Vegan diet for chickens - is it unhealthy?

[Suzz]

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

I will sometimes see one of my chickens running with something long dangling out of their beak with the rest in hot pursuit so they are enjoying something they probably killed they can be kind of vicious!

 

[BDutch]

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.

Another off topic reply (can’t help it either).
You’re intentions are well, but you’re theory stinks imho. I pity the cows that produce an enormous amount of milk and have such enormous utters that they come nearly to the ground. The breeding program in my country made milk monsters.

These cows are so unnatural that they can’t live solemnly on grasses anymore but need special power food to produce so much milk. If you create a monster with enormous utters there is no way you can give her a really pleasant and long life.

This is what commercial farmers do with all producing animals. They make monsters. Chickens originally were laying about 12 - 20 eggs a year. A century ago that increased to 120 . And now they lay an egg every day. And the farmers are still ‘improving’ . Proud that their chickens lay over 360 eggs a year.
This comes with a price. Just ask people who bought rescues from a commercial farmer.

 

[Chickn Keaper]

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?

Absolutely not!!!

 

[3KillerBs]

Animals that are not well cared for and which are in pain, simply cannot be productive.

This cannot be said too often.

Mistreated animals are neither productive nor profitable. Therefore, even a farmer who didn't *like* them and cared for nothing but profit would be motivated to treat them with the greatest possible care and to ensure their greatest possible comfort and well-being.

 

[cassie]

Another off topic reply (can’t help it either).
You’re intentions are well, but you’re theory stinks imho. I pity the cows that produce an enormous amount of milk and have such enormous utters that they come nearly to the ground. The breeding program in my country made milk monsters.

View attachment 3154254
These cows are so unnatural that they can’t live solemnly on grasses anymore but need special power food to produce so much milk. If you create a monster with enormous utters there is no way you can give her a really pleasant and long life.

This is what commercial farmers do with all producing animals. They make monsters. Chickens originally were laying about 12 - 20 eggs a year. A century ago that increased to 120 . And now they lay an egg every day. And the farmers are still ‘improving’ . Proud that their chickens lay over 360 eggs a year.
This comes with a price. Just ask people who bought rescues from a commercial farmer.

You mentioned that my "theory" stinks. What theory would that be, pray tell? I don't mean to be snarky, but just so you know I was involved with dairy goats and dairy cows in one way or another, for more than forty years. Most of what I say is from personal experience and personal observation, not abstract theory.

Monsters? Cows with udders like the one in that picture just aren't seen in any progressive dairy any more. At least not in the United States. They just aren't. For one thing they are a nightmare to milk. For another an udder like that would be very prone to injury. As big as that udder appears to be I can guarantee she is not milking anywhere near 200 pounds of milk. I would be very surprised if she was milking sixty pounds of milk, if that. Not only is that cow's udder terrible, she has extremely poor conformation in general and she is just very unsound. She doesn't look healthy either. I would be embarrassed to own a cow like that. Even when I was milking and testing cows, and that was some years ago, I very seldom saw cows that bad. A former boss did have one cow with an udder similar to that one. One. He bought her when she was dry and he had no idea how poor her udder was until she freshened. Although she gave a fair amount of milk she did not last long in the dairy. She was just more trouble than she was worth.

Before you say much about udders, see if you can get on one of the web pages of any of the bull studs. SelectSires is one. There are many others. I haven't tried the web sites but I have browsed through the catalogs. You should be able to find pictures of the bulls and their progeny. I guarantee you won't see ANY udders like that one.

What do you consider to be a long life for a dairy cow? Five years? Ten? The almost twenty-year-old cow I mentioned in another post was kept around that long because she was a pet, but even then she milked enough to pay for her feed and her udder was nowhere near as bad as that cow's is. If it had been she wouldn't have lived to be nearly as old as she was.

Some dairies do keep their cows on pasture at least part of the year. Depends on where they are. Not many feed their cows only on grass. They never did. Even my uncle's cows were fed grain when they came in the barn to be milked. I did come across one dairy that advertises that his cows are fed only grass. I don't know how he can afford to stay in business. By looking at the pictures of his cows you can see production is very low. Cows don't look so good either. Now, if he had Milking Shorthorns rather than Holsteins he would be a lot better off. Shorthorns are bred to produce well on grass. I don't know why he doesn't have them.

Try to access the web site of the Iowadairyfarmer. His is a family operation. I think he has some videos on youtube. I see him on facebook. He posts videos of his barn, the milking robot, the feed robot, the free stalls, artificial insemination, and the rotary cow brushes where the cows stand and get their backs and heads scratched. Since I cannot be around cows any more that is how I get my cow fix. See if you can find it. You may learn something.

You think dairy cows live a life of misery and pain. They don't. Also, cows that are giving 200 pounds or more of milk do NOT have udders dragging on the ground. Their udders are pretty much above the hocks. I think this about covers it. At least I hope it does.

 

[Hayden Goseek]

There is no way I can read this whole thing and probably shouldn't comment. But that never stopped me yet so.
I believe the question of vegetaranism is scientific and the answer is NO, chickens are omnivores.
I believe the question of Veganism is a Ideological one and the friend is a Wack-a-Doodle.
To purposely deny a omnivore a partialy meat protine diet is as cruel as feeding a human baby a fat-free diet. When you replace Science with Ideology you get Lysenkoism. (Google and read it. The concept will come in handy.) Love y'all. Out

 

[BDutch]

You mentioned that my "theory" stinks. What theory would that be, pray tell? I don't mean to be snarky, but just so you know I was involved with dairy goats and dairy cows in one way or another, for more than forty years. Most of what I say is from personal experience and personal observation, not abstract theory.

