Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Shadrach]

you think fish maybe?
View attachment 3694604

Yes, particularly if the chickens live near a lake or sea shore. The chances of finding a lactating cow and being able to milk it are rather less likely.

 

[SimpleJenn]

They could definitely use mouse protein if only it wasn't so "icky" of a meat. I make the same argument for cat and dog food. Mice, reptiles, big bugs, that's the sort of things chickens naturally go for.
Not that I'll get into breeding any of those things for them, of course. I'm just annoyed the "natural prey" food trend ignores the actual small animal prey of domesticated animals. A chicken might eat a fish if it ends up on the shore but they definitely will eat the mice that try to raid their food bin.

 

[Perris]

Yes, particularly if the chickens live near a lake or sea shore. The chances of finding a lactating cow and being able to milk it are rather less likely.

but people have been feeding chickens milk since at least Roman times, so that's for over 2000 years across Europe, western Asia, Arabia and north Africa.

 

[RoyalChick]

but people have been feeding chickens milk since at least Roman times, so that's for over 2000 years across Europe, western Asia, Arabia and north Africa.

A lot longer than either corn or soy (at least for those parts of the world).

 

[Shadrach]

If you take the chickens with you to the super, I bet they go for toast with beans in tomato sauce and pork sausages for breakfast and a salami pizza for diner.

I have a feeling you may be right and we find out that chickens are about as good at eating a balanced diet as we are, and like us, eat what's available and/or tastes good.

 

[Shadrach]

Arent you afraid the feed will go bad?

If you mean by drying the fermented feed then no, not in the time scale from drying to being eaten. Any food will go bad if left for long enough.

 

[Shadrach]

I think you're wrong on this. The nutrient profile you're aiming at is not well grounded. See e.g. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032579121006854 (about vitamins specifically, but the points have wider applicability, to amino acids for example.
E.g. from the abstract of that article "The impact of excessive supplementation of vitamins on the microbiota is not well understood in any species. In the context of poultry nutrition, in which substantial dietary excesses of most vitamins are provided, this represents a knowledge gap. Given the paucity of studies investigating the vitamin requirements of modern, high-producing poultry, the limited understanding of vitamin nutrition (supply and utilization) by the microbiome, and the potential impacts on the microbiome of the move away from dietary growth-promoting antibiotic use, more research in this area is required."

Or this one, about broilers
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032579121006945
opening line: "Poultry nutritionists continually strive for more “precision” nutritional programs that provide the exact balance of nutrients that maximize broiler growth performance without economically and environmentally costly excesses"

Thanks for the links.
What I took away from the studies was they just don't know. It would have been more informative if it suggested why and which vitamins and at what quantities they may prove harmful.
It's not surprising to read that the commercial feeds they measured had large factors of safety. That's what one does when one doesn't know.

 

[Shadrach]

but people have been feeding chickens milk since at least Roman times, so that's for over 2000 years across Europe, western Asia, Arabia and north Africa.

A lot longer than either corn or soy (at least for those parts of the world).

People have been feeding chickens what they've got a surplus of, or what's cheap, for thousands of years. During those thousands of years information on nutrition was pretty sparse. In some parts of the world people are still feeding chickens in the above manner.
Are these chickens any healthier than the chickens we keep and feed commercial feed due to diet. I very much doubt it. They'll have in many cases other aspects to their keeping that I believe we should be paying more attention to, but I would expect to find that chickens fed a decent commercial feed get a more balanced and nutritous diet.

 

[Perris]

Some tax for all the food talk: Dyffryn. On Sunday it will be a year since she started laying. She's laid at least (see below) 236 eggs since then, an average of about 20 eggs a month. Started at 50g, was up to 70g by April, and now laying eggs 78-9g; 'extra large' size here start at 73g, to put that in perspective. In the whole year she's laid no weird eggs, shown no drama (no egg song either for that matter), and she only laid them off base in secret nests when broodies were making a fuss and the coops temporarily became undesirable places for her to lay. I found some but I don't think I found them all because her monthly totals for those months (July and August) are below the other months. I don't hold it against her. I think she's a star!

 

[Shadrach]

The feed studies.
There are lots of them. The commercial feed sector has poured millions of pounds into such studies. Ignore for the moment the reasons and objectives of these studies and why commercial interests would fund them and think about the amount of knowledge gained whether it's relevant to the sponsers goals or not.

A minor issue with many of the studies is the chicken and it's eggs and meat are dealt with as product, not living creatures.
The products the majority of the research is based on is the broiler chicken and the high egg production hens.
When dealing with product one isn't allowing for differences within the product. The expectation is that all the products in that line are identical.


As we all know the chickens many of us keep are neither of the above and are very different within and outside a species. It seems just to make out lives complicated chickens have individual preference in just about everything.

The next issue is the quest for optimal rather than adequate and what optimal for the industry means. For example, chickens grow faster if we feed them this. The more optimal the feed the faster they grow. The industry wants fast growth, but fast growth may not be optimal for the chicken.

While the studies may be interesting their relevance to backyard chicken keeping seems to me to be minimal.