new research debunks trad views on nutrition

[Perris]

So if I were there I couldn't do what I always do with an egg that was cracked in the nest or dropped in the run and got dirtier than I wish to wash -- smash it against some hard surface in the coop or run for the chickens to eat.

And I'd have to bake the eggshells instead of just drying them?

Eggs and milk are allowed if they're not ex-catering facilities; if you follow the link to the whole page of guidance you'll se what's permitted too.

 

[Shadrach]

So if I were there I couldn't do what I always do with an egg that was cracked in the nest or dropped in the run and got dirtier than I wish to wash -- smash it against some hard surface in the coop or run for the chickens to eat.

And I'd have to bake the eggshells instead of just drying them?

It's the usual problem in the UK where government doesn't really understand the issues and want to be seen as doing something. Lots od foodstuffs fell under the ban as did lots of different keeping circumstances. I don't know many where I am that eat their birds, so it's only the eggs that matter and most are for personal consumption.

 

[saysfaa]

...

And the chicken feed industry is catching up with the human feed industry on these matters, so attempting to dismiss it as irrelevant won't wash either.

Or, maybe, the chicken feed industry is returning to what it once knew:

Here is a gem from the 1912 book "Principles and Practice of Poultry Culture by John H. Robinson
Link to text of the book
page 207
"...In practice, such an adjustment of rations to requirements of poultry is a much simpler matter than it seems when stated; for, as far as opportunity is given them, and hence nice judgment in feeding is not needed except to get results which, however profitable to the poultry keeper, and however necessary for his purpose, are inimical to the physical welfare of the birds (as in feeding young chickens for very rapid growth, or hens for great egg production, or in fattening poultry of any kind.). In reality, in such cases the feeder's object is not to feed a balanced ration but to get as far as possible from it in a particular direction."

Edit to correct spelling

 

[Perris]

That's one of my favourite old poultry books, and the selection you've quoted could not be more appropriate to our discussion.

 

[Perris]

government doesn't really understand the issues and want to be seen as doing something

it's the same with the AI rules. I had a long conversation with an APHA official about this last month, and he thinks the chief problem is that the govt.'s advisory panel is stuffed with people from the poultry industry, instead of with academics and avian health professionals such as him. Contemporary keeping practices - packing thousands of birds indoors together - is (and has long been) identified as one of the principal causes both of the disease emerging and its development and spread since - yet the advice requires those with small flocks who weren't doing it to do it too!

E.g. this from the Suarez paper Saysfaa found (but couldn't access) 'Avian influenza: our current understanding' 2010:19 : talking of the jump from wild waterfowl to chickens,
"The viruses typically are not well adapted to these new hosts and replicate and transmit poorly, resulting in dead end hosts. Therefore most introductions of virus into new hosts are often not recognized and rarely cause clinical disease (Suarez, 2000). However, in rare cases, avian influenza (AI) viruses can become adapted to the new host. Often our commercial animal rearing practices, which concentrate large numbers of susceptible animals in confined spaces, aid in the transmission of virus. Poor biosecurity can also facilitate transmission of viruses between different poultry farms. " The 'large numbers of susceptible animals' are the genetically fragile and genetically impoverished, effectively sterile, commercial poultry birds.

Do any govt rules anywhere require the poultry industry to de-intensify their operations as part of their AI prevention measures? Of course not.

 

[BDutch]

@Perris this was in our news today (translated from levende have with google):
ZOOs ARE ALLOWED TO VACCINATE AGAINST BIRD FLU; HOBBY POULTRY FARMERS NOT YET
17 MARCH 2023 - 11:06

Zoos with a vaccination plan against bird flu are allowed to vaccinate. The precondition is that they are affiliated with the Dutch Association of Zoos. Hobby poultry farmers have to wait until implementation bottlenecks have been resolved.

This is what Agriculture Minister Adema writes in a letter to the House of Representatives about the results of the research into vaccines. The vaccines that have passed the test successfully can only be used in chickens for the time being.

The bottlenecks that Adema refers to are the very strict requirements set by the European Commission for vaccination against bird flu. For example, a member state that is going to vaccinate must set up a so-called ''surveillance programme'', which involves high costs. Such a program means that the vaccinated poultry is regularly examined for the presence of virus.

Field trial with two vaccines
Adema is also waiting for the first results of a field trial that will be carried out with two vaccines (HVT-H5 from Ceva Sante Animale and from Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health). The tests in the laboratory with two so-called ''vector vaccines'' have gone well. They proved sufficiently effective in preventing virus transmission. The field trial can start after the summer, Adema announced. ''The trial itself will last more than a year, among other things to get an idea of how long chickens are still immune after vaccination. The results will come during the course of the field trial. I hope to get the first results on effectiveness before the end of this year. Data on the duration of immunity will become available in 2024 and 2025."

