Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[NatJ]

There is a law about kitchen scraps?!

I notice that you are in New Jersey.

In Britain, yes there is a law that chickens cannot be fed food scraps.
In the USA as a whole, there is no such law.
In individual US states, I don't know of any such laws, but I have not checked every state to be sure.

In some states of the US, there are laws against feeding food waste to pigs (most of them permit it under certain conditions, which vary by state.)

The basic point makes sense-- don't feed anything to animals that can spread disease, especially diseases that might spread to humans. But trying to make sensible laws about the matter is difficult. Laws usually don't get made until a problem has already happened, but when people are trying to fix the problem they sometimes make laws that go far enough to seem ridiculous.

Wow. I am not sure what to think about that. I am oscillating between thinking it is an absurd law to apply to small scale chicken families, to feeling like a terrible person because I have a bucket in the kitchen ‘for the chickens’. I don’t eat much meat but i do scrape the cats plates into that bucket.

You are not a terrible person for feeding food scraps to chickens as part of their diet, no matter where in the world you live.

 

[Shadrach]

In early November I contact Pear Tree Farm Animal Sancturary expressing concern over the conditions the hens they had rehomed were being kept in.
I offered to send them some pictures.
The reply I received stated they do not have the capability to check on such conditions and asked me if I could send them details of my concerns.
I sent them some of the pictures you have seen earlier in this thread.

What I expected was for them to consider whether their apparently non existent checks were in the best interests of the hens their website would have you believe they are so concerend about.
What they did was contact C the person they had rehomed to, which of course put me in a rather awkward position. It's not as if Pear Tree Farm has any legal recourse to take back the hens, or force the recipient to improve the conditions.
My view of Pear Tree Farm as one might imagine took a negative dive. Not only did they not check, they had zero diplomatic skills either.

Some people may think that it wasn't my business to involve myself in the matter but the mistreatment of any creature should be everyones business; after all, the whole tenet of the rehoming of hens is about their welfare apparently.

I read every page of Pear Tree Farms website and nothing I read gave me any confidence that these people knew enough about chickens to be involved in this venture. No communication I have received from them has made me change my mind. More recently I bought their Hen Care Guide and to me it looks much like a cobled together mix of misinformantion one might gather from reading various websites and nothing like an informed and sensible guide written by experienced chicken keepers who knows what they are talking about.

There are various possible explanations as to what is going on here.
There is the view that these are well intentioned people who are way out of their depth trying to save a miniscule proportion of the millions of hens that are slaughtered every year by commercial egg and meat ventures, then there is another possibility that has become more common as small farms/smallholding have been squeezed out of profitablity by the large commercial concerns.
The term often applied to the later is diversification.

 

[Perris]

In early November I contact Pear Tree Farm Animal Sancturary expressing concern over the conditions the hens they had rehomed were being kept in.
I offered to send them some pictures.
The reply I received stated they do not have the capability to check on such conditions and asked me if I could send them details of my concerns.
I sent them some of the pictures you have seen earlier in this thread.

What I expected was for them to consider whether their apparently non existent checks were in the best interests of the hens their website would have you believe they are so concerend about.
What they did was contact C the person they had rehomed to, which of course put me in a rather awkward position. It's not as if Pear Tree Farm has any legal recourse to take back the hens, or force the recipient to improve the conditions.
My view of Pear Tree Farm as one might imagine took a negative dive. Not only did they not check, they had zero diplomatic skills either.

Some people may think that it wasn't my business to involve myself in the matter but the mistreatment of any creature should be everyones business; after all, the whole tenet of the rehoming of hens is about their welfare apparently.

I read every page of Pear Tree Farms website and nothing I read gave me any confidence that these people knew enough about chickens to be involved in this venture. No communication I have received from them has made me change my mind. More recently I bought their Hen Care Guide and to me it looks much like a cobled together mix of misinformantion one might gather from reading various websites and nothing like an informed and sensible guide written by experienced chicken keepers who knows what they are talking about.

There are various possible explanations as to what is going on here.
There is the view that these are well intentioned people who are way out of their depth trying to save a miniscule proportion of the millions of hens that are slaughtered every year by commercial egg and meat ventures, then there is another possibility that has become more common as small farms/smallholding have been squeezed out of profitablity by the large commercial concerns.
The term often applied to the later is diversification.

