Meat eating RIR

[peeboo]

all of my chickens are meat lovers. they kill snakes once in a while. love stealing neighbor's cat food. and from time to time try to steal the occasiona mcdonald's burger out of my hand and sometimes succeed.

 

[jeremy]

Quote:
And so layer crumble comes from a ... tree? You don't think all the our agricultural practices both directly and indirectly "mess with the food chain"?

Well obviously, food consumtion/production entirely is about as messed up as it could be (i just read the omnivore's dilemma.) for animals and humans alike.

But trees are still a plant form, to me that seems like something a chicken should be eating. Our chickens jump up and eat leaves from our peach trees all the time!

 

[babyspice35]

HMMMM, I wouldn't want my chickens to eat something that may have had a disease...

I'm sure that in their native jungle chickens were among the scavengers once the tigers and other top predators had eaten their fill of their kills.

I have a wild chicken, in fact I think the new one was/is a wild one as well, turned into the humane society... anyways [ chickens are wild here] I also have a very small mouse in my coop. It's been there for a couple weeks now, and neither one of my wild chickens have killed it... and they are faaast! Never even chased after it. They prefer stratching at bugs and eating grass. They rarely eat the processed food. I would presume the above quote is true, but I doubt that they were hunters.. just scavengers.​

 

[AnnieOakley379]

Mine like to hunt frogs (& God knows what else when I'm not looking). I also feed them meat scraps occasionally, & they're doing really well.

 

[Chickens n' more]

Quote:
As far as disease goes, I dont actually catch mice/rats and feed them too my chickens. They free range all day so there is no telling what they are finding out there to eat!!

We live way out in the sticks with farmers fields all around us so there are LOTS of bugs, mice, rats, snakes, and etc that they can feast on. I dont have to worry about rat poison because I dont use it. I have not lost a chicken in 3 years, so they must be doing okay.

 

[SandyRiverChick]

Chickens n' more :

Quote:
As far as disease goes, I dont actually catch mice/rats and feed them too my chickens. They free range all day so there is no telling what they are finding out there to eat!!

We live way out in the sticks with farmers fields all around us so there are LOTS of bugs, mice, rats, snakes, and etc that they can feast on. I dont have to worry about rat poison because I dont use it. I have not lost a chicken in 3 years, so they must be doing okay.

Agree with your logic and jealous of your "stick life" we are hoping to do the same next spring... suburbia has actually developed itself AROUND US (self sufficient page has the whole story)... As such, my neighbor (the only other person on 1 acre) lost a dog to poisoning, her new pleasantville neighbors didnt like him and feed him rat poisoning, very sad... You just never know what you're going to get with many peoples on the other sides of your property. My dog came walking over to me with a croissant the other day (sure didnt get it from me)!!​

 

[zoomia]

Quote:
And so layer crumble comes from a ... tree? You don't think all the our agricultural practices both directly and indirectly "mess with the food chain"?

Well obviously, food consumtion/production entirely is about as messed up as it could be (i just read the omnivore's dilemma.) for animals and humans alike.

But trees are still a plant form, to me that seems like something a chicken should be eating. Our chickens jump up and eat leaves from our peach trees all the time!

But my point remains the same, which is that if you're going make the argument that one should only feed chickens the types of food they should be able to get themselves, you should ALSO not be feeding them pretty much any commercial food designed for chickens either.

For instance, here are the ingredients for the McGeary Organics mash:

Ingredients: Corn*, Mechanically Extracted Soybean Meal*, Wheat*, Wheat Middlings*, Kelp*, Dried Lactobacillus Fermentation Product, Dried B. Subtillus Fermentation Product, Yeast Culture, DL-Methionine, Vitamin A Supplement, AD3 Supplement, Vitamin E Supplement, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Calcium Pantothenate, Biotin, Folic Acid, Choline Chloride, Pyrodoxin Hydrochloride, Vitamin Vitamin B12 Supplement, Niacin, Vitamin K Supplement, Salt, Potassium Magnesium Sulfate, Manganese Sulfate, Ferrous Sulfate, Copper Sulfate, Zinc Sulfate, Selenium, Cobalt Carbonate, Calcium Iodate, Dicalcium Phosphate, Lime
(*Certified Organic Feed Products)

'Cause I'm pretty sure that a chicken couldn't mechanically extract soybean meal or process wheat middlings, or take a road trip to the ocean to get some kelp, or set up a lab where all the vitamins are made.

 

[wombat]

I would never feed them carrion, but let them eat whatever they catch, or anything that I've got some idea where it came from ... i.e. I'd feed them my leftover beef table scraps in moderation, but not some unidentified animal protein or whatnot.

Btw - Small amounts of canned cat food are good for layers recovering from molting.

 

[onedozenphyllises]

Mine love meat more than anything else. They get very limited handouts of leftover meat when I have some (but never chicken meat), and whatever they catch for themselves is of course fair game. They all go nuts when they catch a frog.

 

[featherpants]

Interesting topic.. I have to comment on this. When I lived out in the country, and had chickens, one day, I walked into my backyard, and noticed a dead possum. I didn't give the carcass much thought after that. It was just a dead animal, after all, and I presumed it would eventually decay, passing its nutrients back into the earth.. What I didn't realize, is that chickens are indeed scavengers, and will eat most anything. Later that day, I noticed my free ranging birds gathered around the carcass, scratching and pecking like crazy! When I went out to look, all that was left of the possum, were bits and pieces of fur! All the flesh was gone! And if it hadn't been for the fur covering them, I'm sure I would have seen just skeletal remains! The chickens had indeed retained some part of their ancestral behavior, back when they were velociraptors, and the like. Gives one something to think about when asked if it "tastes like chicken".