what is a good protien treat to give to my flock.

From the BYC treats chart: * Regarding feeding CAT FOOD to chickens,



the following is from DLHunicorn in response to the listing of cat food in this Treats Chart: (A word to the wise, and thank you, DLHunicorn)



"You all know how I feel on cat food and I have posted the links and reasoning behind my objections several times ...it can potentially be detrimental to your birds health and even deadly in the right circumstances and for this reason I feel it should be left off the chart (as when you put it on it is as if you are condoning its use) I will repost here one of the sources for my objection:
http://www.omri.org/Amino_acids_livestock.html
..."While it is nutritionally essential, methionine excesses are far more toxic to poultry than similar excesses of tryptophan, lysine, and threonine (National Research Council, 1994). Force feeding methionine to excess can result in death to chicks (National Research Council, 1994). A dosage of 2 g / mature cat / day (20 to 30 g / kg dry diet) for 20 days induces anorexia, ataxia, cyanosis, methemoglobinemia and Heinz body formation resulting in hemolytic anemia (Maede, 1985). ..."

 

This morning their treat contained half a can of canned mackerel. Comes in a 15 oz. can for about $1.50 here, near the tuna. When there are lots of eggs I feed a dozen scrambled eggs. They get any leftovers which usually contain some sort of meat. Any slightly freezer burned meat gets cooked and fed to the chickens. Mine won't eat BOSS One of these days I'm going to buy some high protein game bird feed for their treat.

I don't know about more eggs, but I get better quality eggs with protein treats, especially yolks that don't tend to break, and I'm an over easy egg eater.