Is this diet OK for Chickens?

[DorothyH]

I will admit that I'm not ultra-clean with my foods; once I'm a little more settled, everything they get will be from my own farm and organic.

The mealworms were dehydrated and store bought, so no problem with being too big. I could say to myself, "those mealworms are ****! Don't feed them that garbage!" ... but hey, it still beats feeding them corn and soy and calling it a day, right? I hope to have enough land soon so that I don't have to supplement bugs, they will find their own.

The eggs were store bought (Costco) and came hard-boiled. Again, the "why conventional eggs?! Don't you know what those chickens eat?!" ..... still better than corn and soy and garbage "chicken feed"

I would only dice (almost blend, really) the harder veggies; if it was soft fruit or leafy greens, I gave it to them whole and let them figure it out.... and they did. Even as chicks they would peck away at berries, heads of lettuce, etc. Mind you I waited a couple weeks before the big fruits and big veggies... for the first 2 weeks it was pretty much mealworms, eggs, and kale.

I'm in Arizona, I'll have to look up the fly you are talking about

Oh - please don't get me wrong! I feed my chickens an extreme diet and I don't judge anyone for doing things differently. It just have found that people don't know that they have another choice is all. If you don't eat raw egg yolks you might not even know that the dehydrated are different than the fresh. That's why I mentioned it. The dehydrated ones actually sound quite useful for chicks since they aren't laying and the live big ones wouldn't work. I was thinking that I might have to raise crickets to get bugs small enough for babies.

Everything is relative and everyone has to make choices based upon finances, time and goals. I do what I do so that I don't have to cull and that I can eat the yolks raw and have them taste the best for me. I have a very sensitive palate.

It's a pretty radical idea to feed a chicken their raw species specific diet. The reason I replied at first at all is because you seem almost there and are doing something pretty radical too. I was impressed!

 

[DorothyH]

Nothing wrong with feeding beef and or beef by products to your chickens, they'll thank you for it.

However I would like a link concerning the 30% protein content of soaked seeds.

I am glad you feed boiled egg whites to your chickens but I am perplexed that you don't feed them the whole boiled egg. What besides the decreased methionine content of egg yoke or yellow is your rational for not feeding whole eggs back to your chickens?

Um - huh?

I didn't write that I feed boiled egg whites to my chickens. That indeed would be perplexing. I never said anything about a decreased methionine content of egg yolk either. I also would never feed my chickens beef by-products. As I said in a previous post I feed the raw whole GRASS-FED cow meat. I eat the yolks raw and give back to the chickens the whites and eggshells that I put in my dehydrator at a low temp so they are unheated in order to help provide methionine and minerals to the chickens. If I wanted to eat the whites I would provide whey for methionine. I actually would still like to source some good raw grass-fed fermented whey again because that just seems like such good food for them even in protein and mineral content.

You can look up the protein content of sprouts yourself if you like. I did that research ages ago. Different sprouts actually have different protein contenst but the max seems to be at around 30% if I remember right. But no matter - whatever the protein content it's not enough to keep my chickens laying all year and never stopping into their old age. They seem to need more. Sprouting definitely increases the protein content though. I read that many times over when I was researching sprouting for myself 30 years ago and then lots of times since. I sprout mostly to get rid of enzyme inhibitors and increase life force. Soaked seeds are so much better than ground up seeds even if they aren't heated as the fats denature so quickly when ground. I learned that from Johanna Budwig who discovered omega 3 and 6 fatty acids as well as saturated and unsaturated fats and won a nobel prize back in the 50's. She said not to eat ground flax seeds more than 10 minutes after they are ground because of what happens to the fats. I noticed that it's quite true. Sprouting seeds makes such a big difference for me so I figured that it would also make a difference for birds and it seems to in my experience.

Does that make it clearer?

I should also say in case you didn't catch it - how this all started was that I was trying to suggest to the original poster when they asked if anything seemed to be missing from their chicken diet that methionine looked to be missing to me and was giving suggestions on ways to provide that nutrient naturally. That's why the talk about egg whites and whey.

Cheers,
Dorothy

 

[pdirt]

Dorothy, thanks again for sharing your methods and "recipe". Where are you located? I think we'd have fun playing with sprouted and fermented things for chickens. I am going to see if I can find a source of grass fed whey.

 

[DorothyH]

Dorothy, thanks again for sharing your methods and "recipe". Where are you located? I think we'd have fun playing with sprouted and fermented things for chickens. I am going to see if I can find a source of grass fed whey.

I think we would have fun too! I live in Texas atm - Austin. Do you have a private plane by any chance?

 

[pdirt]

Ah, we'll, long ways from here. Nearest city is Spokane, wa. No private plane...yet. Though we do look upon a sleepy airstrip and about 100 grass fed cattle (not ours).

 

[canSttent]

Oh - please don't get me wrong! I feed my chickens an extreme diet and I don't judge anyone for doing things differently. It just have found that people don't know that they have another choice is all. If you don't eat raw egg yolks you might not even know that the dehydrated are different than the fresh. That's why I mentioned it. The dehydrated ones actually sound quite useful for chicks since they aren't laying and the live big ones wouldn't work. I was thinking that I might have to raise crickets to get bugs small enough for babies.

