white bread for chicken

[Tilhana]

Most all poultry will if eat to fill a caloric need.

Of course they eat to fill a caloric need, that goes without saying. But that doesn't mean they necessarily stop eating once that need is fulfilled. Even if they stop eating the food that's available, they may still eat more if their favorite treats are offered. For some birds, their favorite treats will be bugs they can find on pasture all day; for others it may be grains that they usually only get in the morning; and for others it may be pieces of fruit that get thrown to them throughout the day.

But my main point is that chickens with multiple food options available are not going to become deficient in protein because they've filled up on grass. My understanding of your initial argument about protein requirements in feed is that you disagree, and worry that if any part of their diet is lower in protein than the rest, they will meet their caloric needs for the day and stop eating, thereby becoming protein deficient. If that is your hypothesis, then presumably you would be against letting chickens free-range, since you can't control the nutrient ratios of what they find in the pasture? If that's not your argument, then please explain why it would be ok to let them get part of their diet from pasture, with unpredictable nutrient ratios, but not ok to also feed them a conventional grain feed that has a slightly lower protein content than their daily requirement?

The nutritional needs of poultry and the way they process there food is different than humans. When we eat our food goes straight to our stomach, when poultry eat there food goes to there crop and sits there for up to 12 hours getting for the most part "fermented" then the food goes to the gizzard to get ground up and later absorbed by the small intestine.

I'm not sure how that bolsters yoru argument...unless a full crop offers a more powerful satiety signal than a full stomach, which may be true, I don't know. I'm just saying that many animals will continue eating if food is available, even if they're full or have met their caloric needs for the day. Dogs are another example. Presumably because many animals evolved in an environment where all foods were not always available, so they never had to learn to curb their appetites. It was more advantageous to eat the less available foods whenever they found them, regardless of their current state of hunger, because their availability is unpredictable and it's better to hoard the nutrients in anticipation of future lean times.

 

[Chris2018]

I'm not sure how that bolsters yoru argument...

Reread the post I quoted.

 

[alwaystj9]

Allright...you guys lost me....

 

[Chris2018]

But my main point is that chickens with multiple food options available are not going to become deficient in protein because they've filled up on grass. My understanding of your initial argument about protein requirements in feed is that you disagree, and worry that if any part of their diet is lower in protein than the rest, they will meet their caloric needs for the day and stop eating, thereby becoming protein deficient. If that is your hypothesis, then presumably you would be against letting chickens free-range, since you can't control the nutrient ratios of what they find in the pasture? If that's not your argument, then please explain why it would be ok to let them get part of their diet from pasture, with unpredictable nutrient ratios, but not ok to also feed them a conventional grain feed that has a slightly lower protein content than their daily requirement?

My understanding of your initial argument about protein requirements in feed is that you disagree, and worry that if any part of their diet is lower in protein than the rest, they will meet their caloric needs for the day and stop eating, thereby becoming protein deficient.

No, your not understanding.
One, I'm not worried about anything and I'm not disagreeing that if any part of their diet is lower in protein than the rest, they will meet their caloric needs and stop eating BUT I don't believe that they will become protein deficient unless the lack of/improper nutrition continues.

If that is your hypothesis, then presumably you would be against letting chickens free-range, since you can't control the nutrient ratios of what they find in the pasture?

Your presumption is incorrect.
I am not against free ranging or pasture raising a flock as long as long as they are fed properly with a complete diet that can compensate for the loss of some macro and micro nutrients.

If that's not your argument, then please explain why it would be ok to let them get part of their diet from pasture, with unpredictable nutrient ratios, but not ok to also feed them a conventional grain feed that has a slightly lower protein content than their daily requirement?

I don't believe I disagreed on feeding a slightly lower protein conventional feed.
What I did disagree with is feeding lower protein conventional feed and free ranging.

 

[Tilhana]

No, your not understanding.
One, I'm not worried about anything and I'm not disagreeing that if any part of their diet is lower in protein than the rest, they will meet their caloric needs and stop eating BUT I don't believe that they will become protein deficient unless the lack of/improper nutrition continues.

