contamination with non GMO grains... (Just incase the "safeness" of GMO's turns out to be safe like tobbacco, or the wonderful product Monsanto made and said was safe to the US government... Agent Orange
(We all know how that one turned out for the people affected...

)

I feel no need to defend a position questioning GMO's and asking for labeling... I keep thinking of Chis09's post on the fact that we do not realize how much is genetically modified already, as I am browsing the garden catologs for cucumbers to plant in the green house this year..

As for me, I say no to GMO's...
(This looks like an interesting read:_)

http://www.saynotogmos.org/


As for corn as a main ingredient in chicken feed.. I say no, not because corn is "bad" but because chickens are foraging omnivores, and should have a diverse diet, with a main ingredient of pasture...

ON

 

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

Quote:
I don't work for Monsanto nor do I have any inside information but I do know that the settlement agreements between Monsanto and the the defendents were sealed and did not allow either party to discuss them. Also, based on the objective of the documentary do you really think that the producers would have given Monsanto a fair shake in the editting room?

Quote:
The lawsuits were filed based on violations of contract law, what is more American than that? I don't know how many lawsuits were filed by Monsanto or any other seed genetics company but I am sure the number is quite small, so there is not an avalance of lawsuits initiated by Monsanto for contract violations.

I am a farmer and I use the Round Up Ready Technology with in the bounds of the Technology Agreement I signed. However, this is probably the last year we will plant RR corn.

Jim

 

[spartacus_63]

Quote:
It is common practice to open corn fields to the cattle after harvest and I have never seen a cow balk at entering and when they have access to both, they are equally distributed between the two. Antibiotics were given to cattle to increase their growth rate, not to counter any result of feeding them grain.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Quote:
I don't know how I missed this one. It is a fun read. Anyway my OPINION.

Corn is a grain. Wheat is a grain. Bermuda grass seed is a grain. Orchard grass seed is a grain. Johnson grass seed is a grain. Grass seed in general is a grain. Different grains have different protein, fiber, carbohydrate, etc. contents. Chickens have been eating grains for thousands of years as a preferred source of concentrated nutrients. Humans have been eating grains for thousands of years as a preferred source of concentrated nutrients. When my dogs eat grass, they seem to prefer the seeds. Generally, the higher up the food chain you are the more concentrated your food source is in nutrients. I once found a link that showed the differences in protein, calories, and such for a few of the common grains but was unable to find that again. Maybe after some more coffee. Anyway corn is lower in protein and higher in calories than some other grains.

Chickens that free range eat a lot of different foods. Grain in the form of seeds is a preferred source, but they eat so many different things that they pretty much get a BALANCED diet.

Commercial chicken feed has been developed to give confined chickens that eat nothing but that commercial chicken feed a BALANCED diet, whether that is a Layer for hens that are laying or the special feeds for meaties. Those feeds are designed to give them the most efficient mix in terms of cost but also to keep them healthy enough to lay or produce meat efficiently. You really don't HAVE to feed them anything else. If you feed them anything else, you are upsetting that balance. The general recommendation is that you feed only enough treats so that they can clean them up in 10 to 20 minutes so you don't upset that balance too much. When I keep mine confined I violate that a lot. For example, when I make saur kraut with home grown cabbage, I put enough of the outside cabbage leaves in the run to last them for over a day. They survive. I am not in it commercially so i don't over worry about efficiency.

Commercial chicken feed is a mix of different things to give the relative proportions of protein, fat, fiber, calcium, and other stuff they need. Corn is one of the things in the mix, but so are maybe soybean, wheat, sunflowers, and other things that have different relative amounts of protein, fats, etc. You can get that right mix without corn, but you can also get the right mix with corn and corn is a relatively cheap grain compared to some of the others, hence economic efficiency. So Chkinut, in my opinion, there is nothing wrong with having corn as part of that mix.

