new research debunks trad views on nutrition

[Perris]

Why?
I never give sardines, cat food, meat or any processed animals to my chickens. The only not-plant stuf they ever get from me is dried mealworms or small crayfish in winter. In the summer they can find enough insects by themselves.

Having 8-9 year old healthy chickens is enough proof for me that chickens don’t need feed like sardines and cat food.

I give sardines, and yogurt, and milk-soaked bread and all the other things I do because I believe a varied diet is a good and natural thing, and since they can see what they're eating and select what to eat it, if they like it, why not?

I agree entirely that the proof is in the bird, and I'm sure yours do fine!

 

[Perris]

Focussing on concentrated chicken feed for a moment, a point that perhaps needs emphasis is that concentrates aim to supply everything a chicken needs in each and every mouthful.

Food availability doesn't work like that in nature. Animals eat different things, depending on the season, the habitat, local events like fire or flood or the death of an old tree or whatever. They have evolved to cope with shortages and gluts of everything they need (if they hadn't, they wouldn't be here now); they store some nutrients in fat, for example. Chickens that are allowed to free range will get some of that variety on offer to them, when it is on offer, depending on how often and on what they forage. Insects are plentiful in summer. Almost everything's short in late winter.

In supplementing forage, especially at those times of year when it's poor, you could try to supply something you know may be inadequate or missing from your environment (like selenium in the local soil, for example), or you can supply a wide variety of foods of different types, and trust that your chickens will take from it everything they need.

Protein can be supplied in lots of different ways: it's in grain, and in peas (together they supply all the amino acids (protein) a chicken needs minimally), in grass, in sardines, in milk, in mealworms etc. A concentrate aims to give a specific amount of protein (from sources unknown) in each bite.

Real food supplies a variable amount of protein (and actually, that's true of 'the same' food growing in different places or at different times of year) in its natural, whole form. Different foods supply different amounts of those amino acids that are protein. Sardines are just one of the ways I supply supplementary protein (especially in winter, or during molt, or to chicks and their broody), because besides the protein, there's a lot else in them, not least calcium. Milk scores well there too, for example.

It is not known what protein, fats or carbs are in most forage, as it has not been examined by the lab techs and the math heads, and won't be unless they think they can make a profit from it. And it is not necessary for them too. Their work is redundant outside a commercial chicken farm, where hens are locked in doors and depend entirely on their keepers to provide what they need. They think they've got it all sorted, but looking at 'spent hens', I don't think they do it very well.

 

[BDutch]

I give sardines, and yogurt, and milk-soaked bread and all the other things I do because I believe a varied diet is a good and natural thing, and since they can see what they're eating and select what to eat it, if they like it, why not?

I agree entirely that the proof is in the bird, and I'm sure yours do fine!

Yes, they sure do fine (except for one breed I had getting health problems after 4 years).
And yes how we feed our chickens is probably how we make choices for ourselves. Variety in food makes me happy, so I try to give my chickens some variety too.

I eat mostly vegetarian and eat organic if its not too unpractical or overwhelming expensive. The layer and grain mix I buy for the chickens are organic too. The garden they free range in is without pesticides and herbicides.
Choices both for personal/chicken health and a more balanced environment. Trying to minimise in the contribution of global warming too.

 

[Perris]

Trying to minimise in the contribution of global warming too

that's an additional benefit to eating (and feeding) minimally processed foodstuffs. A lot of energy (and cost) goes into drying, milling, mixing and shaping concentrated feeds.

 

[BDutch]

that's an additional benefit to eating (and feeding) minimally processed foodstuffs. A lot of energy (and cost) goes into drying, milling, mixing and shaping concentrated feeds.

And for some crops: cutting the rainforest, plowing, planting, fertilising (fabricating fertilisers contribute a lot to the greenhouse gasses) , adding poisons to block inwanted herbs in the gmo crops, harvesting, truck transport, shipping overseas, more transport…

 

[Perris]

The old school chicken feed recipes while interesting don't have the advantage of the knowledge regarding diet we have now.

Indeed. But they provide a strong set of shoulders to stand on. So I use what I find valid, and add what I've found elsewhere, from all times up to the present.

Sites like https://www.feedtables.com/ supply as much nutritional info as anyone could want on commercially available concentrates and meals, and

https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/ has the same for real food. Look up whatever you're thinking of feeding, e.g. sardine, and you can get the nutrient profile not just for generic tinned Atlantic (or Pacific) sardines in oil (or tomato sauce etc.) but even for any of 479 named brands!

 

[Perris]

Allow me to help you understand the reasoning a little bit.



First off, around here anything at the grocery store labeled "pastured" really has no usefully defined meaning. Nor does "cage free" or "free range." They may be what one might envision for those words, but there is no guarantee that they will be.

I have 4 hens. They are not there to save me money. I expect improved nutrition from them compared to what I buy from the grocery store ... but only marginally. I do expect them to be more fresh than what I can buy at a grocery store.