As I said when you first put us on to this lot's website, they're very good at monetization, so you can guess which way I'm inclining there
Edited to add that I don't think the alternatives are mutually exclusive; I think they are well-intentioned as well.

 

[Folly's place]

Already mentioned; 'the road to hell' and it's sad.
Here in the USA, at least in most states, anyone can set themselves up as an animal rescue group, there's no control at all over this. Some are, or become, hoarders, with critters in despicable conditions. Some become so fussy, nobody can qualify to get animals from them. Then there's the money situation; complicated in every direction.
About feeding scraps; here it's illegal to feed restaurant scraps to pigs, at least unless cooked after collection, for very good reasons. It was to control trichinosis in pork, transmitted to humans. And why eating pork rare is a very bad idea!
Mary

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Already mentioned; 'the road to hell' and it's sad.
Here in the USA, at least in most states, anyone can set themselves up as an animal rescue group, there's no control at all over this. Some are, or become, hoarders, with critters in despicable conditions. Some become so fussy, nobody can qualify to get animals from them. Then there's the money situation; complicated in every direction.
About feeding scraps; here it's illegal to feed restaurant scraps to pigs, at least unless cooked after collection, for very good reasons. It was to control trichinosis in pork, transmitted to humans. And why eating pork rare is a very bad idea!
Mary

Heck, we literally just had a 'rescue' here go down in metaphorical flames. It was disgusting walking in there and I guess that they had really, really bad mortality rates

 

[Perris]

About feeding scraps; here it's illegal to feed restaurant scraps to pigs, at least unless cooked after collection, for very good reasons. It was to control trichinosis in pork, transmitted to humans. And why eating pork rare is a very bad idea!

Absolutely! I'm sure there are very good reasons why some scraps shouldn't be fed to some animals. But BSE was cause by adding homogenized sheep brain to cattle feed for commercial sale to farmers. (Of course only the feed producers knew what actually went into the feed then - much like now btw. I cannot imagine any farmer knowingly feeding his cows sheep brain - they all knew about scrapie.) Nobody got CJD from eating free range eggs. The blanket ban on feeding anything that's been in a kitchen to poultry is in my view completely OTT as a response to the awful BSE outbreak that followed such unnatural feeding practices.

 

[Perris]

Heck, we literally just had a 'rescue' here go down in metaphorical flames. It was disgusting walking in there and I guess that they had really, really bad mortality rates

If you can get this that side of the pond, it's an eye-opener, from Nov 29 this year.
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-truth-about-your-chicken-dispatches
This is about the chicken meat industry rather than eggs, but it shows what really happens, whatever the regs, and whatever people say happens.

 

[Folly's place]

Your law in GB does appear to have been not well though out, especially involving small flock owners feeding their own food scraps to their chickens.
Prion diseases are not good, because prions are so nearly impossible to destroy. Takes a flamethrower, not much less. And new examples of problems caused by them keep popping up. Here we now have 'chronic wasting disease' in wild and farmed deer, so far not known to affect humans, but another untreatable brain disaster.
Mary

 

[Perris]

This is what's supposed to happen here, for laying hens
https://assets.publishing.service.g...f-practice-welfare-of-laying-hens-pullets.pdf

 

[RoyalChick]

Absolutely! I'm sure there are very good reasons why some scraps shouldn't be fed to some animals. But BSE was cause by adding homogenized sheep brain to cattle feed for commercial sale to farmers. (Of course only the feed producers knew what actually went into the feed then - much like now btw. I cannot imagine any farmer knowingly feeding his cows sheep brain - they all knew about scrapie.) Nobody got CJD from eating free range eggs. The blanket ban on feeding anything that's been in a kitchen to poultry is in my view completely OTT as a response to the awful BSE outbreak that followed such unnatural feeding practices.

I am feeling better about my kitchen scraps which are mostly veggies and a few bits of gristle that the cats feel should be for them. I don't think I am feeding myself a lot of bad stuff so I am feeling the chickens will be OK with it.