Vegan diet for chickens - is it unhealthy?

[NorthwoodsChick]

So, owner thinks speciesism is bad but will use hormone implants on the animal? What's the term for that?

igorant rationalism is the term that comes to mind.

 

[NorthwoodsChick]

There's nothing wrong with making dietary choices for yourself, but don't force said choices onto animals if it goes against their biology.

This. If the animal looks ill, pale and sickly then please say something. There are laws against animals cruelty and neglect in this country and improper feeding falls into that category.
To posters that are debating commercial feed please read original post. The neighbor is not providing any commercial feed, foraging or other means to gain proper nutrition. Just three veggie dishes a day.

 

[saysfaa]

.... Is it possible her poor health is just because of poor genetics (she was a broiler heading to slaughter, after all)? Are vegan diets sustainable for chickens? And if not, how can I convince them otherwise?

No. Broilers are known for poor health - sometimes depending on one's definition of poor health and sometimes by any definition- but the kind of poor health is different.

Possibly a vegan diet could be sustainable for chickens. There might be some kind of plants somewhere that have appropriate components in combination or can be processed to have the needed components to provide a good (or perfect, even) diet. I don't what they are but there are hundreds of thousands of species much less varieties with a mind boggling range of nutrients - sikkim apple has 100 times more phytonutrients than Gala; 475 times more than Ginger Gold. But three small cat bowls of mixed greens per day... and nothing else...

Mixed Greens.

Only mixed greens.

That is a starvation diet. Along the lines of deer starving to death with full stomachs because what they are filled with is dead pine needles - similarly not sustainable. It isn't because it is vegan; it is because the food doesn't provide the minimum nutrients.

Possibly there are super nutritious species/variety of greens and a way to dehydrate it so the chicken can eat enough volume of it in a day but the dull feathers, etc indicate it isn't being fed to this chicken.

And side note, I heard about deer like that many, many years ago - I don't know how common or widespread it was. And pine (well, spruce, for sure) needles are excellent and very nutritious - when they are first growing in the spring.

As for convincing them otherwise -maybe the most likely way to reach them is to keep the topic away from the veganism and the typical topics people tend to focus on (don't focus on protein or B vitamins, for example), and talk about health/nutrition - if the people are also living on only mixed greens then it is probably a lost cause but if they are eating some seeds or fruits or roots - then maybe you have a place to start.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

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.

BD - Europe is at the leading edge of Amino Acid supplimentation of poultry feed, has been for at least two decades, as a way of compensating for the deficiencies of a plant-only chicken diet. Without those additions, the European feed method doesn't work, as they themselves have demonstrated.

and while there is a decent chance that a well stocked grocery store has L-Lysine pills on the shelf in the vitamin aisle that someone who knew what they were doing could use to suppliment their feed recipes, the chances of securing dl-Methionine (whose rates of inclusion are limited by US law in poultry feed) are zero, or near zero. With some math, one could use SAM-e, which I occasionally see on the shelf.

While I appreciate that, to a lay person, two loaves of bread, one made from white bread flour, and one made from enriched white bread flour may LOOK the same, nutritionally, they are NOT the same. and unlike US feed labels, the EU doesn't provide you the information needed to be an educated consumer.

Again, the point isn't that an animal feed scientist, a commercial poultry operation, a well read vetrinarian, or a reasonably competant lay person like myself couldn't sit down and do the work of crafting a vegan diet for poultry (as I did last night - partially - for a poster in Japan), then begin to figure out the various processing methods needed to compensate for antinutritional factors in the feed - its that the person under discussion isn't any of those things, has not done the work, and has assumed a couple piles of greens each day will do.

 

[BelovedBirds]

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.


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.


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.

The difference is that this isnt an apple tree, its a living being producing a product to nourish their baby, which is then taken, and not out of necessity.

 

[BelovedBirds]

Neither is almost anything else. As long as you consume the necessary vitamins and nutrients

As for natural, how do you define natural?

I'll reply to a couple points you made- firstly I agree, a balance is what matters. This is exactly my point- dairy is not necessary for a healthy diet- now my personal belief of it being wrong to have is irrelevant. My argument is purely defence against a person here spreading lies and claiming that vegans need dairy etc.
We simply don't. Thus I think a more humane option for those nutrients is preferable.

Second you did state one example which is understandable, there are exceptions when I think dairy can be needed. Only recently I had to purchase goats milk in an attempt to save an orphaned baby mouse. It was an exception, examples like this I understand and sympathise with. But having it as a staple food is not necessary, nor is it good in my opinion


Thirdly and finally, I'll list examples. A mother feeding her baby is natural, a different species farming mothers then removing their babies so they can drink the milk instead, is not natural. It's interesting you give the Aphid example! This is a good one- but is just not the same as farming sentient beings for a product which is meant to be for their babies. I also want to throw in that despite my argument as to what is natural to do or unnatural- nature is not always humane, in fact it rarely is. And one point I want to make is that we cant really compare ourselves to wild animals. We are smarter, we are aware of our actions and how they affect others, a lion does not know nor care if the zebra is in prolonged pain. But we know they are, and that makes it wrong to cause unnecessary suffering. We have a standard to meet which is much higher than any other species.

 

[BDutch]

Update :
Since 1984 it was forbidden to add animals in chicken feed. So millions / no billions of chickens have never eaten any meat for as long as they lived.

But last year Europe changed this law. Since August 2022 , it’s allowed to add meat in chicken feed again :
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-feeding-animal-remains-to-domestic-livestock
Not that they need it. But apparently pig waste from slaughterhouses is a very cheap ingredient for proteins and fat.

 

[BDutch]

…. But we know they are, and that makes it wrong to cause unnecessary suffering. We have a standard to meet which is much higher than any other species.

Then why do people eat chickens and pigs from factory farms. ?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Update :
Since 1984 it was forbidden to add animals in chicken feed. So millions / no billions of chickens have never eaten any meat for as long as they lived.

But last year Europe changed this law. Since August 2022 , it’s allowed to add meat in chicken feed again :
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-feeding-animal-remains-to-domestic-livestock
Not that they need it. But apparently pig waste from slaughterhouses is a very cheap ingredient for proteins and fat.

Much respect for correcting yourself. The vast majority of posters would not.

 

[Geena]

It's interesting you give the Aphid example! This is a good one- but is just not the same as farming sentient beings for a product which is meant to be for their babies.

I agree, it was just something that came to mind. Actually I agree with much of what you say here and also believe we, as the supposed most intelligent species on earth, do have an obligation to be as humane as possible.
That's why so many of us here raise our own meat and eggs, so that we don't have rely on and support factory farmed food sources.
The harvesting of eggs, meat and milk from animals in itself is not the problem, all of these things can be done in a humane and respectful way. The root of the problem lies here- WORLD POPULATION
It's not possible to reliably and economically feed almost 8 billion people without some intensive farming techniques.