solid breast bones, no sign of cartalidge, translucent bones, whats going on, is this an alien species, no info anywhere

[BigBlueHen53]

@RoyalChick beat me to it.

But as for this, my friend -

would say the food has to be taken into account as well, when there is profit first in the food chain things like calcium, magnesium are left out.

If the chickens don't have it in their food, they cannot put it in their bodies at any speed.

... most of us are very condcientious about providing calcium for our chickens. May I say that if/when any fail to adequately do so (usually newbies), either by feeding good layer pellets or by providing a never-ending supply of oyster shell on the side for our layers, we are almost immediately alerted to the fact that our hens ar deficient in said calcium when we start finding soft-shell or shell-less eggs in the nests? It is a problem that cries out for a prompt solution. If you hang out on these boards very long at all, or do any kind of a deep dive into the search engine here, I dare say you'll find requests for help for soft-shell or "jelly" eggs nearly every day. Insufficient calcium in chickens laying hens is not a problem that can simply be ignored.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Calcium costs money, they don't put it in.

I'm sorry but I also have to take issue with this. Calcium IS an ingredient in layer formulas, and it is for this very reason that a lot of us don't use it. Too much calcium has been shown to be detrimental to non-laying birds over the long haul, most specifically to male birds. It can build up in their bodies and cause imflammation, gout, and damage to major organs, up to and including death. It's not indicated for young birds not yet layig, old birds no longer laying regularly, or even birds in molt. Instead I use an all-flock formulation and provide oyster shell in a sepaàte vessel. Those that need it help themselves, the rest ignre it. Chickens are pretty smart like that, knowing what they need.

 

[GodofPecking]

woah, wait up, I'm saying bucket chicken from the drive thru has not enough calcium and as shown in the unusual bones and so on, home raised chicken does indeed have calcium, in some instances too much.

while I disagree and say bagged pellets are never a good idea because you have no idea what goes into them, only the say-so of the salesman, maybe some bagged food has calcium, so long as it's not getting in the way of profit. If calcium was in everything they could find, sure, it'll be there. you cant even keep poison out or nutrition in human food, let alone chook food.

all the big fast food places guard against lawsuits that would result from their food containing nothihng useful by saying it 'should be enjoyed in conjunction with a balanced diet'. so after eating our chicken, go eat something with real calcium in it, like real chicken, don't come class action against us for your bodies falling to pieces.

separate foods is best and I dont think oysters are fit for human consumption, they're always grown downstream from sewerage treatment works in australia and many places. even when rain is not overloading and making raw sewerage flow out, the effluent is still full of yummy mercury and so on.

broken smashed pulverized bones and shells seem a stop gap solution. moving to a better place is better.