The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[ki4got]

Actually in Great Britain it is illegal to feed any meat, cooked or raw, because of the risk of salmonella.

illegal? I find that hard to believe... maybe to cattle and sheep, since mad cow disease is a mutated form of scrapie which is a sheep disease, transmitted to cattle because they processed diseased sheep into meat meal to increase protein for the cattle...

but to say it's illegal, you would have to specify for which species it's illegal to feed it to. I have a number of friends in Great Britain that feed raw meat to their animals on a daily basis. especially their dogs and cats. raw feeding is NOT illegal for all species, but may be illegal for animals intended to be slaughtered and their meat sold commercially for human consumption... (ie cows, pig, sheep, etc).

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Actually in Great Britain it is illegal to feed any meat, cooked or raw, because of the risk of salmonella.

Is that for the commercial poultry industry, where the litter a collected and fed to other livestock, including cattle, so therefore the poultry feed needs to be "vegetarian?" Or is that for backyard poultry, too?

 

[iwanaplae2]

I realize chickens are "omnivores", but I just can't wrap my head around feeding my girls any kind of meat or other animal bi-product. If they catch it themselves then yay for them. But I just can't see me giving it to them. I would rather find other sources of protein.

 

[aoxa]

All this talk about winter. :| I am so not happy about it lol

Camille and I processed 25 chickens this weekend. Boy was she good at killing. Props to her for that! My new knife was awesome, and I am so getting a plucker. Cut our time down considerably. We did 25 birds in maybe 6 hours and that includes clean up. We started at 11 and were done by 6:30 with a break for lunch (roughly 1 1/2 hours). We did start out slower because I was showing Camille and two other people how to process.. so it took us 2 1/2 hours to do 9 birds and did the rest in the same amount of time. Clean up took a good hour... We made quite a mess. This also includes weighing the birds and bagging them. All of our time.

Camille took killing pictures. I shared bellow under a spoiler because they are graphic.

 

[aoxa]

I realize chickens are "omnivores", but I just can't wrap my head around feeding my girls any kind of meat or other animal bi-product. If they catch it themselves then yay for them. But I just can't see me giving it to them. I would rather find other sources of protein.

If the protein they are getting is not from animal protein there is a huge difference in the health and appearance of chickens fed a vegetarian feed VS a animal protein feed. They need it to thrive..

Camille and I took a video of my birds being fed the organs of the chickens we just processed.. If you see how much they devour this animal protein....

They crowd at our feet licking the blood up from the chickens we are processing. They NEED meat.

 

[TeaChick]

Actually in Great Britain it is illegal to feed any meat, cooked or raw, because of the risk of salmonella.

That's ironic, since salmonella lives in their digestive tract naturally.

 

[aoxa]

Actually in Great Britain it is illegal to feed any meat, cooked or raw, because of the risk of salmonella.

I can't find anything online to back this up :/

Actually scratch that. I found something about it with pigs.

HERE: http://www.npa-uk.org.uk/disease.html

Quote: What the heck??

Found something about it stating all farmed animals here:
http://www.npa-uk.org.uk/Library/Defra swill-leaflet.pdf

Quote:

 

[camilleathome]

All this talk about winter. :| I am so not happy about it lol

Camille and I processed 25 chickens this weekend. Boy was she good at killing. Props to her for that! My new knife was awesome, and I am so getting a plucker. Cut our time down considerably. We did 25 birds in maybe 6 hours and that includes clean up. We started at 11 and were done by 6:30 with a break for lunch (roughly 1 1/2 hours). We did start out slower because I was showing Camille and two other people how to process.. so it took us 2 1/2 hours to do 9 birds and did the rest in the same amount of time. Clean up took a good hour... We made quite a mess. This also includes weighing the birds and bagging them. All of our time.

Camille took killing pictures. I shared bellow under a spoiler because they are graphic.

Its always a great weekend when I get to hang out with you guys! I enjoyed learning a good skill so now I will be more comfortable in doing this in a way that is both respectful and non stressful to the chickens. This was one of the best ways ive seen to do it. And we made an awesome team getting them all done!

 

[camilleathome]

I can't find anything online to back this up :/

Actually scratch that. I found something about it with pigs.

HERE: http://www.npa-uk.org.uk/disease.html

What the heck??

Found something about it stating all farmed animals here:
http://www.npa-uk.org.uk/Library/Defra swill-leaflet.pdf

For pigs and farm scraps.Ive read somewhere it was wastes of food that has been eaten and chewed due to diseases that we can pass to them and vice versa but not cuttings of food that hasnt been eaten. (Like cuttings of veggies from prepping in your kitchen). But I could be mistaken.

 

[aoxa]

For pigs and farm scraps.Ive read somewhere it was wastes of food that has been eaten and chewed due to diseases that we can pass to them and vice versa but not cuttings of food that hasnt been eaten. (Like cuttings of veggies from prepping in your kitchen). But I could be mistaken.

It's not law here. Just in the UK.

I wonder if this is the reason: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-greger-md/mad-cow-disease-california_b_1450994.html