Now, my opinion on something else that I think is related and I've seen in this thread. It is about corn keeping chickens warm or heating them up. Animals higher up the food chain seem to like things that are higher in energy. Fat is generally preferred over lean meat. Grass seed has a higher concentration of fat, or should I say calories, than say a blade of grass. I think that is why chickens prefer grains over some other foods. You can get into all kinds of twisted thinking processes over whether they eat more or less in the winter over summer when they are or are not laying or molting, and whether they need more calories to keep warm. Will you allow me to just say they need calories in the winter to keep warm and not over-worry about whether they get the calories from fats or protein? (Yes, protein has calories in it, just not as much as fat) They use the calories for various things such as energy to walk or to keep warm. Once they have used the calories they need for their body functions, whether walking or keeping warm, they store excess calories as fat. Converting calories to fat is normal in a lot of animals to store energy for when it is hard to get in nature. If calories are never hard to get, such as with most of our chickens, they don't use that fat. Anyone that has processed pullets or hens has probably noticed a fat pad in the pelvic area that is usually not as pronounced in roosters. That is where hens store the extra fat. (As an aside, too much fat in the pelvic area can cause laying problems in hens and too much fat overall can cause fatty liver syndrome, but that is another thread)

Chickens are warm-blooded animals. I don't know what temperature they keep their body, but they use enough calories to keep their body temperature where it needs to be. Any excess calories then go to fat. So any excess calories fed to them above what they need will not heat them up, but they do need enough calories to keep them warm. Since they are usually not laying eggs in the winter and I don't think they use near as many nutrients to grow feathers when they are molting as when they lay eggs, I personally don't see a lot of reason to overfeed them with calories in the winter. Just my personal opinion.

Does feeding them corn just before bedtime help keep them warm? From a calorie viewpoint, I don't think so. But there is something else working and the comments way back (I believe by ON) in this thread about alcohol keeping you warm helps explain it in a fun way. When the body is cold, the blood concentrates in the core of the body to conserve heat, since the blood is better insulated in the body core than in the extremities. That's why combs and wattles are so susceptible to frostbite. When it is cold, the blood leaves them to reduce heat loss. Alcohol makes you feel warm because it caused the blood circulation to the extremities to increase, thus bringing the warm blood from your core to the extremities. But the warmed blood will lose its heat faster in the extremities thus causing your overall body temperature to drop and cause you to freeze to death faster. Where this comes into play on this topic is that a chicken normally likes corn. If you feed it corn just before it goes to bed, it will fill its crop with corn and digest that overnight. The process of digestion causes blood to concentrate in the well-insulated core of the chicken. This may have some beneficial effect, but if the chicken is cold, the blood is going to concentrate there anyway. I personally doubt it has any significant beneficial effect, but it may. I'm not going to tell anybody to quit doing that.

As far as corn heating a chicken up in the summer, a chicken is a warm-blooded animal. Once the energy needed is used to get it to the proper temperature, any excess calories will go to fat. There may be some effect with blood concentrating in the core for digestion if corn is fed just before bedtime and thus hurt a chickens chance to cool off, but night times are normally cooler here than the heat of the day. I personally don't think it will make any significant difference heat-wise. My concern with feeding corn or certain other things IN EXCESS is the health problems caused by overly fat chickens.

Please take this as only my opinion with just enough facts thrown in to really confuse things.

 

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

Quote:
This doesn't answer you question but I can say without any reservations that the use of GMO technology for combatting insect pests has made planting safer for the American Farmer. There is not need to use carcinogenic organophosphates to prevent infestations of rootworms and other pests.

Another benefit of the RR technology is the drastic reduction in erosion due to the wide spread adaptation of no-till cropping. On our farm we have not turned an acre of soil used for row crop production ans we don't intend to, we could not do this without the use of RR as it allows us to rid the fields of weeds without kiling the crop.

Jim

 

[Organics North]

Quote:
Ah yes the ideal farm from days of "old" (The 1980's before the small farmer was totally wiped out...

)

Yep we did that too... Letting cattle graze a harvested corn field is just a tad different than conditions in a "state of the art" CAFO.

