new research debunks trad views on nutrition

[Krugerrand]

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 this really hits the nail on the head. For decades the common nutrition mantra was 'eating fats makes you fat' and 'eating a high cholesterol diet give you high cholesterol.' The studies behind those were flimsy at best and mostly financed/promoted by people who profited from it ... especially those selling high sugar and highly processed food. But, if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes 'fact.' (Especially if you help write the textbooks!)

I buy into the idea that quality saturated fats such as butter and coconut oil are very healthy options. Pardon me if I share too many Mercola articles in a day ... but this one has some great info on fats and take particular aim at Linoleic Acid as being worse for your diet than sugars.

Back to your point, Shadrach ... if would be VERY interesting to see which fats lead to fatty liver syndrome. As, I'm doubtful that they were healthy fats.

 

[Perris]

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've linked to that Irish Agric Board paper on the nutrition in grass a few times, on a few different threads here, but it seemed the message had fallen on deaf ears. Good to see it's getting some traction at last, and perhaps coming from you it will reach further!

 

[Molpet]

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.

I have meat mutts that are part CX and eat like pigs. They have a poultry yard that is about 150 x 600 ft to wander about. They get fed 20% all flock or 28% to 24% turkey starter when I have poults. Veggie scraps and what ever they dig up.
The ones that have a body like a CX tend to start dieing off at 18 months. This was when I was also feeding a mash and some would pick out corn. Usually Full of liquid and sometimes liver is enlarged and surrounded by more fat than usual. I since have added a English orp rooster, until the jakes killed him, and then a standard dark Cornish rooster. They aren't dieing off as young. Is it the food or the CX genetics? Or both

 

[RoyalChick]

I have meat mutts that are part CX and eat like pigs. They have a poultry yard that is about 150 x 600 ft to wander about. They get fed 20% all flock or 28% to 24% turkey starter when I have poults. Veggie scraps and what ever they dig up.
The ones that have a body like a CX tend to start dieing off at 18 months. This was when I was also feeding a mash and some would pick out corn. Usually Full of liquid and sometimes liver is enlarged and surrounded by more fat than usual. I since have added a English orp rooster, until the jakes killed him, and then a standard dark Cornish rooster. They aren't dieing off as young. Is it the food or the CX genetics? Or both

As a physiologist I have to say both because nothing in physiology is ever really a simple linear cause and effect! Well except maybe some terminal events.

 

[Perris]

This is more recent on grass, also from Ireland, based on perennial ryegrass (which is the basis of many lawns), and open access. And the cute notion of a 'farmlet' brings a warm cuddly feeling that it's not too far removed from a garden in scale

A comparison of the nutritive value of perennial ryegrass, perennial ryegrass and white clover and multispecies-based farmlet systems​

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/glr2.12052

The trouble with so many of these is that the farmers are spreading artificial fertilizer before sowing, which is obviously skewing results relative to an unmodified soil profile. On the other hand, there are so many variables, I can't help shrugging over yet another one

The most recent work I've seen is about processing grass so that we can eat it for its protein

 

[Molpet]

The most recent work I've seen is about processing grass so that we can eat it for its protein

Not sure if grass is better than intended bugs.

I read that dog have longer intestines to process the grain and such that they eat since they left the wolves.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I have meat mutts that are part CX and eat like pigs. They have a poultry yard that is about 150 x 600 ft to wander about. They get fed 20% all flock or 28% to 24% turkey starter when I have poults. Veggie scraps and what ever they dig up.
The ones that have a body like a CX tend to start dieing off at 18 months. This was when I was also feeding a mash and some would pick out corn. Usually Full of liquid and sometimes liver is enlarged and surrounded by more fat than usual. I since have added a English orp rooster, until the jakes killed him, and then a standard dark Cornish rooster. They aren't dieing off as young. Is it the food or the CX genetics? Or both

No part of the CX genetic profile was selected for longevity. They were selected to get much heavier than typical much faster than typical, in ways associated with more frequent physiological/developmental maladies which were deemed "acceptable".

Its the rare CX that lives long, unless maintained specifically for longer life, which can improve their chances. Diet and exercise are both key components in that, but at the the end of the day, the CX can be fairly described as both "not well put together" and "purpose built" for table.

Introducing genes from birds whose selection has been towards more general purpose should, more often than not, result in a smaller, slower growing, less "fragile" bird.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Not sure if grass is better than intended bugs.

I read that dog have longer intestines to process the grain and such that they eat since they left the wolves.

Bugs.

Grass is still lots of water and lots of fiber, with an inferior AA profile. Green leaf type materials have their place and purpose in the diet - but its a smaller fraction of the whole, over all. Certain vitamins and minerals are where they tend to shine as compared to a "generic" ingredient.

Bugs have "better" protein in that it has a superior AA profile and more of it, as well as consistently providing some key minerals. They are also higher energy, for good or ill, owing to the high typical relative fat content.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

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.

As a generalization, the US tends to address poor protein quality (less than optimal AA profile) by providing more cheap protein sources (resulting in higher average total crude protein), because its usually cheaper for us than starting with better quality (superior AA profile) proteins in the first place.

In the EU, with less arable land to devote to animal feed, its cheaper to start with a better base protein, and supplement as needed with artificial AAs to address deficiencies. The EU is at the leading edge of that research in part because the US didn't think it was worthwhile or necessary to invest in.

but that's just a generalization.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Back to your point, Shadrach ... if would be VERY interesting to see which fats lead to fatty liver syndrome. As, I'm doubtful that they were healthy fats.

FLHS is a syndrome, a description of the end result, not the underlying cause. Feed is one of the more common causes, in that FLHS is associated with high energy diets. But not with a specific fat, rather a diet whose energy isn't balanced towards the bird's needs, resulting in excess fat being deposited in the liver and internal organ cavity. In theory, you could make a high carb diet that would induce more frequent FLHS in birds simply by pouring sugar or corn syrup onto every feeding. People don't do usually do that - they usually add corn (carb and fat), dried bugs (protein and fat), or boss (protein and fat) which is why you hear fat fat fat. Carbs don't get discussed much, because people don't add pure carbs much, and because they can't reduce the energy levels of their off the shelf feed by reducing carbs to compensate.

For some of us on the feed forums, our objection to high fat things like sunflower seeds or dried mealworms is not because of the fat levels per se, but rather because those fat levels are being added to a diet which is designed to meet the bird's energy needs already. Analogous to serving a complete meal, then adding a lobster claw and a stick of melted butter to every meal.

There are definite genetic components - its most prevalent in hens, and among hens, more prevalent in high production breeds. Conditions in which they are kept is also a factor - more active birds have higher energy needs, and are less susceptible than a less active bird on the same diet. No different than the way a person with a largely sedentary "desk job" would respond to, say, a pro football player's diet, and the way that same pro player's body responds. Differing metabolic needs, differing metabolic reactions.

/edit the above, of course, is nuanced enough that many readers seem to get all glazy-eyed and read only what they want to see.