theoretical question about diet

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

The other things--probably safe to feed. Safer if you let the chickens pick over it and make their own choices. Less safe if you grind it all up so they cannot pick and choose.

Great point - best to let the chicken pick out what it wants/needs rather than offer everything blended together.

 

[Brooks_]

Like your breakfast cereal, bread can be “part of a healthy breakfast”.

So can bacon.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

So can bacon.

Clearly, bacon makes EVERYTHING better!

 

[aart]

You live in New York @abdiro ?

 

[Chris2018]

hi guys i have a questions and system i want to try so i need your open minds and thoughts
1- is 1600 feet square a free range
2- for some one who try to feed the flock that mix : animal proteine (dead sheep or chicken)+white bread+waste food+vegetables+compost is it safe espacily the first aliment
3- that diet will use for plus 1 month chicken (start with normal commurcial food)
4- whats the problems can happened and how can improve that diet
note 1: all that nutrition available i know the commurcial food the most safe and balance
note 2: i dont talk about 10-20 hens i want to use it of 100-200 chicken flock
*thanks*

for some profit

Take some time and learn about the nutritional needs of a laying hen.
The food waste that you listed is not going to make a complete diet or even a healthy diet for the hens.
1600 SqFt is by USDA regulations "Free Range" BUT by USDA regulations your birds just needs access to a outside area, it does not state how big of a area per bird nor that they go outside.. To me 1600 SqFt is noting more than a run for that amount of birds.

You asked the question, "whats the problems can happened and how can improve that diet". The problems I see is that your going to have a flock of birds in poor health do to malnutrition from not feeding a proper diet and over feed food wast.
You can improve the diet by feeding a proper diet and only feeding the bread and vegetables at 20% of there total diet. The dead animals, compost and what ever your calling food waste leave out of there diet all together. If your feeding birds for your own consumption that's fine BUT if your selling the eggs leave that crap out.

I'm sorry for sounding rude but your producing food that you are going to be selling to the public, the last thing you want is someone getting sick off the eggs you sold them just because you was cutting corners and feeding food waste to your birds to make a profit at there expense.
Trust me I know that feeding a large amount of bird can get expensive but there is other ways to cut the expense other than feeding waste to your birds.

 

[NatJ]

The dead animals, compost and what ever your calling food waste leave out of there diet all together.

Letting the chickens scratch through compost sounds like a good idea to me.

Depending on the compost, it might not make a big difference to their diet. But when they're scratching around and eating an occasional worm, they are happy and aren't picking on each other. So it can avoid bored-chicken problems.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Take some time and learn about the nutritional needs of a laying hen.
The food waste that you listed is not going to make a complete diet or even a healthy diet for the hens.
1600 SqFt is by USDA regulations "Free Range" BUT by USDA regulations your birds just needs access to a outside area, it does not state how big of a area per bird nor that they go outside.. To me 1600 SqFt is noting more than a run for that amount of birds.

You asked the question, "whats the problems can happened and how can improve that diet". The problems I see is that your going to have a flock of birds in poor health do to malnutrition from not feeding a proper diet and over feed food wast.
You can improve the diet by feeding a proper diet and only feeding the bread and vegetables at 20% of there total diet. The dead animals, compost and what ever your calling food waste leave out of there diet all together. If your feeding birds for your own consumption that's fine BUT if your selling the eggs leave that crap out.

I'm sorry for sounding rude but your producing food that you are going to be selling to the public, the last thing you want is someone getting sick off the eggs you sold them just because you was cutting corners and feeding food waste to your birds to make a profit at there expense.
Trust me I know that feeding a large amount of bird can get expensive but there is other ways to cut the expense other than feeding waste to your birds.

Depending on how the animals died, it can be fine. Now if they were sick or down dead, I wouldn't feed, but if they're leftovers from your own butchering, it's fine

 

[Chris2018]

Depending on how the animals died, it can be fine. Now if they were sick or down dead, I wouldn't feed, but if they're leftovers from your own butchering, it's fine

Well to a point yes you are correct BUT if the hens do not eat all the food within say an hour and a half then that food is spoiled and need to be discarded.
The other thing I see is a hen picking up old food that was dropped in the litter.
Also the feeder will have to be disinfected after ever feeding or the new feed would be contaminated.

I have fed butchering scraps to my birds (yard Birds and Breeder) but I feed small amounts and I'm there to make positive that it all is eaten. I would not feed raw meat to egg layers that I intend to sell the eggs for human consumption.

 

[Chris2018]

Letting the chickens scratch through compost sounds like a good idea to me.

Depending on the compost, it might not make a big difference to their diet. But when they're scratching around and eating an occasional worm, they are happy and aren't picking on each other. So it can avoid bored-chicken problems.

Chicks scratching in a compost pile is one thing but a chicken being feed compost as the OP stated is completely different.

 

[KaseySnow]

I have fed butchering scraps to my birds (yard Birds and Breeder) but I feed small amounts and I'm there to make positive that it all is eaten. I would not feed raw meat to egg layers that I intend to sell the eggs for human consumption.

I'm very curious why feeding raw meat to layers for eggs to sell is bad. Can you elaborate?

I'm also curious about the feeding of dead animals/carcasses to chickens. I encountered this for the first time today at an organic farm and was slightly shocked. I'd never seen the practice before. The animals had clearly been dead a long while (looked like a couple of young cows), but the chickens didn't seem to be eating what was left of the carcasses, just kinda poking around them.

I looked it up online and read that some small scale farmers do this so the chickens can eat the fly larvae that get laid on the carcasses for extra protein. I would think the chickens could tell not to eat spoiled meat from an old carcass, right?

Would love to hear thoughts on this practice, it is completely foreign to me.