My primary purpose for having them is for the kids to have some exposure the source of their food. (I see a small element as self sufficiency in them. We've seen supply chain interruptions happen. Having a buffer against that is useful.) It's the same reason I garden. I don't grow enough to live off of. Heck, I'm in a constant battle with groundhogs and raccoons. Still, I can guarantee you that my kids would eat less vegetables if they didn't have the exposure of eating them fresh from the garden. Garden fresh asparagus and brussels sprouts are the best! My kids love brussells sprouts. Here in suburbia, if you asked all those graduating high school what the source of all purpose flour is, I would bet the majority could not tell you 'wheat.'

The chickens also function as pets for the kids. They enjoy playing with them. Chickens are a bit of a lesson in responsibility. And, they are among the easiest to care for animals I can think of.


Yes, they sure are expensive. Again, I see it like gardening. The eggs are like the $64 tomato.


I live on a 1/2 acre suburban lot. Local ordinances prohibit roosters, but even if they did not, it would be impractical to keep one. I'm trying to give the chickens the best life I can give them .... but they exist for me. I would love to let them free range all the time. But, it just is not practical. I would love a better, more natural food than all-flock pellets. But, again, it just isn't practical. I can guarantee you that my chickens are happier than those in most any commercial chicken farm.

I enjoy these threads so much, because I like to envision what other options may become practical at some point.

I think these are all fantastic reasons for keeping chickens as you do. I understand too the reasons to give all-flock pellets. I just hope you're not afraid to supplement them with any real foods you want to try by the notion that it would 'unbalance their ration'.

 

[3KillerBs]

I think these are all fantastic reasons for keeping chickens as you do. I understand too the reasons to give all-flock pellets. I just hope you're not afraid to supplement them with any real foods you want to try by the notion that it would 'unbalance their ration'.

Speaking for myself,

I give my birds all of the food prep and canning scrap, limiting only things that are salty, fatty, and/or made from empty carbs (bread, white rice, etc).

I also give them garden weeds and the results of the weekly fridge clean-out -- the unspoiled leftovers that are getting dried out or otherwise unappealing (in raising polite children I have periodically run into the problem of people being unwilling to take the last serving of something). They also get the carcasses of all chickens and turkeys that I roast and the stuff from the strainer after I make stock and have picked all that I care for from the bones.

On principle, I never buy people food specifically for chickens. We're not well-off and have been so poor that if the church hadn't fed us we wouldn't have eaten. Therefore I have a strong aversion to giving to animals things my own family could have eaten.

 

[Perris]

Speaking for myself,

I give my birds all of the food prep and canning scrap, limiting only things that are salty, fatty, and/or made from empty carbs (bread, white rice, etc).

I also give them garden weeds and the results of the weekly fridge clean-out -- the unspoiled leftovers that are getting dried out or otherwise unappealing (in raising polite children I have periodically run into the problem of people being unwilling to take the last serving of something). They also get the carcasses of all chickens and turkeys that I roast and the stuff from the strainer after I make stock and have picked all that I care for from the bones.

On principle, I never buy people food specifically for chickens. We're not well-off and have been so poor that if the church hadn't fed us we wouldn't have eaten. Therefore I have a strong aversion to giving to animals things my own family could have eaten.

Your last point is principled, and it's a good principle. But I'm not sure I see the difference when commercial feed is made of grain that could have been eaten by people (it is not just second grade stuff that goes into animal feed; see e.g. https://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat

Be aware that when you select out the fat, you're also selecting out the fat-soluble vitamins. That's vitamins A, D, E and K. D is necessary for processing calcium. Apparently inadequate calcium is a frequent theme on BYC. In some cases it may be inadequate vitamin D rather than calcium that is actually the problem, especially for birds that don't get out in the sunlight.

I'm glad you give your birds your food waste. It is currently illegal here thanks to a bureaucratic over-reaction to the stupid practices of a handful of people, but it's changing. There's a lot of useful resources here https://www.fao.org/nutrition/food waste

 

[3KillerBs]

Your last point is principled, and it's a good principle. But I'm not sure I see the difference when commercial feed is made of grain that could have been eaten by people (it is not just second grade stuff that goes into animal feed;

I'm in an agricultural area and know farmers who deliberately grow their crops for animal feed. Maybe it *could* be eaten by humans -- because we *could* live on a diet of corn, beans, cabbage, and whatever supplement is necessary to prevent pellagra and because the standards for what constitutes appropriate food for humans are very high in the modern west.

But just because we *can* exist at a bare subsistence level doesn't mean that we *should*.

My husband developed Type 2 diabetes in his 30's on our high-carb diet of many grains -- which I deliberately varied to the best of my ability due to my knowledge of the nutritional diseases that come with a restricted diet -- and little meat.

He was genetically predisposed to the problem and our "poverty diet" pushed him over the edge.

Be aware that when you select out the fat, you're also selecting out the fat-soluble vitamins. That's vitamins A, D, E and K. D is necessary for processing calcium. Apparently inadequate calcium is a frequent theme on BYC. In some cases it may be inadequate vitamin D rather than calcium that is actually the problem, especially for birds that don't get out in the sunlight.

I'm talking about things like the drippings from pork butt, the "rind" off a ham, things that have been deep-fried, and the like.