milk for chickens

[Beekissed]

I'm doing a batch of 50 meaties right now on buttermilk, fermented chick starter and unpasteurized ACV in their water. They've been on this since they came three days ago and, guess what? No stinky, yellow, diarrhea that is so typical of CX. Normal chick poops! They are also eating it like it was Krispy Kremes!

After the 2nd week I'll stop the buttermilk and continue with the other cultured items in my regimen and I'll let you know how the meat tastes later.....

 

[Erica]

I'm using kefir in place of medicated starter. Appears to have about the same effectiveness as commercial coccidiostat but seems to improve growth.

cheers
Erica

 

[galanie]

The chicks I have right now won't eat the kefir! Silly things. But I find they do really well with unfiltered ACV in the water. The ones I raised before with it in there did very well, grew faster than any I'd raised before that. I may try buttermilk.

 

[take2tabs]

The Bresse chicken ("The Queen of chickens, fit for a King") is routinely fed MILK later in its life to help add fat to the meat, and therefore better flavor. It is renowned as the World's Best-Tasting Chicken. Also, the bread you give to your chickens can easily contain milk. They do fine with milk.

 

[take2tabs]

...but they HATE weak cocktails...

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Back during those thrilling organic days of yesteryear, when men and women like their chickens were omnivores, the farm wife kept a slop bucket underneath the kitchen sink or table and the excess buttermilk, whey, food scraps, mastitus tainted milk, spoiled milk, cladder etc, it all ended up in this slops bucket. Shelled feed corn or corn meal was also often added. This slop was mostly intended for the pigs or fattening hogs but a tin pan full was always poured out in the yard for the hens. They loved it. A careful reading of the guaranteed analysis or ingredient tag will reveal lactose as one of the ingredients in chicken food.

Just as the ingredient list in Mr. Hugh Pipers book on choosing, raising, and showing chickens shows because he listed the nutrient values of various foods that were commonly fed to chickens when his book was first published in London in 1877. Some how chickens survived ingesting poisonous milk for the intervening 138 years.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/38606/38606-h/38606-h.htm#CHAPTER_XIII

MDCCCLXXVII ?1877?​

There is in every
100 lbs. of Flesh-
forming
Food. Warmth-giving
Food. Bone-
making
Food. Husk
or
Fibre. Water.
Gluten,
&c. Fat or
Oil. Starch,
&c. Mineral
Substance

Oats​

15 6 47 2 20 10

Oatmeal​

18 6 63 2 2 9

Middlings or fine Sharps​

18 6 53 5 4 14

Wheat​

12 3 70 2 1 12

Barley​

11 2 60 2 14 1

Indian Corn​

11 8 65 1 5 10

Rice​

7 a trace 80 a trace -- 13

Beans and Peas​

25 2 48 2 8 15

Milk​

4½ 3 5 ¾ -- 86¾​

"Barley is more generally used than any other grain, and, reckoned by weight, is cheaper than wheat or oats; but, unless in the form of meal, should not be the only grain given, for fowls do not fatten upon it, as, though possessing a very fair proportion of flesh-forming substances, it contains a lesser amount of fatty matters than other varieties of corn. In Surrey barley is the usual grain given, excepting during the time of incubation, when the sitting hens have oats, as being less heating to the system than the former. Barley-meal contains the same component parts as the whole grain, being ground with the husk, but only inferior barley is made into meal.
Wheat of the best description is dearer than barley, both by weight and measure, and possesses but about one-twelfth part more flesh-forming material, but it is fortunate that the small cheap wheat is the best for poultry, for Professor Johnston says, "the small or tail corn which the farmer separates before bringing his grain to market is richer in gluten (flesh-forming food) than the full-grown grain, and is therefore more nutritious." The "Henwife" finds "light wheats or tailings the best grain for daily use, and next to that barley."
Oats are dearer than barley by weight. The heaviest should be bought, as they contain very little more husk than the lightes*" (original spelling)

 

[barneveldrerman]

The problem with giving your hen milk is their digestive system cant handle dairy products very well. So it would probably not be so good to give your chickens dairy products often!

 

[take2tabs]

Although milk is given to Bresse chickens as part of the REQUIRED regimen, I have read that goat's milk or mare's milk is easier for them to digest. In any case, milk is fed to those chickens. Mine were surprised by milk but took it better once I tossed I some bread crumbs. It looks like yogurt is a much better choice, though.

 

[barneveldrerman]

Although milk is given to Bresse chickens as part of the REQUIRED regimen, I have read that goat's milk or mare's milk is easier for them to digest. In any case, milk is fed to those chickens. Mine were surprised by milk but took it better once I tossed I some bread crumbs. It looks like yogurt is a much better choice, though.

Yes it is easier for chickens to digest goats milk or mare's milk. But I am still cautious about giving them yogurt.

 

[enola]

Even not being a vegan I find cow milk disgusting.  You know majority of our milk in the US wouldn't even pass as drinkable in the UK...  It's pretty nasty stuff when you really break it down.  It's also not that healthy despite all the claims of the dairy industry.  I use goat or soy milk.  I've been debating getting myself some goats so I can avoid the commercially produced milk completely.  About like comparing store bought eggs to fresh eggs from someone's true free range flock.

I spent 2+ weeks in Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Lichtenstein and Austria. I for one can tell you that their milk is disgusting. The roasted chicken was beyond delicious, but I avoided the milk like poison.