Antibotics for slightly increased profit (growth rate) Sounds is a very bad idea... IMO contributes to the outbreaks we are seeing more frequently, because animals build up tolerance...

That is sick...

No wonder a growing amount of people are demanding change..

Ridgerunner...Nice post!
ON

 

[spartacus_63]

You're right about the diseases spreading- when thousands of birds are packed together inside a chicken house there's feces everywhere, they are crowded and stressed, and are much more susceptible to illness.

I do not defend how large poultry farms produce eggs, but they are not breaking any laws. Or at least they are not violating any laws regarding how chickens are allowed to be raised. I do not believe that some programs in my area use the best processes, but they are not my chickens. Keep in mind that poultry houses have bio-security regulations more stringent than other livestock. Also keep in mind that ALL poultry hatcheries (at least all I am aware of) will not allow you into their hatcheries. There is even a Conservancy Farm near me that sells heirloom seeds and poultry, because they participate in NPIP they can NOT allow visitors into areas where their chickens are.

It is the same with hog confinements. Pigs are highly susceptible to many diseases especially when raised in a sterile environment. To get into a hog confinement, you must go through a sterile process.

Do not believe everything your read...or watch on a video, produced for profit or to advance an agenda.

As for the burgeoning backyard/hobby food production, I'm not sure it is growing. Folks around here have been growing their own food since there have been folks here. It is my opinion that it is becoming more popular and chic. I do think it is better to eat home grown foods, not because BIG AG is bad, or because Frankenfood is going to cause my grand kids to have three eyes. Typically homegrown food is fresher and tastes better IMHO.

It is obvious to me that the anti hybrid and GMO seed folks have a bias. I support your right to that bias. I will not make any attempts to change your mind as those efforts are usually fruitless. All I will say about food safety is that if you are truly interested in the truth, dig into plant genetics and see how the DNA is manipulated and how certain parts of DNA do not effect produce. Although this IS rocket science, they have been doing this for 30 years that I know of. You can not compare this to tobacco. In fact, it is just the opposite. Tobacco was presumed safe and was proven unsafe. And the Government has required cigarettes be labeled as hazardous for longer than I have been alive. GMOs and super foods have been presumed unsafe and have had to prove that they are safe.

Expand your horizons and read both sides of the argument with an open mind. As Dr. Phil says, "no matter how flat the pancake...there are always two sides"​

 

[spartacus_63]

Quote:
Ah yes the ideal farm from days of "old" (The 1980's before the small farmer was totally wiped out...

)

Yep we did that too... Letting cattle graze a harvested corn field is just a tad different than conditions in a "state of the art" CAFO.

Antibotics for slightly increased profit (growth rate) Sounds is a very bad idea... IMO contributes to the outbreaks we are seeing more frequently, because animals build up tolerance...

That is sick...

No wonder a growing amount of people are demanding change..

Ridgerunner...Nice post!
ON

I'm not sure about Wisconsin, but here most small (family) farms that were wiped out in the 80's went under because they were over extended in credit at a time when land value dropped. It had nothing to do with Big Ag or any other conspiracy. Also I do not know of any Big Ag farms in my area. They are all owned by families. Some of these farms support three generations of the same family and definitely exceed the Obama definition of being rich, but they have worked the land for several generations, invested wisely and taken advantage of technologies available.

Antibotics for slightly increased profit (growth rate) Sounds is a very bad idea... IMO contributes to the outbreaks we are seeing more frequently, because animals build up tolerance...

It is hard for an animal to develop a tolerance to a drug when it's lifespan is 24 months or less. Those issues regarding super bugs are a completely different argument and it is about the bug building a tolerance, not the animal.

Ridgerunner, very nice post. One issue on nutrition;

Converting calories to fat is normal

As I understand it, Calories are a measure of heat. They are irrespective of fat or protein. The body will turn all unused energy source into fat. Fat is the body's primary energy reserve. The body converts food into what it needs by content and stores or excretes the rest. Calories and fats are apples and oranges.

My opinion on a full crop just before roost is that digestion requires energy. Energy produces heat.​