Thoughts on organic chicken feed. What is your opinion?

[Iluveggers]

You can't have no-till farming without Roundup and you can't prevent the erosion and soil-loss that was the big scare-story problem in farming when I was young without no-till farming.

I disagree. Joel Salatin has books & books about rotational grazing & regenerative farming, which was used in the past and is coming back currently by many farmers looking to provide chemical-free food to consumers.


I feel my hens a local, organic feed. The nutritional components are superior to any feed I have found in TSC, organic or not. It is closer than my TSC store, and is always fresh when I pick it up. The amino acid profile is good, along with protein content.

My family made the choice to eat mostly organic & grow/harvest as much as we can ourselves or from local farmers. I think each person does what they think is best nutritionally and for their budget. We feed our chickens organic because we eat their eggs & want as much as we can to remain as chemical-free as possible.

 

[3KillerBs]

I hope they at least paid you to spread misinformation. Glyphosate is sprayed just before harvest to desiccate crops

https://www.organiclifestylemagazine.com/foods-most-likely-to-contain-glyphosate

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/glypho...till-contains-roundup-ingredient-study-finds/

 

[Cat Ballou]

No more than the plaintiff's bar is paying you for spreading fear. If you don't understand the difference between an allowed level of 310 parts per million (EPA), and 160 parts per billion (some arbitrary figure invented for litigation), there's no hope for you.

1) Are we appealing to emotion or reason here?

2) People are alarmingly dropping dead all around me of terrible cancers. Just lost an uncle and have a friend who’s still fighting. I don’t have any solid proof of anything except death statistics from cancer is quite high.

3) I’ve been around long enough to learn how much companies love to jeopardize health for profit over and over and over again. But, hey - why pay any attention to history when you can live in Stockholm syndrome and make pleas to emotion?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/07/epa-monsanto-round-up-trial

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/epa-...sion-with-monsanto_n_59372108e4b0aba888b99dca

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/just...gest-health-care-fraud-settlement-its-history

https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-30935575

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I'm not the one appealing to emotion.

 

[NestingMillenial]

I have no idea what are the times for roundup specifically, but the number of days required for last treatment before harvest is routinely shorter for non-organic crops (when the same product can be used for organic and non-organic) - I am not saying it's done the day before either way, but longer is given to organic crops.
And something nice to know if that this minimal amount of days tend to be even shorter when the crop is harvested for animal feed - I was just learning about that from the A&M Agrilife Extension conference I attended last month. So there might be an argument there to say that it would be especially interesting to buy organic when looking at animal feed.

Ultimately, deciding whether the premium you have to pay for organic is worth it is very personal, and depends on what you put in said "worth" (in my case, while recognizing that the organic label is not perfect, I think it is something worth supporting for the ecological benefits alone - if me and my chickens get any tiny health benefit from that choice, cherry on top of the cake, as far as I am concerned!)

But, regardless of all of the above, I would like to point out that the number of studies, policies and reports centering around the problems glyphosate pauses to both the environment and (thought in a somewhat more debated manner) to human health leaves little room to wishful interpretation and certainly does not suggest it's on par with coffee or such.

It is also absolutely not something we cannot do without. There are also a lot of ways to do sustainable, large scale farming that has yield comparable to conventional agriculture while not tilling AND not using a lot of chemicals (certainly not glyphosate!). It's become a bit more talked about nowadays, with ideas of regenerative agriculture. It was kickstarted by a Japanese farmer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masanobu_Fukuoka) I think. Admittedly, regenerative practices and the like do not go as far as this man and do use some chemicals, but very little compared to conventional agriculture and again, certainly not glyphosate.

 

[BGcoop]

Organic: derived from or relating to living matter. Denoting compounds containing carbon, and chiefly or ultimately of biological origin.

inorganic: NOT consisting or derived from living matter. Denoting compounds which are not organic (compounds not containing carbon)

My chickens eat crumbles that I purchase for them, kitchen scraps, oyster shells and whatever bugs, plants, and dirt/sand/grit they forage for. So I guess they “eat” both organic and inorganic. (However I suspect that they do not absorb most of the inorganic materials)

 

[Kanekoded]

I eat organic and because I keep chickens for egg production, I feed them organic. My local feed store only carries one organic brand that is no-corn, no-soy and certified so, that's what I buy. It's called New Country Organics. My chickens absolutely love the stuff.

https://www.newcountryorganics.com/mwdownloads/download/link/id/344

 

[saysfaa]

I disagree. Joel Salatin has books & books about rotational grazing & regenerative farming, which was used in the past and is coming back currently by many farmers looking to provide chemical-free food to consumers. ...

Joel Salatin makes his living from his books, magazines, and such. Not from his farming.

Not to say his books and such aren't worth getting and absorbing. And at least some of the information is worth adopting. Incidentally, he repeats a lot from one magazine issue to the next. I think from book to book too but I've only read some of the books. So the fact that he has so many books doesn't mean much.

Many farmers look to provide "chemical-free" food to consumers because most consumers (possibly most farmers, these days, depending on your definition of farmer) are too far removed from farming to have a good perspective, and the non-profit and government programs for start up farmers push it so hard.

 

[Sussex19]

While we do try to buy organic for ourselves it is just not practical for all our animals. So the answer is no, but I do buy from a company which is more 'natural' and I feel more wholesome than some.
Also I try to avoid meat meal in their food, not for them but incase our goats get in the feed. And I just prefer it, don't ask me why.

 

[saysfaa]

...

2) People are alarmingly dropping dead all around me of terrible cancers. ...

How many things have changed in the same time period?

From the percentage of the population that is obese or nearly so to the hours of sleep the average person gets. From the amount of plastic in the environment to amount of air traffic spreading diseases rapidly. From the number of hours spent looking at a screen (or the numbers of hours moving body parts other than fingers - if you want the same thing from the other end) to the amount of social disruption (smaller families, more fractured families, more transience, fewer local organizations that meet weekly or monthly, less shopping locally, and such). The amount and type of fresh air. How much variation in temperature inside our homes. The amount and type of light one gets. Fake sugars, fake fats. Separated food elements (skim milk, fruit juice vs whole fruits, high fructose corn syrup, etc) ........ endless lists of things that are drastically different now than a few decades ago. A high percentage of people with these changes from prenatal days instead of only as adults...

Could any one or two of them be making not much difference but all at once be making a lot of difference?