Safe Feed......

[chicken-wish]

Chickens will eat anything you give them.

If you have enough land and supply them with plenty of oystershell, you can grow the main portion of their food. Especially if you're just going to have a small amount of hens.

I like the sound of this too. We have about two acres here although a large portion is covered with a grove of trees and the rest is our yard. I've talked my DH into expanding our food garden this year, but I'm not sure he would be ready let me acomidate that much of our land for chicken feed. I would be curious to know what to plant, just in case. If nothing else we would be able to store up the grains for supplimenting winter feed. Any advise on this would be great!

 

[CluckyJay]

Here is a Hub I wrote. It doesn't go into super detail on everything but its a starting point. If you Google chicken garden or what to plant for chickens and even making your own chicken feed, you will pull up a lot of great information.

Look at the back of your chicken feed sack and that will give you a starting point for making a more complete ration. I am working on making an organic, packaged chicken food for my ladies. To feed during the winter, mostly.

This winter has been so good they only got a bit of whole oats, the rest was pretty much free-ranged and scraps and fish.

http://isadorapandora.hubpages.com/hub/Ways-to-Feed-Chickens-Cheaply

 

[berniezahm]

What are GMOs? (What does GMO stand for?)

 

[Chris09]

What are GMOs? (What does GMO stand for?)

Genetically Modified Organism (GMO)







Chris

 

[mstricer]

I don't understand what you are asking "safe feed" purina and other feed companies have been around for a long time. Just because they may use GMO's doesn't mean it is unsafe. I've been feeding Purina products to all of my animals for many years, none of my pets have been harmed. Stools are right and no serious illness. So why would one think that it is unsafe. Save yourself the extra 10 to 20$ a bag and stick to something that has everything in it they need.

 

[Fred's Hens]

I don't understand what you are asking "safe feed" purina and other feed companies have been around for a long time. Just because they may use GMO's doesn't mean it is unsafe. I've been feeding Purina products to all of my animals for many years, none of my pets have been harmed. Stools are right and no serious illness. So why would one think that it is unsafe. Save yourself the extra 10 to 20$ a bag and stick to something that has everything in it they need.

Because this is a very hot, current debate. Are GMO foods really nutritious and "safe"? The issue is hotly contested on nutritional, ethical, sustainable, political, financial and philosophical grounds. Just beware that many of the posters here on BYC have concluded, for any number of reasons, that GMO is objectionable. No, few expect a chicken nor a child for that matter, to immediately fall over dead upon eating GMO foods. The "safe" concern is much, much larger than that.

This concern or debate isn't likely to go away soon.

 

[mstricer]

Because this is a very hot, current debate. Are GMO foods really nutritious and "safe"? The issue is hotly contested on nutritional, ethical, sustainable, political, financial and philosophical grounds. Just beware that many of the posters here on BYC have concluded, for any number of reasons, that GMO is objectionable. No, few expect a chicken nor a child for that matter, to immediately fall over dead upon eating GMO foods. The "safe" concern is much, much larger than that.

This concern or debate isn't likely to go away soon.

They also said eggs are bad for you, and now they are not. I am not saying whether or not it is safe or not. The only way we as a species can advance is through technology, we us so much pesticides that it is killing off the honey bees, when the pollen eating bugs and birds are gone then we will be begging for GMO's. There are a lot of people on here that believe that it is alright to use sevan dust on their chickens, when they are destroying the bees which we need.

 

[chicken-wish]

I don't understand what you are asking "safe feed" purina and other feed companies have been around for a long time. Just because they may use GMO's doesn't mean it is unsafe. I've been feeding Purina products to all of my animals for many years, none of my pets have been harmed. Stools are right and no serious illness. So why would one think that it is unsafe. Save yourself the extra 10 to 20$ a bag and stick to something that has everything in it they need.