Your presumption is incorrect.
I am not against free ranging or pasture raising a flock as long as long as they are fed properly with a complete diet that can compensate for the loss of some macro and micro nutrients.

I don't believe I disagreed on feeding a slightly lower protein conventional feed.
What I did disagree with is feeding lower protein conventional feed and free ranging.

Well I'm honestly stumped at your logic, and we may be at an impasse. I don't see how feeding protein-deficient grains could be ok if that's all you're feeding them, but somehow if you're letting them supplement their diet with free-ranging, THEN the grain content becomes an issue. The logic is completely backwards to me.

I guess I just trust hundreds of millions of years of evolution more than I trust a few decades of research by the industrial farming industry. Our understanding of human nutrition is still in its infancy, with recommendations changing from year to year, and we've been studying that a lot longer than chicken nutrition. And time after time, scientists think they've figured out some artificial lab-developed supplement that is healthier than the supposedly harmful natural food source it's supposed to replace, only to discover decades later that actually the natural source is essential for health and the artificial one has detrimental long-term side effects. It's happened with eggs, meat, processed vegetable oils versus animal fats, baby formula versus breastmilk...the list goes on.

Now maybe chicken nutrition is a simpler problem to solve, but it seems like the trend in food science has been that food sources that come from nature are essential and healthy, probably because we've evolved to eat them, and solutions that come out of a lab are often inferior or fraught with unforeseen side effects. I'd be surprised if the trend for chicken nutrition turned out to be different.

So to me, putting all my faith in commercial feed and writing off natural foraging, the way chickens have eaten for millions of years, as somehow potentially detrimental to their nutritional needs, is a little hard to swallow. But maybe that's just me.

 

[NatJ]

Allright...you guys lost me....

These kinds of discussions can get pretty deep sometimes!

 

[alwaystj9]

Good deep or bad deep?
I think I need a Venn diagram to follow this one.

 

[NatJ]

Good deep or bad deep?
I think I need a Venn diagram to follow this one.

I was thinking like deep water, that's hard to wade through.
I think I can follow it when I concentrate, but it can be hard going

 

[ChassiNoir]

This is still going on? Oh goodness!

 

[Chris2018]

Well I'm honestly stumped at your logic, and we may be at an impasse. I don't see how feeding protein-deficient grains could be ok if that's all you're feeding them, but somehow if you're letting them supplement their diet with free-ranging, THEN the grain content becomes an issue. The logic is completely backwards to me.

I guess I just trust hundreds of millions of years of evolution more than I trust a few decades of research by the industrial farming industry. Our understanding of human nutrition is still in its infancy, with recommendations changing from year to year, and we've been studying that a lot longer than chicken nutrition. And time after time, scientists think they've figured out some artificial lab-developed supplement that is healthier than the supposedly harmful natural food source it's supposed to replace, only to discover decades later that actually the natural source is essential for health and the artificial one has detrimental long-term side effects. It's happened with eggs, meat, processed vegetable oils versus animal fats, baby formula versus breastmilk...the list goes on.

Now maybe chicken nutrition is a simpler problem to solve, but it seems like the trend in food science has been that food sources that come from nature are essential and healthy, probably because we've evolved to eat them, and solutions that come out of a lab are often inferior or fraught with unforeseen side effects. I'd be surprised if the trend for chicken nutrition turned out to be different.

So to me, putting all my faith in commercial feed and writing off natural foraging, the way chickens have eaten for millions of years, as somehow potentially detrimental to their nutritional needs, is a little hard to swallow. But maybe that's just me.

I guess I just trust hundreds of millions of years of evolution more than I trust a few decades of research by the industrial farming industry.

So to me, putting all my faith in commercial feed and writing off natural foraging, the way chickens have eaten for millions of years,

I suggest wile your reading up in poultry nutrition you read about the "evaluation" of them also...

Millions of years? That's a good one, try only around 8,000 to 10,000 years.
Man created them by breeding different types of Jungle Fowl.
There was no Gallus Gallus Domesticus running around millions of years ago.