Vegan diet for chickens - is it unhealthy?

[BelovedBirds]

While all this vegan morality debate has been fun, we still have no clue if the owner of the chicken is actually vegan and foisting her diet on animals (maybe I missed it?) or honestly just believes the chicken will thrive on a vegan diet. But even if we all agree chickens were not born to be vegan or to live indoors I really don't see any options for OP to help the chicken out. If some authority figure were to come investigate, would the chicken go to a better home? Maybe it lives indoors because chickens aren't allowed where this person lives? I have questions

good points

 

[cassie]

sorry but dairy, eggs etc are not all that healthy to the human body. Dairy especially is just not natural for us. Sure they contain some important nutrients, but they can be replaced by plant based alternatives which are generally more natural and more easily digested.
If you really want to try and accuse vegan diets of all this, you should actually reply to @Amfh
instead of claiming falsehoods and half truths before running away.

Since even apes and monkeys will eat bird's eggs, I don't see how you can say eggs are not natural to the human diet. Humans are designed to eat anything they can find or catch. That said, the two most unnatural foods and probably the worst for you are perfectly acceptable in a vegan diet. They are white sugar and refined flour. Humans have been consuming eggs, milk, and cheese for thousands of years but white sugar and refined flour have been available for just the last few hundred.

 

[BelovedBirds]

Since even apes and monkeys will eat bird's eggs, I don't see how you can say eggs are not natural to the human diet. Humans are designed to eat anything they can find or catch. That said, the two most unnatural foods and probably the worst for you are perfectly acceptable in a vegan diet. They are white sugar and refined flour. Humans have been consuming eggs, milk, and cheese for thousands of years but white sugar and refined flour have been available for just the last few hundred.

eggs aren't completely unnatural- lots of animals as you say will eat eggs if they find them. I give my bird's eggs to to my family members, whatever I don't feed back to the birds- I'm not against people eating them, I just don't think its necessary and dislike breeding for mass egg production. My point about being unnatural was more meant towards dairy. It is just not natural for us to drink milk from other species. Some milks are easier for our bodies to digest, but none are actually meant for us. And simply are not necessary for a healthy diet, in some ways they're bad for us. There are other plant based options to obtain those nutrients.
This is a defense argument, I'm not trying to start a debate.

 

[cassie]

eggs aren't completely unnatural- lots of animals as you say will eat eggs if they find them. I give my bird's eggs to to my family members, whatever I don't feed back to the birds- I'm not against people eating them, I just don't think its necessary and dislike breeding for mass egg production. My point about being unnatural was more meant towards dairy. It is just not natural for us to drink milk from other species. Some milks are easier for our bodies to digest, but none are actually meant for us. And simply are not necessary for a healthy diet, in some ways they're bad for us. There are other plant based options to obtain those nutrients.
This is a defense argument, I'm not trying to start a debate.

I'm not trying to start a debate either, but in your opinion how many years do you think it is necessary for people to eat something before you consider it to be a natural part of their diet? Years? Decades? Centuries? Millenia? No I am not being snarky but I am curious. How many?

 

[BelovedBirds]

I'm not trying to start a debate either, but in your opinion how many years do you think it is necessary for people to eat something before you consider it to be a natural part of their diet? Years? Decades? Centuries? Millenia? No I am not being snarky but I am curious. How many?

However many years it takes you to become that species. We can do something for years, but it still doesn't make it natural. Dairy just isn't necessary for a healthy diet

 

[Geena]

However many years it takes you to become that species. We can do something for years, but it still doesn't make it natural. Dairy just isn't necessary for a healthy diet

And yet, is it not natural for an omnivore to eat anything and everything that is available and nutritious?
Humans have eaten and survived off of all sorts of varied diets throughout time. Kinda makes it difficult to define exactly what is natural and what is not.
There are ants that milk aphids for their honey... so maybe it is natural for a human to milk a cow

 

[NatJ]

Dairy just isn't necessary for a healthy diet

Neither is any other single food. People can avoid pork, or peanuts, or beef, or soybeans, or any other thing and still eat a healthy diet.

It is just not natural for us to drink milk from other species.

For those of us with the right mutation to digest lactose even as adults, I would say it IS natural to drink milk from other species.

Some milks are easier for our bodies to digest, but none are actually meant for us.

If you mean the cow didn't intend to make milk for us, that is true. But it's equally true that the apple tree and the wheat plant weren't intending to make apples or wheat for us to eat, or an animal was not intending to grow meat for us to eat.

 

[cassie]

However many years it takes you to become that species. We can do something for years, but it still doesn't make it natural. Dairy just isn't necessary for a healthy diet

Neither is almost anything else. As long as you consume the necessary vitamins and nutrients it doesn't much matter what you eat. Humans are adaptable. That is why there are so many of us. However milk is nutritious, versatile and to most people it tastes good. People have been consuming milk and milk products for many thousands of years. I can't believe all those people down through the ages are wrong. It isn't only cow's milk either. People use milk from sheep, goats, yaks, camels, water buffalo, and mares. In fact my grandmother was raised on mare's milk after her mother died. That is probably not a complete list but those are just the ones off the top of my head.