I asked this because I have personally experienced extended illnesses with these foods and I have to be much more careful now. I wish I could just save a few bucks, but I'm just too sensitive physically. I have had to eat as much organic as I can find and (I even use as many chemical free cleaning and hygene products as I can too), I'm not so sensitive that I can't handle a few regular here and there, but I need to be more careful now in the long run, wich is why I choose to be organic, and since I have seen what GMO's and pesticides can do to me, I'm just concerned how it will affect my chickens health and the food I eat from them. I do want to say that I do believe Purina has exceptional quality in many ways, but I'm only concerned with the origin of the grains that are in the feed.

 

[mstricer]

I am not trying to sound dumb or mean to you, but I'm confussed and interested in knowing how they knew it was the GMO that made you ill. I myself have never really looked to see that the food I'm eating has them. How do you find out.

 

[chicken-wish]

I am not trying to sound dumb or mean to you, but I'm confussed and interested in knowing how they knew it was the GMO that made you ill. I myself have never really looked to see that the food I'm eating has them. How do you find out.

It's ok, I wasn't taking it like that.

GMO's can be detected through blood tests. My doctors wouldn't give that kind of blood test (mostly because they don't seem to believe that foods may have something to do with it). I had to take the matter into my own hands and start experimenting with my foods. I started to feel a little better when I got off of processed foods in gerneral, but the conidition wouldn't go away still on regular fruits and veggies. Finnaly I started eating organic foods and the condition disapeared almost emediatly, but would return if I started eating the cheaper nonorganic fruits and veggies or proessed foods. Now I have reached a point where I can eat some of the regular fruits and veggies here and there or in short spurts, but I need to watch how much. When I started using nonchemicalized cleaning and hygene products, my stress levels went down even more and now I'm doing very good, I'm happy and have tons of energy. My DH has lost over 70lbs. on this diet over the last 10 months or so (and that's not staying on a perfectly controlled diet either), and he's still losing.

As far as knowing what foods can be found with GMO products, the FDA doesn't regulate the lables on our foods to let us know if there are any GMO products in them, even when the public has demanded this in the past. So there is no way to know, unless you buy organic. Other countries were able to pass this as a law so the ppl could choose what they wanted to buy. Unfortunatly it's not just in the fruits and veggies either, it's in all the meats and dairy products too now.

This is why I'm looking for alternate ways to feed my chickens besides organic feed from the market, since it's so expensive.

Edited to add this:

I've decided to explain in short detail what a GMO really is, just so there's no confusion. I won't name the actuall corprations behind this either.
What is done with a seed is the genetic codes are altered to withstand pesticides and weed killers, now the farmers can spray thier crops with out harming the plant they are trying to grow. If an insect tries to take a bite out the plant it dies. The bee's that are taking pollen from these plants are dying too because of the poisons in the pollen and the necter. The plant soaks up whatever water or poison that it's sprayed with and it remains impregnated. The plant was oringinally engineered to need less spraying against pests, but there was a problem with it and the plant ended up needing to be sprayed more just to survive. Now there are even some seeds that will only germinate when sprayed with poisons. Realy the only alteration of the plants is there abilty to thrive when sprayed with weed killers and pesticides, otherwise there is no difference when looking at them compared together. When then these plants are harvested they end up in our grocery stores, and when we buy them, no matter how much we wash and scrub them the poison is still inside the plant.

The animal industry was affected too. The food industries started making cattle, hogs and chickens, in the comercial industries feed only corn that was genetically modified, making the meat, milk and/or eggs contaminated as well. They stared making growth hormones that would make the bodies of the animals bigger so they would produce more and make more money but, it affected the meat and milk in a negative way, that is rumored to cause cancer, obiesity, heart disease, diabetes, malecular degeneration, artritis (and the list goes on) in much larger percentages. The the huge multi national food corporations, have refused to test thier products over long term periods to ensure they are safe for the public, but many members of the FDA are also employed by these companies now, wich is why they have not enforced the long term testing of GMO products.

I don't know if this helps. I think it will atleast cover the basics of the GMO and what it is.