Things I don't feed my chickens😊

[U_Stormcrow]

2x. This reply explains a lot.

Happy to share what little I know.

and I sometimes share bread (or excess sourdough starter) with my flock. Rarely, and in moderation. The occasional exception to the general rule isn't going to kill them. Its the persistent bread, scratch, and other low quality dietary substitutions which have gradual, additive, effects over time.

 

[Shadrach]

The issue for me is that in discussions like this we conflate toxicity with sub-optimal nutrition.
As @U_Stormcrow describes with his pocket full of Quarters analogy, bread can displace higher value foods.
On the other hand, bread is not toxic.
So a ‘never give bread’ is really not a sufficiently nuanced warning to give for example to a new chicken keeper.
Soak your bread in milk and suddenly you have something that is protein and calcium rich.

I don’t eat that much bread so my chickens don’t either. At this time of year they eat mainly whatever they find for themselves. But if it were winter with snow on the ground, and my chicken feed got spoiled or eaten by raccoons, I don’t think I would hesitate to feed my flock bread and milk until I could get a replacement bag of feed.

There is also that rather annoying factor in that chickens seem to like the crap bread with all the chemicals in it more than say a pitta bread. It's all that salt and sugar with a handfull of E numbers.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

There is also that rather annoying factor in that chickens seem to like the crap bread with all the chemicals in it more than say a pitta bread. It's all that salt and sugar with a handfull of E numbers.

^^ there is truth to this.

Of course, I like doritos, and I know how bad they are for me...

and its HARD to make a nutritionally good bread. My wife makes sourdough. We've had the same starter for two decades plus now, its fair to say she's had some practice. Makes great white bread (or cuban bread or french bread or italian bread), tolerable english muffins, very good pretzels. We use a good high protein flour (King Arthur brand bread flour) - but to try and make a whole wheat flour or a seeded whole wheat flour and really juice the protein numbers???

The results are much less palatable. In an emergency, its easier to spread low sodium peanut butter on the finished white bread and accept the chemical residues present in exchange for the much higher protein (and salt, and fat) than to try and make a nutritionally great bread to start with.

 

[Sally PB]

its easier to spread low sodium peanut butter

I make my own PB out of unsalted peanuts. Haven't bought any in years.

Bread... Go gluten free, and your opinion of a nice soft slice of sandwich bread will change. You become wistful about bread...

My chickens occasionally get a (singular) slice of bread, torn into bites and tossed out into an empty spot in the run. They turn and run and get a day's worth of cardio in about 5 minutes, chasing after each bite. It's more entertainment value for me than a treat for them.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I make my own pasta. I could no more go gluten free than I could swim across the Atlantic.

 

[Perris]

to try and make a whole wheat flour or a seeded whole wheat flour and really juice the protein numbers???

The results are much less palatable.

try incorporating some tangzhong or yudane in the mix; I added some to an otherwise 100% wholemeal loaf yesterday, and it turned out the nicest wholemeal I've made in a long time.
https://www.americastestkitchen.com/cooksillustrated/articles/6569-yudane-and-tangzhong

 

[Shadrach]

^^ there is truth to this.

Of course, I like doritos, and I know how bad they are for me...

and its HARD to make a nutritionally good bread. My wife makes sourdough. We've had the same starter for two decades plus now, its fair to say she's had some practice. Makes great white bread (or cuban bread or french bread or italian bread), tolerable english muffins, very good pretzels. We use a good high protein flour (King Arthur brand bread flour) - but to try and make a whole wheat flour or a seeded whole wheat flour and really juice the protein numbers???

The results are much less palatable. In an emergency, its easier to spread low sodium peanut butter on the finished white bread and accept the chemical residues present in exchange for the much higher protein (and salt, and fat) than to try and make a nutritionally great bread to start with.

And that is exactly what I do, sometimes Marmite.
Good quality spelt or emmer wheat flour helps bump up the protein if one makes one's own bread.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

try incorporating some tangzhong or yudane in the mix; I added some to an otherwise 100% wholemeal loaf yesterday, and it turned out the nicest wholemeal I've made in a long time.
https://www.americastestkitchen.com/cooksillustrated/articles/6569-yudane-and-tangzhong

She does this for dinner rolls. We hadn't considered doing it to make more gluten available for holding together whole wheat with seed breads. Thank you

 

[gila_dog]

Ok, now I understand. Thanks for the info. I guess the safe thing to do is to just go buy commercial egg laying crumbles or pellets and feed them nothing but that. Let the agribiz experts figure it all out and all I have to do is buy bags of feed from them and all is well. But if that's what I'm doing, why even bother with chickens other than because they are fun? I may as well just go buy my eggs and meat at the store. It's certainly cheaper and easier that way. I gotta say, tho, that store bought meat is tasteless and the eggs look puny. What to do... what to do?

 

[WaterfowlsPoultry]

I do not care if a demon came down and pulled a gun to my head. I am NOT feeding my birds bread!