Monsters? Cows with udders like the one in that picture just aren't seen in any progressive dairy any more. At least not in the United States. They just aren't. For one thing they are a nightmare to milk. For another an udder like that would be very prone to injury. As big as that udder appears to be I can guarantee she is not milking anywhere near 200 pounds of milk. I would be very surprised if she was milking sixty pounds of milk, if that. Not only is that cow's udder terrible, she has extremely poor conformation in general and she is just very unsound. She doesn't look healthy either. I would be embarrassed to own a cow like that. Even when I was milking and testing cows, and that was some years ago, I very seldom saw cows that bad. A former boss did have one cow with an udder similar to that one. One. He bought her when she was dry and he had no idea how poor her udder was until she freshened. Although she gave a fair amount of milk she did not last long in the dairy. She was just more trouble than she was worth.

Before you say much about udders, see if you can get on one of the web pages of any of the bull studs. SelectSires is one. There are many others. I haven't tried the web sites but I have browsed through the catalogs. You should be able to find pictures of the bulls and their progeny. I guarantee you won't see ANY udders like that one.

What do you consider to be a long life for a dairy cow? Five years? Ten? The almost twenty-year-old cow I mentioned in another post was kept around that long because she was a pet, but even then she milked enough to pay for her feed and her udder was nowhere near as bad as that cow's is. If it had been she wouldn't have lived to be nearly as old as she was.

Some dairies do keep their cows on pasture at least part of the year. Depends on where they are. Not many feed their cows only on grass. They never did. Even my uncle's cows were fed grain when they came in the barn to be milked. I did come across one dairy that advertises that his cows are fed only grass. I don't know how he can afford to stay in business. By looking at the pictures of his cows you can see production is very low. Cows don't look so good either. Now, if he had Milking Shorthorns rather than Holsteins he would be a lot better off. Shorthorns are bred to produce well on grass. I don't know why he doesn't have them.

Try to access the web site of the Iowadairyfarmer. His is a family operation. I think he has some videos on youtube. I see him on facebook. He posts videos of his barn, the milking robot, the feed robot, the free stalls, artificial insemination, and the rotary cow brushes where the cows stand and get their backs and heads scratched. Since I cannot be around cows any more that is how I get my cow fix. See if you can find it. You may learn something.

You think dairy cows live a life of misery and pain. They don't. Also, cows that are giving 200 pounds or more of milk do NOT have udders dragging on the ground. Their udders are pretty much above the hocks. I think this about covers it. At least I hope it does.

Thanks for the explanation. Good to hear that the cows in you’re country are in good shape.

I was raised on a farm with cows. And the cows we had where okay and treated quit wel. In summer they were outside in the meadowlands eating grasses. In winter in the stable eating hay and beets.

I was sad when my parent’s and brother converted the farm to a factory pig farm. There were more farmers in my family, Most of them specialised in cows and one uncle specialised as a hatchery for laying hens. Friends of the family often had cattle too. One family friend just had young (caged) calfs who only got milk to produce pink and soft flesh.

I noticed that all these farmers justify what they were doing. It seemed the profit was more important than the lives of the animals. I really hated some of the of the things I have witnessed.

I know the cows produced more and more milk . And the utters got bigger too. I admit that the picture I posted is extreme. In general I don’t like factory farming, the breeding programs to maximise production and certainly not the killing that’s unavoidable.

 

[cassie]

Thanks for the explanation. Good to hear ghat the vows in you’re country are in good shape.

I was raised on a farm with cows. And the cows we had where okay and treated quit wel. In summer the were outside in the meadowlands eating grasses. In winter in the stable eating hay and beets.

I was sad when my parent’s and brother converted the farm to a factory pig farm. There were more farmers in my family, Most of them specialised in cows and one uncle specialised as a hatchery for laying hens. Friends of the family often had cattle too. One family friend just had young (caged) calfs who only got milk to produce pink and soft flesh.

I noticed that all these farmers justify what they were doing. It seemed the profit was more important than the lives of the animals. I really hated some of the of the things I have witnessed.

I know the cows produced more and more milk . And the utters got bigger too. I admit that the picture I posted is extreme. In general I don’t like factory farming, the breeding programs to maximise production and certainly not the killing that’s unavoidable.

Do try to access the iowadairyfarmer. You will be pleasantly surprised and the videos are fun to watch. I particularly like to watch videos of the milking robot and the brush rolls. He has whole a string of lovely cows with beautiful udders.

As necessary as it was, I never liked selling my nonproductive animals for meat either but I had to be able to buy feed for the rest of the animals and groceries for me. I did try to give them the best life I could while I had them. It may make you feel better to know that animals in the wild seldom die of old age.

 

[cassie]

I will sometimes see one of my chickens running with something long dangling out of their beak with the rest in hot pursuit so they are enjoying something they probably killed they can be kind of vicious!

I have always thought that it would not be a good idea to lose consciousness in the chicken pen.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I have always thought that it would not be a good idea to lose consciousness in the chicken pen.

Heck, some of mine peck at me when I'm awake.