When to stop feeding eggs

[arazla]

Beef jerky might be a bit salty but in small quantities should be safe. A lot of salt is not good for them.

Meat does not have to be dry and stable. I assume stable means it won't quickly spoil. When I trap a mouse, I feed it fresh and whole (but dead) to the adult chickens. They play keep away with it and peck it until it is flexible enough that one of them can swallow it. I've seen them cut a frog to pieces with their beak by pecking to get it to bite sized pieces. I've seen them swallow small snakes, maybe 6" long, after pecking it to death.

When I kill certain small animals like rats, possum, and raccoons I put them in the run and cut them open so the chickens can get to the insides. Before dark I dispose of what is left so I don't attract other predators. With chickens it's do lunch or be lunch. If it doesn't eat them they will eat it.

Chickens are omnivores. If given the chance they will eat veggies or meat. There doesn't have to be anything special about it.

If you have sufficient quality and quantity of forage chickens can pretty much feed themselves in the good weather months. Chickens have been raised that way for thousands of years and are being raised that way now in every country in the world. When given the right quality and quantity they can manage a balanced diet on their own. But almost none of us on this forum have that available so we have to use a chicken feed. Chicken feed (not scratch) from reputable suppliers is a balanced diet. It supplies all they need in the right amounts. As a rule of thumb as long as that feed is 90% of their daily diet you can feed them other things without upsetting that balanced diet. Feeding them a bit more of the other stuff won't kill them or be that unhealthy as long as you don't get ridiculous, but it is not quite as balanced as it could be.

Yes, that's what I was thinking. Seems like they did and should theoretically be able to live off the land to some degree. We have the space plus lots of tree frogs, deer mice, caterpillars, etc, but I think we're going with a closed in run rather than free roaming, since there are just so many predators here. I do notice that when we put them in the grass and their feeder is nearby they seem to do less foraging and go back to their feeder more often. We have been putting it aside for up to an hour at times when we want them to focus on learning about the world around them. But seems like the general advice here is to provide access to their feeder at all times, so not sure if we're doing the right thing there. It's reassuring to hear about all the meat they can eat. Wow. My boyfriend has occasionally given them tiny scraps of plain pork and they go crazy for it. Once again, I was worried it might be too much protein, but hopefully not.

 

[arazla]

In context of old recipes that call for "beef scrap" or "meat scrap," they were talking about a product that was sold at the time, that was dry and stable (no refrigeration needed, easy to transport, did not spoil quickly, could be mixed into a dry ration without making a gooey mess.) I think it must have been similar to jerky, but in small pieces and without the salt.

In context of what is good food for chickens, I agree that meat in plenty of other forms is also fine (like your raw mouse example, or feeding cooked meat left over from human meals. Depending on how salty the human leftovers are, they may need to be limited for that reason.)

Perfect! We often cook our meat plain, nothing added yet, so we can share a little with our cat. Now the chickens can enjoy as well.

 

[NatJ]

My boyfriend has occasionally given them tiny scraps of plain pork and they go crazy for it. Once again, I was worried it might be too much protein, but hopefully not.

Too much protein is not really something to worry about when feeding chickens.

For commercial flocks, with thousands of chickens in big buildings, "too much" protein causes more ammonia in the droppings, which is very bad for the air quality. That is not a problem for a small flock, outdoors, with lots of bedding to deal with the droppings, and where you want it in the compost anyway. Higher protein feed also tends to cost more, which is another reason for commercial producers to use the lowest levels they reasonably can.

To cause actual health problems for the chickens, rather than cost problems or air-quality problems, the protein level of the entire diet needs to be something like 35% or more by weight of dry matter. That is very hard to achieve with any reasonable combination of ingredients. It has been done in experiments, with large amounts of soybean meal or fish meal or similar ingredients in the chicken feed. Here is one source talking about such an experiment: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0032579119381106
(That's the abstract of an article titled, "The Effects of Feeding High Protein Diets to Chickens," by authors Rajaguru and others.)

Chickens also have some ability to self-regulate their food choices, so if you gave them free choice meat and also normal chicken food or grains, they would stop eating the meat before doing themselves any harm. Likewise when scratching for bugs, they would eat other things too, and not overdose on the bugs.