Where do you get your bulk meat? Mine get a little beef every now and then, but mostly they get chicken leg quarters at 76 cents a pound... If I could get other meat for a similar price I could vary their diet a little more. I am feeding 5 cats and a dog raw, so feeding them steaks could get expensive!
I don't believe we HAVE a local butcher... Walmart, Food Lion, and Kroger... I think Kroger technically has a butcher, but I don't think they are allowed to do discounted meats.Have you tried asking your local butcher for scraps or freezer burned, etc.? When I fed raw that's where tons of my meat came from
Backyard chickens are also statistically healthier than chickens that are commercialy raised in cages for their eggs. In fact, most battery caged, commercially raised chickens live about 2-4 years on average whereas typical backyard chickens live about 6 years.
The nutrient density in chicken eggs also diminishes over time as the egg ages and oxidizes.
According to fsis.usda.gov, eggs found in the store must be sold within 30 days of the egg being packed in the carton... which means, your eggs could be 1-2 months old by the time they are consumed. When you raise your own chickens, you get to eat eggs that are less than 24 hours old.
Chickens that have exposure to the outdoors also have a higher nutrient density in their eggs than indoor and confined chickens' eggs... Most chicken eggs that are sold in the store are from caged or indoor chickens.However, most backyard raised chickens are cage free and free range (which means they have outdoor access and have room to spread their wings).
I personally notice a considerable difference in taste between my girls' eggs vs store bought eggs. Not surprising considering the facts here.
Nasal issues? Just a guess.They're paranoid because of articles like this one from the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/features/salmonellapoultry/index.html
And this one:
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2017/06/06/backyard-chickens-are-getting-people-sick-again.html
And a whole bunch more. It makes the rounds at least once a year on the major news networks, otherwise known as drama queens... Wait, did I say that out loud?
It's perfectly reasonable to expect to find bacteria and viruses everywhere around you. By that mentality we should be washing our hands until they're raw! Now we could be reactionary, or preventative, but it all comes down to a healthy dose of common sense.
Perhaps people are so paranoid through ignorance combined with the general lack of common sense we see so blatantly on display every single day? Just a thought.
I will say I'm glad to see the CDC does not make any recommendation to wash eggs.
I know only one person that ever had Salmonella, and yeah it was awful. But that my mom, she got it because she's got a very bad habit of walking around with her mouth open and she was cleaning out the wild bird bath (frequented by squirrels and all kinds of wild life), and I'm sure you can put two and two together. Splash! Oops... couple of days later came down with it. She still walks around with her mouth open all the dang time
