Vegetarian Chickens?

[Davaroo]

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Allow me to put that to rest - they most certainly will. I have seen them do it, for no apparent reason. Cannibalisation among chickens is also well known, generally as a result of overcrowding.

In the wild the chickens diet indeed includes animal protein. Mostly as a result of eating insects, they will also eat snakes, lizards, frogs, mice, moles and any creature smaller than themselves which they can run to ground. Carrion is also on their menu, and this would certainly include their own kind, if given the chance.

 

[hikerchick]

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Allow me to put that to rest - they most certainly will. I have seen them do it, for no apparent reason. Cannibalisation among chickens is also well known, generally as a result of overcrowding.

In the wild the chickens diet indeed includes animal protein. Mostly as a result of eating insects, they will also eat snakes, lizards, frogs, mice, moles and any creature smaller than themselves which they can run to ground. Carrion is also on their menu, and this would certainly include their own kind, if given the chance.

I haven't had any chickens long enough to witness that. I know they love bugs and such; and I saw my Muscovey duck eat a mouse, but I didn't know chickens killed each other for food.

 

[NYREDS]

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Why not?

I worry about spongiform encephalitis in the cow bones, for one thing. I have no defense on the chicken by products- it just seems like, left to their own devices, chickens would not be killing and eating each other.

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy-I think this is what you're referring to not spongiform encephalitis. The Bovine is important-it's a cattle disease & I did quite a bit of reading about it awhile back. didn't come across any reference to transmission of the disease to poultry. BSE may be linked with Crutchfeld-Jacob Disease, a rare human disorder that affects 1 in 1 million people worlwide. Again, from past reading I think there has only been one case of Crutchfeld-Jacob Disease in the US & that was probably contracted out of the country. The disease has a long incubation period.
As to chickens not eating other chickens you're mistaken, they do it all the time. Ask anyone who's had a bird die in a populated coop. If you don't find it right away you'll find it mostly gone!

 

[hikerchick]

Quote:
I worry about spongiform encephalitis in the cow bones, for one thing. I have no defense on the chicken by products- it just seems like, left to their own devices, chickens would not be killing and eating each other.

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy-I think this is what you're referring to not spongiform encephalitis. The Bovine is important-it's a cattle disease & I did quite a bit of reading about it awhile back. didn't come across any reference to transmission of the disease to poultry. BSE may be linked with Crutchfeld-Jacob Disease, a rare human disorder that affects 1 in 1 million people worlwide. Again, from past reading I think there has only been one case of Crutchfeld-Jacob Disease in the US & that was probably contracted out of the country. The disease has a long incubation period.
As to chickens not eating other chickens you're mistaken, they do it all the time. Ask anyone who's had a bird die in a populated coop. If you don't find it right away you'll find it mostly gone!

Thanks for correcting me. Encephalitis was a word in my mental dictionary. Encephalopathy, sadly, was not. Now it is!! thanks.

Yeah, I am being schooled on the chicken-on-chicken crime problem.

 

[Pathfinders]

Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay :

http://animalscience.ucdavis.edu/Avian/scheidler.pdf

Jim

This is a great link, thanks for putting it up here, I'm going to read through the tables later today when I finish work. However I will note I found the following pretty persuasive:

Lowering dietary protein from 18 to 14% resulted in a significant decrease in feed consumption...lowering dietary crude protein significantly improved egg production, with the highest egg production of 90.22% at 16% CO compared to 87.88 and 89.13% at 18% and 14% respectively... a reduction of crude protein using supplemental lysine and methionine, threonine and trypophan can sustain egg production and subsequently reduce N excretion into the environment.

I guess I'm going to have to give you this one, you're right! Thanks for opening my eyes using such good data.

That being said, I will continue to provide animal protein to my birds, despite your excellent info on synthetic amino acids, if for no other reason than my birds seem to thrive when I do so. My personal (albeit anecdotal) experience says they do better when I do. I know that's not scientific, but it's been working for me, and I'm of the old "don't fix it if it ain't broke" school.

And now I have to ask, do you work for a feed company? ​

 

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

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I agree that animal proteins are great of poultry!!!!

There has been too much marketing (aka caving into whackos) of the No Animal Products in chicken feeds.

I am a livestock nutritionist educated at two premier Land Grant Universities.

Jim, Ph.D.

 

[Pathfinders]

Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay :

I am a livestock nutritionist educated at two premier Land Grant Universities.

Jim, Ph.D.

Well, THAT explains it.

 

[Bebe Brett]

You are all so knowledgable and well informed that you scare a small animal lover like me! My hens eat everything I give them, but are wary of new items. One is braver than the rest, and once she starts eating they all try to get at the treats at once. I cook kitchen scraps and add growing pellets, they love that and it helps to make the feed last longer. They are happiest, however, when allowed out to grass and clover. My eight RIRs were hatched on May 27 and have been a source of pleasure ever since.

 

[Pathfinders]

Hey Bebe, don't let it get to you, some of us are just nerds about this stuff (although I bow to Jim with his PhD!)

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

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Ditto!