Everything is relative and everyone has to make choices based upon finances, time and goals. I do what I do so that I don't have to cull and that I can eat the yolks raw and have them taste the best for me. I have a very sensitive palate.

It's a pretty radical idea to feed a chicken their raw species specific diet. The reason I replied at first at all is because you seem almost there and are doing something pretty radical too. I was impressed!

awe shucks, thanks!

For real though, thank you. Of all the farms I hear about, local and abroad, where they brag (and it's a good thing) about pastured chickens and organic feed... it's all great.... but that isn't the hens evolutionary diet, that's a forced diet. Even down the road from me is a small organic farm, chickens eat all sorts of yummy produce, but then are fed grain, corn, and soy. Their feathers look like crap, the eggs are OK (better than store bought I guess), and the birds are not big, bright, or shiny. I asked the farmer if he ever feeds meat to his hens, he looked at me like I was nuts.

 

[chiknhurder]

I didn't read all of the other comments completely through but if you're feeing meats to your birds (you mentioned turkey), be sure they aren't processed. All deli meats (turkey, chicken, roast beef, ham) are processed. Also, corn is good in their diet, especially during cold weather to help them stay warm. I feed an organic, non-soy mix feed that contains feeder oats, soft white wheat, hard red wheat, corn, flax, lentils, split peas, sesame seed, kelp granules and cottonseed oil and they clean it up.

 

[DorothyH]

We have very different ideas about feeding and I understand that you didn't want to spend the time reading my posts as they have been lengthy - that is if you are even indeed responding to me at all because I never mentioned feeding my chickens turkey or any kind of by-products or lunch meats or anything like that at all. I repeated a second time that I feed RAW GRASS-FED GROUND UP WHOLE COW. In the winter I feed RAW SUET FROM GRASS-FED COWS to keep the chickens warm which I feel is superior to corn which is so hard to get non-gmo these days. I also would never eat myself or give any of my animals cottonseed oil.

I'm not the original poster so perhaps you are responding to them? If you are responding to me I respectfully request that you go back and actually read my posts so that we can have a conversation - if that's what you would like that is. Your suggestions however make little to no sense to me in context of the conversation I'm already having here.

I do appreciate your desire to be helpful though - no matter who it is that you are trying to help!

 

[DorothyH]

awe shucks, thanks!

For real though, thank you. Of all the farms I hear about, local and abroad, where they brag (and it's a good thing) about pastured chickens and organic feed... it's all great.... but that isn't the hens evolutionary diet, that's a forced diet. Even down the road from me is a small organic farm, chickens eat all sorts of yummy produce, but then are fed grain, corn, and soy. Their feathers look like crap, the eggs are OK (better than store bought I guess), and the birds are not big, bright, or shiny. I asked the farmer if he ever feeds meat to his hens, he looked at me like I was nuts.

Yep - This cool old farmer was telling me how in the old days they used to leave an entire dead cow out for the chickens. Now they brag about "vegetarian fed chickens". I think POOR CHICKENS! Ha. Those hens won't live more than a couple of years and then the chickens THEMSELVES will become meat for another animal (meaning probably humans) and their couple of years of life are going to be hard. Popping out the perfect protein and all that fat in those yolks every day on nothing but grain corn and soy - even if they free-range - that's gotta be a tough business!

But again - it's all relative right? It's better than what's at the stores because at least the chickens are getting some bugs and fresh grasses and greens in the pasture. What some people call pastured though can be pretty silly. I've seen "pastured" chickens on ground with not one stalk of grass or bug on it.

It all depends on your what your criteria are for your own diet and what your situation is. With my diet and my situation I was absolutely beyond delighted to have figured this stuff out. I can't believe the difference in my eggs and my chickens and it's been worth the effort and the cost for me. I don't think what I do would be possible for anyone selling their eggs because they would not be able to compete with the super cheap eggs that are everywhere to be found. What I do is for pet chickens like I do for my pet dogs and cat that eat a raw species specific diet and like I try to eat myself. It would make a poor business though and I refuse to take in even ONE more chicken more than I actually need because of the cost. There are definite trade-offs. Once I get the black soldier fly production really in gear I will be able to cut out most of the expensive meat I feed them and then the way I feed will actually be cheaper than buying even the best chicken food and that will be nice. But then that also takes EFFORT - so what I do no matter what is costly in either time or money. I wouldn't be too hard on that farmer because the nature of our food chain now is such that a small farmer simply cannot afford to do things the way our food "should" or used to be. If he even lets his chickens run around in a field to find bugs at all that's pretty rare these days - sad as that is.

 

[DorothyH]

Ah, we'll, long ways from here. Nearest city is Spokane, wa. No private plane...yet. Though we do look upon a sleepy airstrip and about 100 grass fed cattle (not ours).

We have to work out something with that neighbor of yours.

Do you get some good food from that farmer? Sounds like a nice place to live.