What is "animal protein"??

[Dustoff79]

Quote:
A good discussion on making a maggot farm,

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=87494

you could also look into earthworms, easy, not as gross as maggots, and does not take a large area. many benifits from worm farming.

http://www.thewormfarm.net/wormbins.htm

http://www.livingthing.net.au/rc/guides/EngWorm2005129.pdf

 

[WoodlandWoman]

I have a worm bin. I would definitely do meal worms, before I would do maggots.

 

[JudyMcKinn]

Well, okay, Woodlandwoman. How do you grow mealworms. I have to admit that sounds a little better than the maggot idea, tho I appreciate that suggestion, also. I am a little squeemish, tho.

 

[WoodlandWoman]

I have a red worm bin. They are the type of worms used for fishing bait and for composting, that can be raised indoors.

For raising mealworms, try this thread:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=74575

Both are quite easy to raise, but it takes time. There's also information on the board about soldier fly maggots. They eat compost and grow really fast! I think they are more of an outdoor-in-warmer-weather culture. In warm weather, I make my chickens go catch their own bugs.

 

[panner123]

Judy, just feed them the coons. Cooked or raw they won't have time to get any maggots on them. Not if your chickens are anything like mine.
Road kill is not bad. If you are lucky enough to get a deer, you will have enough for all your birds. You can cook it if you want. Chickens won't leave you much for they will try to eat the bones also.

 

[Poulets De Cajun]

Quote:
dont maggots turn into fly's?!?

 

[dlhunicorn]

http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/y5019e/y5019e06.htm
(a few excerpts from this extensive article
"The protein requirements of animals are given in terms of an amount of protein and its constituent amino acids per unit of time - usually the amount to be fed each day. However, this value continually changes as the animal grows, so is not convenient to use (see Figure 4). Instead we express protein requirements in terms of protein concentration of the diet, usually as g/kg diet as fed. ...Choose protein supplements to provide amino acids that complement amino acids of basic (usually cereal) energy sources. .....Typical protein contents of diets, expressed in these three ways for various livestock classes, are shown in Table 1. In these terms, young growing animals have greater requirements for protein than older animals. As the animal grows more energy is needed for maintenance of the bigger body and to support an increasing proportion of fat deposition in the body. Thus the protein percentage of the diet and protein: energy ratio declines......
....The energy cost of protein synthesis in protein turnover, just to maintain the existing protein, has been estimated to account for 15 to 33 percent of energy needed for maintenance. When additional energy is provided, there is an increase in protein synthesis and a decrease in protein degradation and these two effects combine to enhance net protein retention.....

ENERGY-PROTEIN INTERRELATIONSHIPS
The utilization of dietary proteins must be put in the context of the available energy supply. Energy is the main driving force of metabolism. If energy is limiting dietary protein will be used inefficiently as another source of energy instead of being converted into body protein......
....
....It is not necessary to meet the ideal balance for all amino acids. If one or more amino acids are limiting in the diet, it is possible to increase the amount of protein to meet the needs of the limiting amino acids (Carpenter and De Muelenaere, 1965; Boorman, 1992). This can be important for areas where abundant cheap supplies of a poor quality protein are available. If complementary proteins and synthetic amino acids are not economically available, then quantity can make up for quality. The disadvantage is the excess of the other amino acids is increased further and these need to be deaminated and excreted, with consequent reduction in the energy value of the diet and increased pollution.....

IMMUNOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF DIETARY PROTEINS

Protein concentrates should not be thought of solely in terms of their supply of indispensable amino acids and a source of dispensable amino acid N. Proteins have effects on the immune system. Studies of protein-energy malnutrition in children emphasized the role of protein deficiency in impairing cell mediated immune responses. Animal studies confirmed that protein deficiency reduces immune status......"

...PROTEIN-RICH FEEDS AS SOURCES OF NUTRIENTS OTHER THAN AMINO ACIDS

Protein concentrates are also a source of many other nutrients that should be taken into account when formulating diets. These include the major minerals, Ca, P, Na, K, Cl, vitamins, including B12, choline and vitamin D and essential fatty acids. Consideration should be given to these nutrients because they may be either beneficial or in some cases, can be at such high concentrations as to be detrimental and limit the inclusion level.

Fish meal and meat and bone meal are good sources of calcium and phosphorus in an ideal ratio of 2:1, and these are of high availability when included in diets for mammals or birds. Plant protein concentrates have much lower levels, especially of calcium, with a ratio more in the region of 1:2. Furthermore, the phosphorus is mainly present and bound as phytate, so the total phosphorus is about one third available for poultry and fish. ........

.PROTEIN-RICH FEEDS AS SOURCES OF ANTI-NUTRITIONAL FACTORS

The legume proteins contain protease inhibitors, lectins, tannins, phytates, antigenic proteins flatulence factors (oligosaccharides), and oestrogens (Huisman and Jansman, 1991). To this list can be added high fibre (non-starch polysaccharides) levels (which limit the inclusion levels in many situations) and contamination with mycotoxins. The brassicas contain glucosinolates, tannins, phytate and have high fibre levels. The relevance of the different factors varies with animal species. Processing is available to deal with several of these problems - dehulling, heating, solvent extraction and addition of enzymes as appropriate for the target animal species..."
"
http://ag.ansc.purdue.edu/poultry/multistate/parsons1.htm
"...DIETARY FORMULATION WITH ANIMAL MEALS ON AN AVAILABLE AMINO ACID BASIS

"...Due to variation in amino acid digestibility values among samples of animal meals, formulation of poultry feeds containing animal meals on an available or digestible amino acid basis should be superior to formulation on a total amino acid concentration basis. The development of the precision-fed cecectomized rooster assay has resulted in a large increase in digestible amino acid data and also provided a means of obtaining ingredient digestibility data within a reasonable amount of time and at a reasonable cost. A number of recent studies (e.g. Fernandez et al., 9; Rostagno et al., 10) have shown definite benefits to formulating diets on a digestible amino acid basis versus a total amino acid basis. The results of a study from my lab for low and high-quality MBM are shown in Table 7. Inclusion of 10 or 20% of either low or high-quality MBM into a corn-soybean meal diet on a total amino acid basis resulted in depressed chick weight gain and/or feed efficiency. When diets were formulated on a digestible amino acid basis, 10% low-quality or 10 or 20% high-quality meal had little or no negative effect on performance. These results clearly illustrate the superiority of formulating diets on a digestible or available amino acid basis. A negative effect was observed from 20% low-quality MBM even on an available amino acid basis. Further experiments showed that the latter negative effect was not associated with amino acids but was due to some other unknown characteristic of the meal....

 

[JudyMcKinn]

Thanks to all. There are a lot of ideas here, and surely some that will work for me. Or as hubby just mentioned--"do you think you want/need another project?" Hmmmm. something to think about there, too. Not getting any younger & winter coming on.

May just call around and see if I can find a sack of meat & bone meal, or fish meal, as suggested by Mayberry Saint and Woodlandwoman.

Thanks for all the info, Diana. Can always count on you. And Panner John, doubt I have enough chickens to finish off a deer.

Oh, well, thanks, everyone. This is always a place I can come for help. This is an incredibly great and helpful group. I love it.

 

[tvtaber]

What about cat food for a suppliment?

 

[JudyMcKinn]

I was wondering about that, also. But on dry cat food, I would think those little X's would go down their throats sorta hard. And I can't tell what amount of protein is in the wet cat food. Is it something that can be fed to chickens, also, or is the dry the only thing recommended?