Vegan diet for chickens - is it unhealthy?

[Alagirl]

Honey especially, where the alternatives (assuming one uses alternatives) are worse for the environment to farm. Agave (while absolutely delicious) is not a sustainable crop by any means, and needs to be imported for most of the world. Wool as well, now that I think about it. Many alternatives are not great either.

Although I will complain that honey bees are not a native species in the US, do a poor job pollinating local plants, and have been known to kill off native bees. In other words, an invasive species. Otherwise I'd happily keep them.

The following several paragraphs is a complaint upon the corporate food industry in regards to ethics, sustainability, and cost. As well as how advertising is deliberately misleading consumers into thinking their products are ethical. Many times the victims of this misleading advertising genuinely want to do what is best, but are tricked into believing that the products they're buying are ethical when they are not. This isn't meant as a criticism for people being vegetarian/vegan for these reasons - but rather a complaint of the "vegan" label being used as shorthand for "ethical" (especially on products) when it is not.

To skip this, go to the next bolded text.

In regards to other posts, I will vehemently disagree that all farming is unethical regardless of quality of life. People need to eat and there is no 100% ethical way to eat and survive. I'd further argue that eating locally and sustainably is more ethical and environmentally friendly than veganism alone.

One of the major points of me getting chickens is so that I can survive almost entirely locally and self-sufficiently - negating the need for importing foods which is a huge ecological nightmare. If you want to have a specialized diet on top of that, whatever, but it bothers me when people claim to be vegan for ecological or ethical reasons, and then eat food that is heavily imported, not sustainable, or produced by underpaid or unpaid laborers.

If you can do both, that's great, but one of my biggest complaints about mainstream commercial veganism is that you can slap the vegan label on it, and people will buy it without any further thought as to if that product is ecologically sustainable or ethical. It's a lot harder to find out if products you buy are local or produced ethically because there's no commercial incentive to give out that information. (This is one of the reasons I love milk, because it is very easy to find out EXACTLY where that milk came from, and at least in my area, a lot of the farms will let you tour their premises if you ask. So even though I don't have cows and probably never will, I don't need to labor over where that milk is coming from.)

It's part of the reason I wish agriculture was a required subject in schools. There's a huge disconnect between people and their food. Companies can slap "free range," "cage free," "vegan," or "vegetarian" on their products - but none of these terms mean anything in regards to how ethically that product was actually obtained. And on top of actually finding out how to product was obtained - an already difficult process because companies absolutely do not want you to find out how they obtained their product - you will quickly discover that most companies do not bother obtaining an ethical or local product. So your list of acceptable purchases shrinks even further. It's endlessly frustrating, and a problem that I unfortunately don't have the means to do much about. Milk, meat, and eggs are usually local in my area - certain brands anyway - and I can get veggies from farmers markets when I have money to do so, but as of right now, I'm still very reliant on companies that provide cheap product. I'm broke - and what is cheap is usually neither ethical nor sustainable.

This is why one of my major goals is to become mostly self-sufficient, and only buy imported products as a rare treat. (It means basically giving up chocolate, because there's pretty much no ethical way of getting chocolate unless you are rich or can grow it yourself, which is not something I have the time for in this climate). But for that to happen I need the space to grow lots of foods and keep many animals - something I also need money for.

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Anyway, back to the original post.

I do wonder if OP's "friend" could be convinced of feeding them a commercial poultry feed by telling them that the feed is also "vegan". Since they're not laying, layer feed is not necessary and the oyster shell is then not on the list. I doubt the "friend" will spend the time to verify that all the ingredients listed are sourced from plants, but if none of the ingredients are explicitly animal products, they may be convinced.

Maybe it could be as simple as, "Hey, I wonder if your chicken is getting x nutrients from just greens. Normally they also eat fruits and tubers to supplement their diets. I use x feed - which is 'vegan' and has everything they need to live a long and happy life. Feed them x cups a day and they're set."

I mention feeding them only a certain amount because OP mentions them being a commercial cross, and I believe they tend to gorge themselves, and may need to be limited on how much they have access to.

I'm not too worried about them being indoors constantly, so long as they get to roam around (which they do not at night, but I would start with the feed and fight that battle later). Maybe if they seem receptive to this idea, you could argue for a bigger crate to roost in at night - and I do hope the crate at least has a roost.

If they're not receptive to the commercial feed - or any kind of diet supplement - then I would definitely begin thinking about finding a way to rescue this "rescue".

ten times this!

 

[BDutch]

but that eating the roos is the non-vegan component.
I mean, I am perfectly fine with it. I like eating chicken. (not ones I raise from chicks, I'd whimp out for sure)

This message was a reply to implicate that not all commercial male get killed immediately after hatching.