As for natural, how do you define natural? A case can be made that almost none of what we eat is "natural". Almost everything we eat has been modified in some way. For instance, the ancestral corn is nothing at all like what we think of as corn. The same can be said of just about everything else we eat both plant and animal.

Now that I've said my piece I will go brew a cup of tea and shut up.

 

[BDutch]

No. Vegan diets are not suitable for chickens, they are omnivores. Vegan diets are also not suitable for pigs, dogs, cats or.... people. This person who owns this chicken sounds like the sort of person who would feed a cat a Vegan diet and wonder why they're sick.

Commercial feeds without any animal ingredients could be considered vegan though I suppose and they are carefully made to meet chicken requirements at least for commercial lifespans of 12months - 2 years. And should form the main diet of all chickens unless much time effort and expense has gone into other options.

I only read the first page but I really got annoyed bc of the reactions of people who apparently have the wrong idea about what omnivores need in their diet.
No time now to read all, but here’s my reaction to put things strait.

All commercial feed in Europe is without animal source ingredients. It is forbidden to put slaughter waist and such in commercial animal feed because of problems with it in the past (like mad cow disease). The feed sold for broilers is balanced for optimal production until these chickens are 7-8 weeks. The feed for layers for optimized egg production. Feed for pigs has no meat in eat either. And nowadays they even sell veggie dog food in Europe. They seem to do fine. They have proven that people who eat vegetarian are healthier than people who eat meat every day. Only people who eat completely vegan need a vitamin supplement to stay healthy.

So yes a complete vegetarian feed for omnivores is very well possible.

This chicken species (broiler) is not a natural kind of chicken. Most of these chickens live indoors until 7-8 weeks. They get slaughtered for meat people like to eat. They are selected and bred in being obese for extreme meat production.

My idea: Let the neighbour do what she thinks is fine for this chicken with maybe a few hints or tips to improve her life. And ‘throw a stone’ to all people who take part in commercial factory farming for meat.

 

[cassie]

I only read the first page but I really got annoyed bc of the reactions of people who apparently have the wrong idea about what omnivores need in their diet.
No time now to read all, but here’s my reaction to put things strait.

All commercial feed in Europe is without animal source ingredients. It is forbidden to put slaughter waist and such in commercial animal feed because of problems with it in the past (like mad cow disease). The feed sold for broilers is balanced for optimal production until these chickens are 7-8 weeks. The feed for layers for optimized egg production. Feed for pigs has no meat in eat either. And nowadays they even sell veggie dog food in Europe. They seem to do fine. They have proven that people who eat vegetarian are healthier than people who eat meat every day. Only people who eat completely vegan need a vitamin supplement to stay healthy.

So yes a complete vegetarian feed for omnivores is very well possible.

This chicken species (broiler) is not a natural kind of chicken. Most of these chickens live indoors until 7-8 weeks. They get slaughtered for meat people like to eat. They are selected and bred in being obese for extreme meat production.

My idea: Let the neighbour do what she thinks is fine for this chicken with maybe a few hints or tips to improve her life. And ‘throw a stone’ to all people who take part in commercial factory farming fo

I only read the first page but I really got annoyed bc of the reactions of people who apparently have the wrong idea about what omnivores need in their diet.
No time now to read all, but here’s my reaction to put things strait.

All commercial feed in Europe is without animal source ingredients. It is forbidden to put slaughter waist and such in commercial animal feed because of problems with it in the past (like mad cow disease). The feed sold for broilers is balanced for optimal production until these chickens are 7-8 weeks. The feed for layers for optimized egg production. Feed for pigs has no meat in eat either. And nowadays they even sell veggie dog food in Europe. They seem to do fine. They have proven that people who eat vegetarian are healthier than people who eat meat every day. Only people who eat completely vegan need a vitamin supplement to stay healthy.

So yes a complete vegetarian feed for omnivores is very well possible.

This chicken species (broiler) is not a natural kind of chicken. Most of these chickens live indoors until 7-8 weeks. They get slaughtered for meat people like to eat. They are selected and bred in being obese for extreme meat production.

My idea: Let the neighbour do what she thinks is fine for this chicken with maybe a few hints or tips to improve her life. And ‘throw a stone’ to all people who take part in commercial factory farming for meat.

Just some comments. A vegetarian diet for dogs is a misguided and very bad idea. It comes under the heading of just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you should. Veggie dog food is manufactured and sold because their vegan owners want it, not because it is good for the dogs. I raised pigs for a number of years. I don't remember if the feed had meat products in it or not but it did have whey. I can tell you that if given the chance pigs will happily gobble up chickens, feathers and all, and newborn baby lambs or kids aren't safe around them either. Broiler chickens may not be "natural" but neither are any of the other plants or animals we use for food. All of them have been selectively bred. By the way, the fast growing broiler chickens are not obese. Their size is due to muscle (meat), not fat. As for people who eat a more vegetarian diet and less meat being healthier you may be right. I can tell you my relatives ate all the things you should eat less of, like butter, potatoes and gravy, and pork chops and all of them lived to be almost a hundred. I had a cousin who made it to 103. On the other hand, I had a very good friend who ate a very healthy diet, lots of veggies, not much in the way of meat, and he died at a young age of pancreatic cancer. I miss him. Life is a crap shoot and you pays your money and you takes your choice.