new research debunks trad views on nutrition

[Sally PB]

Thanks for the information.

The chemical PFAS is very prevalent in Michigan. I have not had my water or soil tested, as if it's there, I'm stuck with it. We're not moving.

 

[Perris]

This had me thinking of an article that just expired on Mercola.com.
Forever Chemicals Found in 88% of Kale Tested

Fortunately, I saved it to PDF, now attached for your reading pleasure.

The sample size is ridiculously low. But it still has some good information that can make one pause to think and appreciate home gardening.

that's quite depressing. It does, however, make an important distinction between backyard and industrial chicken keeping processes and problems:

"When chickens are raised on pasture, their manure is spread across the land and worked into the soil naturally via pecking and scratching. This beneficial practice that works in concert with nature bears little resemblance to the use of poultry litter — or chicken feces, sometimes mixed with urine, sawdust, feathers and other materials — and other CAFO animal waste as fertilizer. Yet, this latter practice is common, even among some organic farms. Chicken litter used as an organic fertilizer is considered “the cheapest and most environmentally safe method of disposing of the volume generated from the rapidly expanding poultry industry worldwide.” But a review, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, raises an important point — “little is known about the safety of chicken litter for land application and general release into the environment.” In addition to being contaminated with pathogenic strains of E. coli, avian influenza and salmonella, chicken litter contains antibiotics, pesticide residues and heavy metals, along with PFAS."

 

[Molpet]

Thanks for the information.

The chemical PFAS is very prevalent in Michigan. I have not had my water or soil tested, as if it's there, I'm stuck with it. We're not moving.

They found it in ice in the artic

 

[Shadrach]

I was thinking the exact same thing.
Mine are going through a grass phase right now. I assume the early shoots are particularly yummy. The way they rush for it in preference even to a hung cabbage (normally a fan favorite) makes me think there is some nutrient in new grass that they are craving.

Some grasses have much more nutrition in them than one might think. I've been quite surprised at the numbers produced in some studies. The more the possible nutrition from forage gets studied the easier it is to understand how chickens have survived for so long.

 

[Shadrach]

I ran across one maybe two months ago (caveat, was a VERY short list) for some common pasture grasses. I've had to research weeds individually, and found the information to be both inconsistently available and largely incomplete. Unfortunately.

/edit and on that thought, i really need to eat lunch before getting back to work!

There is always the problem of growing conditions. On relatively common crops such as wheat the type and the growing conditions produce large variations in the nutrient content. I found some wheat with 8% protein while the spelt I feed the allotment chickens is 17%. This must be true for most plants and crops.

 

[Shadrach]

This had me thinking of an article that just expired on Mercola.com.
Forever Chemicals Found in 88% of Kale Tested

Fortunately, I saved it to PDF, now attached for your reading pleasure.

The sample size is ridiculously low. But it still has some good information that can make one pause to think and appreciate home gardening.

It's depressing, not just in the fact that these chemicals and particles are so widely spread; more concerning is we really don't know the long term consequences.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

There is always the problem of growing conditions. On relatively common crops such as wheat the type and the growing conditions produce large variations in the nutrient content. I found some wheat with 8% protein while the spelt I feed the allotment chickens is 17%. This must be true for most plants and crops.

Growing conditions, location, time of year, number of prior cuttings, sometimes rainfall rates...

Its part of why you can make reasonable, informed, guestimates about the approximate value of one's pasture, but you can't be certain, and you have to accept that it will vary seasonally.

About the only thing you can be certain of is that if your grounds are deficient, your crops are likely to be lower value than average - as seen when comparing wheat grown in selenium deficient areas of the country with the same crop grown in more selenium rich areas. I.e. SE Washington v upper Midwest.

 

[Morrigan]

It's not surprising that fresh growing things are good for chickens. Of course, wiithout access to sophisticated resources and testing, it's impossible to really know exactly what the nutritional content is for the extras you give them. But, on a practical level, I try not to get too bogged down in making sure I'm only giving them exactly the best things in the exact correct proportion. I don't do that for myself.

I do try to give my chickens the broadest access to different food sources as is feasible for me. I then let them choose what to eat and watch what happens. What do the chickens eat? How are they doing over the weeks, months, years. That's all I can really do.

Since my chickens are yarded, not truly free-ranged, a good proportion of what they have access to is whatever I put in there for them. I put in whatever weeds, excess garden produce and table scraps I have. I let them pick through it all.

I also sprout wheat, barley and BOSS and give them a ration of that daily as part of their regular feed. I've never had a chicken that's not really, really interested in that.

 

[Shadrach]

I do have some studies on forage that has some information on the nutrients in various grasses and common weeds. I found the best places to look were cattle and sheep farming related studies.

PROTEIN
The protein in any feed can be divided into the quantity and quality of the protein. The quantity of protein in grass varies typically from 16-28%, depending on the sward type, growth stage, fertiliser regime and time of the year. Occasionally, protein levels in grass dip as low as 11-12%.
This can happen during a period of stress on the grass plant e.g. a drought. Quality of protein is defined by the PDI system. This system accounts for the quantity of protein that can be utilised by the animal i.e. not all protein in a feedstuff is utilisable by the animal.

https://www.teagasc.ie/media/website/animals/dairy/Whats_in_Grass_Todays_Farm_May2014.pdf

A ruminants digestive system is of course not the same as a humans but the chickens digestive system has a similar function to ruminants in that it can return foodstuffs from the gizzard to the proventriculus for further digestive treatment with various enzymes.
How much nutrition can a chicken extract from grass I don't know but it is apparent that they eat it.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...fluence-it-may-have-on-feeding-regimes.79124/

What I have found suprising is the protein content (complete or otherwise) in the grasses covered in the studies for ruminants.