There are also eggs for sale from chickens that came from a special hatchery. A few hatcheries use a method to abort the male eggs. They puncture the egg with a very fine needle. A tiny drop of protein goes into a test tube with a substance that discolours. The color of the roosters is slightly different from the color of the hens. I not sure at what age , but If I remembered correctly, it was at day 8.

Fyi: I’m about 85% vegetarian. I don’t eat chicken or pigs. Because in commercial farming they have a horrible life and death. Even the labelled/organic ones. I do eat wild fish and once in a while a little organic beef. But most days are without kill. I drink milk, eat cheese (organic) and eat eggs (of my own chickens).

 

[Alagirl]

This message was a reply to implicate that not all commercial male get killed immediately after hatching.

There are also eggs for sale from chickens that came from a special hatchery. A few hatcheries use a method to abort the male eggs. They puncture the egg with a very fine needle. A tiny drop of protein goes into a test tube with a substance that discolours. The color of the roosters is slightly different from the color of the hens. I not sure at what age , but If I remembered correctly, it was at day 8.

Fyi: I’m about 85% vegetarian. I don’t eat chicken or pigs. Because in commercial farming they have a horrible life and death. Even the labelled/organic ones. I do eat wild fish and once in a while a little organic beef. But most days are without kill. I drink milk, eat cheese (organic) and eat eggs (of my own chickens).

well, Veganism tries to remove animal Man completely from the animal world. The male chicks are the downside of eating eggs. the calves the back draw to dairy.
They go through great lent=gths to create substitutes for common things, synthetic leather, fake meat, and cheese. At the same time, they do not bother to consider how many animals are killed to grow their foods.

This is taking the discussion far off into the sunset though (I do agree with you!)
I think what we are seeing here is the pinnacle of disconnect from the basics of life.

 

[Crumbun777]

Someone I know has a "rescue" cornish/leghorn cross that they stole off a slaughter truck at 6 weeks. She's now 2 years old and poor girl doesn't look healthy at all. She is fed exclusively greens and (previously) her own eggs. She recieves no commercial feed or supplementation. She is fed 3 small cat bowls of mixed greens per day, and when she was still laying that would also include one boiled egg with shell.

Her feathers are dull and scrappy, she's bony and underweight, still has down feathers on her tail, has an almost yellow pallored face, and did not lay her first egg until nearly 2 years old. She would take up to ten hours to lay and would act extremely painful and agitated during the process, before her owner gave hormone implants to stop laying. Citing "speciesism", the owner will not see a vet.

The owner insists that fully vegan diets are healthiest for chickens, but I largely suspect this bird's poor health and failure to thrive is due to how she's being fed. She lives indoors so she gets no forage. 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?

Poor thing!!!

 

[BDutch]

…
They go through great lent=gths to create substitutes for common things, synthetic leather, fake meat, and cheese. At the same time, they do not bother to consider how many animals are killed to grow their foods.

This is taking the discussion far off into the sunset though (I do agree with you!)
I think what we are seeing here is the pinnacle of disconnect from the basics of life.

i don’t understand why you think animals are killed because they produce all kind of substitutes for meat (like veggie hamburgers, veggie sausages, etc. ) .
The idea is that there are less animals raised in the meat industry, The ones that are not given birth are not killed either.

 

[Alagirl]

i don’t understand why you think animals are killed because they produce all kind of substitutes for meat (like veggie hamburgers, veggie sausages, etc. ) .
The idea is that there are less animals raised in the meat industry, The ones that are not given birth are not killed either.

vegetable farming is not without victims in the animal world.
No telling how many rodents end up in the harvesters, habitat being carved up for fields and monoculture.
we can happily live with less meat, true.
we are just looking at the opposite side of the issue when we try to eliminate all animal involvement from our lives, not just food.
the absolute mandate to adopt pets vs buying a purpose-bred animal is in there as well.
It works well for couch potato dogs, and for mousers, but less if you have a specific task you want to accomplish. You can't just pull your search and rescue dog from the pound. Heaven knows, purpose-bred pups flunk out often enough.

The insistence on feeding pet a vegan diet is rather - odd.
Like cats cannot live on that, they must have meat. Dogs do marginally better, but they are more built to eat meat as well.
Chickens are bug exterminators. They know that they ought to eat them, even chicks hatched in an incubator know that.
The basic point of this thread is as far as I get from others, if you don't want to eat meat, you are welcome. If you take in an animal and remove their ability to make choices, you owe it to them to provide the best environment, not just diet, you can muster.
I agree with you that we tend to have too much meat on the menus. There are a lot of cultural things weighing in, and of course the economic aspect of conglomerates needing to sell you more of everything. And they don't make a lot of money on the unprocessed foods.

