Whey Protein for Poultry?

[EuroChook]

"Our results indicate that dry whey powder and whey protein concentrate can be successfully used to feed broilers, as they enhance their growth. " This from a relatively reputable site, (given below).

Is whey okay to give to poultry? Have you given your flock whey as part of their diet?

(https://www.sciencedirect.com/scien...tent and,powder also improves feed conversion.

 

[RoyalChick]

"Our results indicate that dry whey powder and whey protein concentrate can be successfully used to feed broilers, as they enhance their growth. " This from a relatively reputable site, (given below).

Is whey okay to give to poultry? Have you given your flock whey as part of their diet?

(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751731117002208#:~:text=Its high lactose content and,powder also improves feed conversion.

Mine are like @Perris’s little miss muffets - I make Kefirwhich they love but sometimes they only get the whey because I use the curds myself. Sometimes I just make a quick youghurt by letting milk sour with a spoonful of live yogurt mixed in.

 

[EuroChook]

mine get it whenever milk 'goes off' i.e. separates into curds and whey. They consume both, like little miss muffet

Hopefully they aren't suddenly startled by spiders with an attitude problem haha

 

[saysfaa]

...Is whey okay to give to poultry? Have you given your flock whey as part of their diet?...

Yes. All (the vast majority, anyway) of the old poultry textbooks and land grant university publications use whey extensively in poultry rations. Old meaning before 1960s. I'm quite sure later ones use it too but don't know how much later it was recommended extensively. At some point, the audience became much less likely to have cows.

I haven't fed my chickens whey because I don't have a reasonable source.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Seems that whey protein in powder form is tolerated well by chickens. The only trick to it is trying to find one with the amino acids in correct ratio.

Some have tried to "balance things" by using a dosage that means more methionine just so that lysine is correct, for example. But wrong move, because too much methionine causes brain damage and death.

Then there is a problem with chickens not liking the flavors, or additives that may do harm, like artificial sweetwners.

The expensive and safer way is to buy each amino acid and compound an amino acid additive.

Too much Methionine is WELL above the levels you will get from adding some whey powder to your feed. and as @saysfaa correctly noted above (and has linked in the past), many recipes from the 1960s and before depended upon it as an animal protein source.

The typical chicken feed has 0.3% Methionine levels. Met levels of 0.65% in adult birds have been tested with no observable affect and only minor changes to their biochemistry. To reach levels above .65% with a typical feed you would have to add about 20# of whey powder to every 100# of feed. That would also bring your crude protein up near 30%, with much greater (and more obvious) concerns, like excessive ammonia from waste protein in the feces and increased formation of urates.

 

[Perris]

The expensive and safer way is to buy each amino acid and compound an amino acid additive.

probably not. See https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/new-research-debunks-trad-views-on-nutrition.1567953/

 

[Sally PB]

I have quarts of (liquid) whey left over when I make yogurt. For the next few days, the chickens get that mixed with crumble to make mash snack. If I have space available in the fridge, they'll get that until it's gone. If I don't, the excess gets poured on the blueberry bushes.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Of course liquid way is about 95% water, so to get an equivalent amount of dried whey powder, assuming 8.5 lb per gallon which may be wrong, that's somewhere around 45 gallons of liquid whey per hundred pound of feed. No danger of excess consumption there, they would of water poisoning first.

/edit someone recheck my math please. That sounds wrong. Also, not a lethal dose of liquid. I was being facetious.

 

[Perris]

mine get it whenever milk 'goes off' i.e. separates into curds and whey. They consume both, like little miss muffet

 

[EuroChook]

Yes. All (the vast majority, anyway) of the old poultry textbooks and land grant university publications use whey extensively in poultry rations. Old meaning before 1960s. I'm quite sure later ones use it too but don't know how much later it was recommended extensively. At some point, the audience became much less likely to have cows.

I haven't fed my chickens whey because I don't have a reasonable source.

Seems that whey protein in powder form is tolerated well by chickens. The only trick to it is trying to find one with the amino acids in correct ratio.

Some have tried to "balance things" by using a dosage that means more methionine just so that lysine is correct, for example. But wrong move, because too much methionine causes brain damage and death.

Then there is a problem with chickens not liking the flavors, or additives that may do harm, like artificial sweetwners.

The expensive and safer way is to buy each amino acid and compound an amino acid additive.