white bread for chicken

[Tilhana]

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.

Chickens, like all birds, evolved from the only surviving line of the dinosaurs. They did not just pop into existence out of a vaccuum. Everything on Earth today has been evolving for hundreds of millions of years, just under a variety of species, genera, families, etc.

Again, I don't see how a few decades of evaluations of formulated chicken feed negates the millions of years of evolution and survival and adaptation to living in the wild that got them to modern times. The scientific method is a great invention, but humans are at their most vulnerable when we become so arrogant as to think we're more clever than nature.

 

[Chris2018]

Chickens, like all birds, evolved from the only surviving line of the dinosaurs. They did not just pop into existence out of a vaccuum. Everything on Earth today has been evolving for hundreds of millions of years, just under a variety of species, genera, families, etc.

Again, I don't see how a few decades of evaluations of formulated chicken feed negates the millions of years of evolution and survival and adaptation to living in the wild that got them to modern times. The scientific method is a great invention, but humans are at their most vulnerable when we become so arrogant as to think we're more clever than nature

Yes birds are evolved from the Theropods BUT that was then and this is now.
Chickens have evolved a lot since we created them, we have changed most everything about them.. So for you to say something like this,

I don't see how a few decades of evaluations of formulated chicken feed negates the millions of years of evolution and survival and adaptation to living in the wild that got them to modern times.

Or this

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.

Or this

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

Well, that just shows me that you don't know chickens as well as you think you do.
Now you can repeat your self as many time as you like but it isn't going to make what your saying the truth or even close to it.

Like I said before, I would recommend that you read up on poultry nutrition and there evaluation.
I'm done tying up thread just to have you repeat the same incorrect information over and over again..

 

[BDutch]

"

This is my experience, also. If there is any food in the pen, 90% of my chickens will not leave until the food is completely gone. I know some people leave food in front of their chickens 100% of the time and I am terrified of how much mine would eat if given the opportunity. (I need an emoji of balloon chicken bursting here). My chickens' job is to forage: eating bugs, loosening dirt and eating bugs/grubs/worms. (I wish they would eat ants). If they have unlimited, easy access feed, except for a few birds, they would never leave their pen.

My chickens gladly leave the coop/run if there’s still plenty feed in the bowls. They even go out if there are some grains available inside. But they will not if I offer them specials like mealworms, cooked rice or pieces of cheese left overs.

Maybe the main reason they like to go outside is bc there are more bugs and worms and fresh grasses outside the run?
I use tasty feed as a trick to get them in again . The chickens learned that the get some extras if I call them and clap my hands. It’s effective to have the chickens return to the coop.

 

[BDutch]

....

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 learned to distrust the commercial feed. They put stuf in the feed that give a good optimised abundance of eggs from the commercial laying hybrids (who only live 2 years max). The main goal for them is to make as much profit as possible.
Why is the special laying feed for hatcheries who lay eggs for incubation more expensive (higher quality?).

The feed-factories (in general) don’t care about long term healthy chickens or healthy eco systems.
And I don’t know about chickens, but for cattle & there is proof that the GMO feed causes many miscarriage and death in newborns.
These big commercial mills/factories pollute the world with GMO poisoned feed and contribute to worldwide CO2 problems.

Since much of the organic feed comes from the same large feed factories, I distrust them more than the common sense of me and my chickens.

Yes I do give them organic factory-feed . Mainly because a lot of people say its not good to give much grain mix if they can’t free range all the time. They say my chickens would get health problems and get too fat.
But I prefer the scratch/meal (not pellets) so I can see whats in it. I give them some grains , bread and other kitchen scrap too. I let them free range as much as possible* . This is my personal “blend” and its seems to work fine, having healthy 6 year old, tasty egg laying chickens.

*free range is limited because my garden is not fenced and the risk of predators gets higher if nobody is there to keep an eye on them.
Edit: language

 

[Tilhana]

Chickens have evolved a lot since we created them, we have changed most everything about them..

Well, that just shows me that you don't know chickens as well as you think you do.
Now you can repeat your self as many time as you like but it isn't going to make what your saying the truth or even close to it.

Like I said before, I would recommend that you read up on poultry nutrition and there evaluation.
I'm done tying up thread just to have you repeat the same incorrect information over and over again..

Like I said, we're at an impasse. I still don't think 50-70 years of commercial feed development trumps even the thousands of years of domestication since we started influencing the species. But frankly I'm tired of this debate as well, and it's exhausting trying to decipher your convoluted attempts to elucidate the rationale behind your arguments. Good day to you, sir.

 

[Tilhana]

I learned to distrust the commercial feed. They put stuf in the feed that give a good optimised abundance of eggs from the commercial laying hybrids (who only live 2 years max). The main goal for them is to make as much profit as possible.
Why is the special laying feed for hatcheries who lay eggs for incubation more expensive (higher quality?).

The feed-factories (in general) don’t care about long term healthy chickens or healthy eco systems.
And I don’t know about chickens, but for cattle & there is proof that the GMO feed causes many miscarriage and death in newborns.
These big commercial mills/factories pollute the world with GMO poisoned feed and contribute to worldwide CO2 problems.

Since much of the organic feed comes from the same large feed factories, I distrust them more than the common sense of me and my chickens.

Yes I do give them organic factory-feed . Mainly because a lot of people say its not good to give much grain mix if they can’t free range all the time. They say my chickens would get health problems and get too fat.
But I prefer the scratch/meal (not pellets) so I can see whats in it. I give them some grains , bread and other kitchen scrap too. I let them free range as much as possible* . This is my personal “blend” and its seems to work fine, having healthy 6 year old, tasty egg laying chickens.

*free range is limited because my garden is not fenced and the risk of predators gets higher if nobody is there to keep an eye on them.
Edit: language

I also don't trust the commercial feed, and since I eat the eggs, I don't want my chickens eating GMO corn and soybeans and such. But the organic feed is too expensive so I buy organic grains in bulk and mix my own, and add a vitamin mix that Joel Salatin recommended.

I agree, these feed companies are trying to make a profit, and moreover they were developed to service the industrial factory farm industry. And the scientists who do the evaluations of chicken nutrition and commercial feed are only looking at chickens living in these circumstances. To what extend do their recommendations really apply to small backyard flocks?
Most of these factory-farmed birds are medicated with antibiotics because they live in such close quarters. What effect does THAT have on their nutritional needs?

 

[Artichoke Lover]

Can we drop it. It’s pretty obvious that no one is going to come to an agreement here.

 

[Tilhana]

Can we drop it. It’s pretty obvious that no one is going to come to an agreement here.

Agreed.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

Agreed.

Not sure if you MEANT that as a joke or not, but I laughed.

 

[Ponypoor]

Bread is not nutritionally complete for any species.

It is missing vitamins, minerals, amino acids, protein and just about everything a chicken requires to be healthy.

Yup and being processed, even whole wheat, it's not a healthy food.