But this is going so far off the topic. I think we do agree on most of the issues here
Demonwolf's post summarizes it to the point I think!

 

[Chicken mob]

Someone I know has a "rescue" cornish/leghorn cross that they stole off a slaughter truck at 6 weeks. She's now 2 years old and poor girl doesn't look healthy at all. She is fed exclusively greens and (previously) her own eggs. She recieves no commercial feed or supplementation. She is fed 3 small cat bowls of mixed greens per day, and when she was still laying that would also include one boiled egg with shell.

Her feathers are dull and scrappy, she's bony and underweight, still has down feathers on her tail, has an almost yellow pallored face, and did not lay her first egg until nearly 2 years old. She would take up to ten hours to lay and would act extremely painful and agitated during the process, before her owner gave hormone implants to stop laying. Citing "speciesism", the owner will not see a vet.

The owner insists that fully vegan diets are healthiest for chickens, but I largely suspect this bird's poor health and failure to thrive is due to how she's being fed. She lives indoors so she gets no forage. 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?

Sounds like she isn't getting the nutrients she needs. You didn't say if they have other chickens, are they on the same diet? Sounds like she needs to be rescued from them!

 

[cassie]

it may be different here, Ive never heard of dairy cows living past 5 where I am, and again I am talking about the norm of commercial farming opposed to the occassional ones with better practices.
It's amazing there was a 20 year old which you once worked with- but then again, having a calf past the age of nine, in order to produce milk to begin with, seems a very risky and unkind business. If I were to ever agree with farming for dairy, it would be on a small scale, a few cows, and they would be retired. But this isnt possible when you factor in expenses, or profit for that matter.
Dairy farming isn't something you can compare with nature- we all know that nature can be cruel. Most animals die young, and the goal is the survival of the species- not the comfort of the individual.
When we domesticate an animal, I believe the burden is on us to create a comfortable life for them. Farming them for what we can get out of them, then disposing of them once the last thing we can use is their bodies, isn't symbiotic. I don't see how the animal really benefits from it when the very reason they are alive is because of us, and any suffering they experience is on our shoulders. Whatever care we give them would surely be compensation for the suffering? And it just doesnt feel like the good out weighs the bad in tbat scenario. It isn't a partnership.

It's sweet about your personal relationship with the cows, and your goats. I'd love to have cows someday, just for fun. Perhaps unrealistic, but still They're great animals.
Thank you for talking with me! It was really interesting to hear your views and experiences.

Just a comment (I never can shut up). As for cows not living beyond five where you live, I am curious as to how you know that. If it is true, I would be curious as to why. As for how the cow benefits in a well managed dairy, how does she not? She is fed, she is, or should be, protected from the elements, she has a comfortable place to rest, her feet are trimmed, and she is milked regularly. What else do you think a cow wants? Yes cows are sold for meat when they are no longer productive although I have known dairymen that had their special pets. In the natural world cows up as meat too. I am not really sure what suffering you are talking about. Unless they got sick or injured (rare) the cows on the dairies where I worked certainly were not suffering. If that happened they were promptly treated. The goats on my dairy weren't suffering either. Animals that are not well cared for and which are in pain, simply cannot be productive. As for calving beyond the age of nine, why would that be risky? These animals are bred to be able to calve and produce milk for a long time. They are bred to have sound feet and legs and strong well attached udders that can carry the milk and last a lifetime without breaking down. The bottom line is that animals that remain sound into an advanced age are more profitable.

There have been tremendous advances in genetics in the years since I was involved in dairying. Now the bull studs have people who come out, evaluate the cows, and select which bulls to use on which cows. When I was milking, a cow that gave 100 pounds of milk per day was considered to be a very high producer. Now it is not unusual for a Holstein cow to produce over 200 pounds of milk per day shortly after freshening. One gallon of milk weighs 8.5 pounds if you want to do the math. The udders on these cows are phenomenal. Not only can they carry large amounts of milk but they are well attached to the body and even after a lifetime don't sag and drag.

Contrary to popular belief, cows on small dairies are not better off than cows on larger ones simply because very often the smaller operators simply cannot afford the free stalls and shelters and other things that do so much for cow comfort. I hope this covers it.

 

[cassie]

Chicken certainly do not need meat but its fun to feed it to them once in a while and watch them turn into tiny dinosaurs they go absolutely nuts for it more than cats who are obligate carnivores

My chickens were merciless mousers. Any mouse that had the misfortune to end up in my chicken pen was not long for this world.

 

[Mark W204]

Ever heard of the phrase, beyond stupid, which seems to fit this person really well. If the chicken is in bad shape that you've described then call animal health on her.