40% mortality despite vaccination with Nobilis vaccine
This could mean that hobby chickens - if all goes well - can be vaccinated at the end of this year, early next year. Around the coming summer, Adema expects the results of further research into the consequences of vaccination with vaccines that prevent the virus from spreading less effectively under field conditions. It is not expected that hobby poultry can be vaccinated with MSD's Nobilis vaccine, which is already registered in the Netherlands. This vaccine has been included in tests conducted so far. After administration of the Nobilis vaccine, 40% mortality of the infected animals and 30% mortality of the contact animals was seen, according to the study. Both HVT-H5 vaccines were found to be 100% effective in reducing morbidity and mortality after infection with the HPAI H5N1 virus. However, vaccination with Nobilis stopped the excretion of virus. ''After vaccination with MSD's Nobilis vaccine, the amount of virus shedding was significantly less than that of the unvaccinated control group. So despite the fact that the antigenic distance of the Nobilis vaccine to the current HPAI H5 clade 2.3.4.4b virus is relatively large, the vaccine was also partly effective for this aspect.''

Pilot on poultry farms
The commercial poultry industry will have to wait for the results of the field trial with the two selected HVT-H5 vaccines and the authorization of the vaccines on the European market. That is the responsibility of the pharmaceutical companies. Adema will prepare a vaccination program that can be implemented on a larger scale in the Netherlands. He indicates that he wants to do this step by step, starting with a pilot at several companies. Many things still need to be sorted out and settled. “It is not only about matters related to the vaccines, but also about the organization and implementation of a vaccination program, in which we carry out the pilot in accordance with the new European regulation,” says Adema. He wants the pilot to start at the end of this year.

 

[Perris]

@Perris this was in our news today (translated from levende have with google):
ZOOs ARE ALLOWED TO VACCINATE AGAINST BIRD FLU; HOBBY POULTRY FARMERS NOT YET
17 MARCH 2023 - 11:06

Zoos with a vaccination plan against bird flu are allowed to vaccinate. The precondition is that they are affiliated with the Dutch Association of Zoos. Hobby poultry farmers have to wait until implementation bottlenecks have been resolved.

This is what Agriculture Minister Adema writes in a letter to the House of Representatives about the results of the research into vaccines. The vaccines that have passed the test successfully can only be used in chickens for the time being.

The bottlenecks that Adema refers to are the very strict requirements set by the European Commission for vaccination against bird flu. For example, a member state that is going to vaccinate must set up a so-called ''surveillance programme'', which involves high costs. Such a program means that the vaccinated poultry is regularly examined for the presence of virus.

Field trial with two vaccines
Adema is also waiting for the first results of a field trial that will be carried out with two vaccines (HVT-H5 from Ceva Sante Animale and from Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health). The tests in the laboratory with two so-called ''vector vaccines'' have gone well. They proved sufficiently effective in preventing virus transmission. The field trial can start after the summer, Adema announced. ''The trial itself will last more than a year, among other things to get an idea of how long chickens are still immune after vaccination. The results will come during the course of the field trial. I hope to get the first results on effectiveness before the end of this year. Data on the duration of immunity will become available in 2024 and 2025."

40% mortality despite vaccination with Nobilis vaccine
This could mean that hobby chickens - if all goes well - can be vaccinated at the end of this year, early next year. Around the coming summer, Adema expects the results of further research into the consequences of vaccination with vaccines that prevent the virus from spreading less effectively under field conditions. It is not expected that hobby poultry can be vaccinated with MSD's Nobilis vaccine, which is already registered in the Netherlands. This vaccine has been included in tests conducted so far. After administration of the Nobilis vaccine, 40% mortality of the infected animals and 30% mortality of the contact animals was seen, according to the study. Both HVT-H5 vaccines were found to be 100% effective in reducing morbidity and mortality after infection with the HPAI H5N1 virus. However, vaccination with Nobilis stopped the excretion of virus. ''After vaccination with MSD's Nobilis vaccine, the amount of virus shedding was significantly less than that of the unvaccinated control group. So despite the fact that the antigenic distance of the Nobilis vaccine to the current HPAI H5 clade 2.3.4.4b virus is relatively large, the vaccine was also partly effective for this aspect.''

