Is the La Bresse Way of Raising Chickens Scientifically Tested?

[OldSalty]

I understand that in France the La Bresse chickens are fed a diet that consists of milk and other diary products. Can chickens digest it? can they even make use of the contents of milk? I mean take snakes. There's this time of the year that people in India feed milk to snakes but they can't digest it and usually end up dying. I've read somewhere else that chickens don't even HAVE the right enzymes to digest milk but surely it won't harm them right? I mean they've been doing it for ages in France. Would it be safe for me to try it at home with my La Bresse?

 

[igorsMistress]

I would think it could give them diarrhea if they're not used to it, but people give yogurt cheese etc all the time.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Feeding of maize with dairy to breese is ONLY done prior to butchering. It's not healthy but is a method of fattening and preparing the meat prior to slaughter. They are put in fattening sheds where there are rows of cages to restrict movement and given this diet.

 

[lazy gardener]

Ah, France: where abuse of livestock in the name of gourmet food is a common occurrence. Must be done by the same folks who thought up Foie Gras. (I'm not implying that our factory farm methods are any less cruel.)

 

[hooktontravel]

i had no idea this was a thing. from what I was just reading it doesn't sound like they're force fed at all, just allowed free choice of the mash and kept in confinement to add fat and let the muscle get less-tough... I feel a lot better about that than tube-feeding birds for foie gras (which just seems completely disgusting anyway so why bother) and our commercial broiler and egg-production processes in the USA which are horrible for the birds and the humans who have to work there.
I'm considering picking up a couple American Bresses to keep as a flock to produce meat. I wouldn't be epinette-ing them, but i would seriously consider caponizing if I knew how!

 

[Clauzon]

I understand that in France the La Bresse chickens are fed a diet that consists of milk and other diary products. Can chickens digest it? can they even make use of the contents of milk? I mean take snakes. There's this time of the year that people in India feed milk to snakes but they can't digest it and usually end up dying. I've read somewhere else that chickens don't even HAVE the right enzymes to digest milk but surely it won't harm them right? I mean they've been doing it for ages in France. Would it be safe for me to try it at home with my La Bresse?

I had read that they use cultured buttermilk and somewhere else use raw milk. I have fed my chickens homemade milk Kefir and they love it and they can tolerate it because the fermentation removes the lactate from it which they cannot digest. I would suggest cultured buttermilk along with non-gmo corn as a finishing feed a month prior to butchering.