What is also interesting is the differing views on how much protein a chicken needs. Here in the UK high production breeds are fed a 16% protein diet and they seem to fare well enough on it for the commercial concerns to use feeds with such protein content.
Chickens don't just eat grass when foraging. The range of what they eat is quite surprising and if a prefered or more nutritious forage option isn't available they'll eat the next best option.
All the chickens I've cared for dig and exactly what they eat from below the ground surface isn't well studied.

There is of course a wide variation in the nutriant profile in worms, but this link will do to make a point and that point is even from a brief investigation it is apparent that the nutrition available from forage above and below ground can easily surpass that in commercial feeds.

https://eorganic.org/node/8103

In these what to feed debates one often gets dire warnings about long term health consequences of not feeding what the commercial feed producers state is a balanced diet. It's hardly surprising that these long term health issues are unproven and from what I've read, are essentially fear mongering.
One of the favourite scares is that treats/forage and just about anything with a higher fat content than commercial feeds will cause fatty live syndrome or water belly. I haven't seen an explanation yet on why one can take a group of chickens fed on the same diet with a higher fat content and not find they all sufffer from the above ailments. Perhaps such ailments have a genetic predisposition factor that isn't account for.
In a ten year period of caring for free range chickens not a single chicken suffered from fatty liver syndrome or water belly, not one, and they ate lots of high fat foods.
Not all fats are harmfull. It seems that saturated fats can be a problem if eaten in excess but other types of fat are in fact required for health.
It would be informative if for every case of fatty liver syndrome/water belly detailed information on the keeping conditions of the birds was well documented.

 

[RoyalChick]

I do have some studies on forage that has some information on the nutrients in various grasses and common weeds. I found the best places to look were cattle and sheep farming related studies.

PROTEIN
The protein in any feed can be divided into the quantity and quality of the protein. The quantity of protein in grass varies typically from 16-28%, depending on the sward type, growth stage, fertiliser regime and time of the year. Occasionally, protein levels in grass dip as low as 11-12%.
This can happen during a period of stress on the grass plant e.g. a drought. Quality of protein is defined by the PDI system. This system accounts for the quantity of protein that can be utilised by the animal i.e. not all protein in a feedstuff is utilisable by the animal.

https://www.teagasc.ie/media/website/animals/dairy/Whats_in_Grass_Todays_Farm_May2014.pdf

A ruminants digestive system is of course not the same as a humans but the chickens digestive system has a similar function to ruminants in that it can return foodstuffs from the gizzard to the proventriculus for further digestive treatment with various enzymes.
How much nutrition can a chicken extract from grass I don't know but it is apparent that they eat it.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...fluence-it-may-have-on-feeding-regimes.79124/

What I have found suprising is the protein content (complete or otherwise) in the grasses covered in the studies for ruminants.

What is also interesting is the differing views on how much protein a chicken needs. Here in the UK high production breeds are fed a 16% protein diet and they seem to fare well enough on it for the commercial concerns to use feeds with such protein content.
Chickens don't just eat grass when foraging. The range of what they eat is quite surprising and if a prefered or more nutritious forage option isn't available they'll eat the next best option.
All the chickens I've cared for dig and exactly what they eat from below the ground surface isn't well studied.

There is of course a wide variation in the nutriant profile in worms, but this link will do to make a point and that point is even from a brief investigation it is apparent that the nutrition available from forage above and below ground can easily surpass that in commercial feeds.

https://eorganic.org/node/8103

In these what to feed debates one often gets dire warnings about long term health consequences of not feeding what the commercial feed producers state is a balanced diet. It's hardly surprising that these long term health issues are unproven and from what I've read, are essentially fear mongering.
One of the favourite scares is that treats/forage and just about anything with a higher fat content than commercial feeds will cause fatty live syndrome or water belly. I haven't seen an explanation yet on why one can take a group of chickens fed on the same diet with a higher fat content and not find they all sufffer from the above ailments. Perhaps such ailments have a genetic predisposition factor that isn't account for.
In a ten year period of caring for free range chickens not a single chicken suffered from fatty liver syndrome or water belly, not one, and they ate lots of high fat foods.
Not all fats are harmfull. It seems that saturated fats can be a problem if eaten in excess but other types of fat are in fact required for health.
It would be informative if for every case of fatty liver syndrome/water belly detailed information on the keeping conditions of the birds was well documented.

I think I have posted this before somewhere but Fatty Liver disease is actually quite well understood physiologically (from memory it is a good animal model of a human condition and therefore studied scientifically, but I may be remembering that part incorrectly).
Anyway, Fatty Liver disease is an issue of carbohydrate metabolism not really excess fat in the diet.
The most practical preventative is exercise - which of course free range chickens get quite naturally.