Pilot on poultry farms
The commercial poultry industry will have to wait for the results of the field trial with the two selected HVT-H5 vaccines and the authorization of the vaccines on the European market. That is the responsibility of the pharmaceutical companies. Adema will prepare a vaccination program that can be implemented on a larger scale in the Netherlands. He indicates that he wants to do this step by step, starting with a pilot at several companies. Many things still need to be sorted out and settled. “It is not only about matters related to the vaccines, but also about the organization and implementation of a vaccination program, in which we carry out the pilot in accordance with the new European regulation,” says Adema. He wants the pilot to start at the end of this year.

well I hope it goes better than it did in Egypt 2006-2010.

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0950268810003122 will give you some idea of the complications with and failures of AI vaccine programmes, even when nationally run, freely available, and relatively well supported with testing in state labs.

A couple of highlights in case you can't access it: "regular updates of the vaccinal strains in the face of antigenic drift of the H5N1 virus are needed annually or every 2 years to optimize the efficacy of these vaccines against the newly emerging variants...Suboptimal vaccination strategies, constant emergence of new infections and culling of poultry resulted in waste of resources and enhanced antigenic drift of the virus in both poultry and mammals..."

 

[3KillerBs]

It's the usual problem in the UK where government doesn't really understand the issues and want to be seen as doing something.

I'd say that's universal in any government of any type at any time.

Politicians want to grandstand and make people *think* they care so they'll do *anything* so as to be seen doing *something* despite the fact that doing *nothing* would be more effective.*

At current prices, the poultry industry cannot be profitable without intensive practices. If govement mandated extensive practices then most consumers could no longer afford to eat chicken. It took a long time to put "a chicken in every pot" (per Henry IV of France in 1598 and then Herbert Hoover in 1928) and it would all be undone overnight.

Exactly.

People are, of course, welcome to do what they wish with their own money, their own resources, and their own flocks and to pay any price they choose to pay for eggs and meat raised by the practices they advocate.

But it's a great moral wrong to try to eliminate the world's most efficient source of complete protein and turn chicken into a luxury treat that low income people will only be able to afford for holidays as it was in the past.

At the grocery store where I work, the organic/etc. chicken is up to $11/lb and going back to the "old ways' would raise that price considerably.

At that price I *might* be able to give my family chicken once or twice a year -- because today we *might* get steaks once a quarter at $8-9/lb. But also at my store, which is a mid-upper tier store but not the highest tier and definitely not discount, I can get ordinary chicken leg quarters for under $1.50/lb.

Thank God for so-called "factory farming" that I don't *have to* make one skinny cockerel feed the entire family. I've been there in my past. If I *chose* to go back myself, fine. But I have no right to force anyone else to go back with me.

Which, of course, doesn't mean that I don't want to keep my backyard flock in more old-fashioned, roomier conditions. One of my tasks today is to move the mobile fence to give them access to fresh green since they've done their job of cleaning up the weedy hillside we needed to have taken care of.

 

[Perris]

further to the theme of what's in 'grass' post #195, I think I've now identified the following in our lawn and borders and growing as weeds in gaps in hard landscapes: perennial ryegrass (the backbone of any lawn, usually), other as yet unidentified lawn grasses, burnet, campions, celandines, chamomile, clovers, cocksfoot, cowslips, cranesbill, crocuses, daisies (the chickens love little lawn daisy flowers), dandelions, docks, fescues, hawkweed, hemp agrimony, knapweed, lucerne/ alfalfa, medicks, mullein, plantains, self-heal, timothy, trefoils, wild garlic, yarrow, and lots of ferns, mosses, liverworts and lichens. And fungi, all sorts. Some of these get nibbled as greens, some as flowers (quite a lot of weed flowers actually), some as seeds, some as fruiting bodies (mushrooms). Some are said to have medicinal properties in old herbals. I have been able to find some info on the nutritional values for a handful, but it's rudimentary.

The chickens have decided what they like of this buffet through sampling and monitoring the consequences on their digestive system, and from watching each other. Deadly nightshade, foxgloves and a few other toxic plants also grow here, and the chickens knew to leave them alone without my intervention. They don't eat the bluebells either. There are other wild plants I've yet to identify or just forgotten from the list.

 

[Shadrach]

But it's a great moral wrong to try to eliminate the world's most efficient source of complete protein and turn chicken into a luxury treat that low income people will only be able to afford for holidays as it was in the past.

Nobody I can think of is trying to eliminate the world's most efficient source of complete protein, if chickens are in fact this, except perhaps the very people who are responsible for the intensive commercial concerns.
As for the moral aspect. Is it moral to abuse any species the way chickens have been abused over the last 100 years or so?

We don't have to eat chicken. There are other foodstuffs available.

Of course, I'm likely to have a rather different view because my interest is in the chickens welfare.