Vegan diet for chickens - is it unhealthy?

[Hannahnic14]

Just when I think I have heard it all, I read this... my chickens love to be fed meat products, especially the left over carcasses from Thankgiving turkeys. And just last week, you should have seen them go after some thick sliced bologna.

When I feed my birds table scraps they always go for the meat first!

 

[OfWolvesAndHen]

It puts some of the nutrients back into the body, no doubt, but isn't complete in itself, both examples are full of nutrients. All I said was simply that it is fine for them to eat their own eggs- I also said they need a complete diet.

Yeah, maybe I misspoke somewhere but I never meant to imply it's somehow unhealthy that she's being fed her own eggs. But that the owner says it's a necessary behavior, and one egg a day was her only source of nutrition besides mixed leafy greens. Now she just gets the greens.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I dont ds

I agree with you, it just sounded a little harsh

I'm mature enough to know my flaws. and old enough to know I'm not changing. Therefore, a recommendation, which I've made publicly, many times:

Think of me as the curmudgeonly old grandpa figure. Occasionally useful, sometimes entertaining, BEST IN SMALL QUANTITIES.

or roll your eyes and put me on Ignore.

I'm not trying to win a contest of "likes", and I've certainly been wrong plenty of times.

Appreciate when somone shares sources and corrects me, so I cease to make those mistakes. Merely trying to convey useful information, with no portion of my very limited time devoted to guessing how two or ten or one hundred anonymous posters spread all over the world might interpret my text. Its not personal.

Take my posts as you find them (and perhaps with a grain of salt), or leave them - as you prefer.

 

[Egg Blues]

When that happens, check out local law/ordinances, report them, have an inspector come out.

In some ways, this might seem right. But I believe people should have certain liberties, including with their children and their animals, even if they might be deemed by others to be entirely deluded. In this case, there is no chance that the inspector would be able to cure the root cause of the issue, the mindset of the person(s) involved, regardless of the action taken. The person is far more valuable than the animal, and it is therefore the hen's owner who gets the lion's share of my sympathies in this case. I do pity the hen...but the hen's owner! Alas, I fear the path to improvement is very difficult and hard to find.

 

[Hannahnic14]

Someone may have already said this but I didn't feel like reading 6 pages of comments. Lol. In my mind, feeding her eggs back to her would be the same as a human drinking urine in a survival situation. You can do it for awhile, but eventually you'll dehydrate because you can only recycle your own produced resources for so long. Just my opinion. Feed that baby some high protein feed and scratch! And let her get some sunshine and tasty bugs

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Someone may have already said this but I didn't feel like reading 6 pages of comments. Lol. In my mind, feeding her eggs back to her would be the same as a human drinking urine in a survival situation. You can do it for awhile, but eventually you'll dehydrate because you can only recycle your own produced resources for so long. Just my opinion. Feed that baby some high protein feed and scratch! And let her get some sunshine and tasty bugs

Skip the scratch, the bird's diet has suffered enough aready. No point in prolonging an inferior feed regimen. Otherwise, I agree.

 

[OfWolvesAndHen]

In some ways, this might seem right. But I believe people should have certain liberties, including with their children and their animals, even if they might be deemed by others to be entirely deluded. In this case, there is no chance that the inspector would be able to cure the root cause of the issue, the mindset of the person(s) involved, regardless of the action taken. The person is far more valuable than the animal, and it is therefore the hen's owner who gets the lion's share of my sympathies in this case. I do pity the hen...but the hen's owner! Alas, I fear the path to improvement is very difficult and hard to find.

Forgive me if I seem out of line, but I didn't make this post for people to put on their tinfoil hats and start making up stories about how vegans have brain damage and it's the most horrible diet ever. I myself am not a vegan but let's not be ridiculous here.

 

[Hannahnic14]

Skip the scratch, the bird's diet has suffered enough aready. No point in prolonging an inferior feed regimen. Otherwise, I agree.

I was adding the scratch in to fatten her up.

 

[Battlepants]

I was adding the scratch in to fatten her up.

IMO, chickens don't really need to be fattened up in the sense of adding fat. They need to bulk up muscle with protein instead. Of course a little fat to help through the hungry days is a good thing, but better to just have a reliable source of food so the hungry days don't happen.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I was adding the scratch in to fatten her up.

I'll stand by my opinion, but lack the time for a lengthy post as to why.