milk for chickens

[Michigan Chickman]

My Grandfather called it Moo Juice

 

[rynanne]

ok, old topic I know, but what does clabbering milk mean, and another weird question. A friend has a bunch of breast milk that has expired and I'd hate for it to just be thrown away. Could that be given to the chickens, clabbered, as is, or mixed with oatmeal or such?

Sorry if this grosses people out. I just hate to waste anything.

 

[galanie]

I guess you could give them the breast milk. I does sound sort of but I doubt it'd hurt them. Clabbered milk is pretty much just spoiled milk that already is kinda chunky.

 

[Luvmykiddos]

ok, old topic I know, but what does clabbering milk mean, and another weird question. A friend has a bunch of breast milk that has expired and I'd hate for it to just be thrown away. Could that be given to the chickens, clabbered, as is, or mixed with oatmeal or such?

Sorry if this grosses people out. I just hate to waste anything.

When I have excess breast milk, rather than throwing it away, I always give it to my animals. I let it sit at room temperature for a day and then give it to them. I have done this with my chickens recently without a problem. You could mix it in their food, I suppose, but I just give as is and they do the rest.

I also have raw grass-fed cow's milk, which I let sit out for a few days until the milk has completely soured into a thick texture with only a layer of whey on top. (Raw milk from the human breast won't do this. It will stay mostly runny.) My chickens go wild over this! Only just enough for each little belly you are feeding or they do get the runs.

After reading the rest of the post, I felt the need to comment further...

When giving milk that you are culturing on your own, only give SOURED RAW milk, because frozen, pasteurized, and homogenized will SPOIL. (Soured and spoiled milk are not the same.) You need raw milk (be it human, cow, goat or whatever mammal milk). Raw milk will have the necessary enzymes in place to do the souring. Without those enzymes, you will get spoiled milk that can produce harmful bacteria and make you sick (or worse). You could add enzymes to the milk sold in stores, but I'd only be willing to do that with organic brands, like Organic Valley.

Of course, you could let raw milk sour for too long and it will eventually spoil, but at its peak, it's a wonderful delight for human and animal consumption, in my experience.

 

[Barry Natchitoches]

I am fortunate enough to have access to fresh RAW MILK from grass fed cows.


When I do, I allow it to clabbor and then feed it to the chickens.


The chickens LOVE that "chunky" stuff. (It's about the consistancy of sour cream, but whereas store bought sour cream is pasturized, raw clabbored milk is not).


RAW clabbored milk is NOT difficult for chickens to digest -- quite the contrary, it is one of the easiest things on their digestive systems, next to chopped, boiled eggs.


My eggs are far superior because of feeding my layers milk, and their shells are so thick and strong that recently, a dozen of my chickens eggs survived a friend's car wreck. The carton of eggs was thrown clear across her car during the wreck, and yet -- not a single egg even cracked.


The cops investigating the accident could not believe how the eggs were tossed across the car and remained intact like that.


But it didn't surprise me. I can throw my chickens eggs on the ground, one at a time, and if they just hit the ground itself (and not a branch on the ground or something) they will almost always bounce or just land, instead of break.


That is what lots of RAW clabbored milk in a chicken's diet will do for their eggs!

 

[Barry Natchitoches]

I am fortunate enough to have access to fresh RAW MILK from grass fed cows.


When I do, I allow it to clabbor and then feed it to the chickens.


The chickens LOVE that "chunky" stuff. (It's about the consistancy of sour cream, but whereas store bought sour cream is pasturized, raw clabbored milk is not).


RAW clabbored milk is NOT difficult for chickens to digest -- quite the contrary, it is one of the easiest things on their digestive systems, next to chopped, boiled eggs.


My eggs are far superior because of feeding my layers milk, and their shells are so thick and strong that recently, a dozen of my chickens eggs survived a friend's car wreck. The carton of eggs was thrown clear across her car during the wreck, and yet -- not a single egg even cracked.


The cops investigating the accident could not believe how the eggs were tossed across the car and remained intact like that.


But it didn't surprise me. I can throw my chickens eggs on the ground, one at a time, and if they just hit the ground itself (and not a branch on the ground or something) they will almost always bounce or just land, instead of break.


That is what lots of RAW clabbored milk in a chicken's diet will do for their eggs!

 

[galanie]

That is the biggest misconception about milk: That raw and pasteurized are equally difficult to digest. They are not. Raw milk is very easy to digest.

 

[Weenlavs]

Chickens are about like pigs they can eat almost any thing! They have an ability to know what and what not to eat, r they older birds? Are they free range? I have seen people feed them cooked chicken! As for milk products it is great for them vitamin d calcium all the things that make it so good for u i would try to give them the organic as much as possible to aviod the stuff that could be harm ful.

 

[galanie]

If you've seen what I give my chickens you'd have seen someone feed them cooked chicken a lot! And beef, and any other meat scraps I might have.

 

[berserker]

As far as I have been able to experience chicken are cannibals. They will eat their coop mates feathers and skeen as well. However, I preffer to stick to chicken feed, grains, insects and grasses.