Freeze dried chicken feed???

[Brooks_]

3) Introduce animal/insect protein sources;

3)a, Controlling the fat levels.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

3)a, Controlling the fat levels.

Yes, balancing a chicken's diet is hard, and many seek to reach crude protein targets by introducing concentrated nutritional sources which are also high fat, without adjusting carb intake, with real long term health consequences for their flock.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

How to feed chickens is the most studied of all species regarding nutrition needs, even more than how to feed humans, or dogs, or cats. With so much information freely available, its sad to see so many do it so poorly.

 

[Perris]

How to feed chickens is the most studied of all species regarding nutrition needs

I don't think so. How to feed baby chickens in confinement may be, but how to feed real grown up chickens that are free to wander where they will, definitely not.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I don't think so. How to feed baby chickens in confinement may be, but how to feed real grown up chickens that are free to wander where they will, definitely not.

Their nutritional needs don't change, only the methods for meeting those needs change.

 

[Perris]

Their nutritional needs don't change, only the methods for meeting those needs change.

they do if they've had a cecectomy, as many birds used for nutritional studies have.

Edited to add: "The role of the avian caeca in the maintenance of gut health, fermentation of undigested nutrients, re-cycling of nitrogen from urine, and modulation of the gut microflora is not well understood." Function and nutritional roles of the avian caeca: a review https://doi.org/10.1017/S0043933913000287

 

[U_Stormcrow]

they do if they've had a cecectomy, as many birds used for nutritional studies have.

Edited to add: "The role of the avian caeca in the maintenance of gut health, fermentation of undigested nutrients, re-cycling of nitrogen from urine, and modulation of the gut microflora is not well understood." Function and nutritional roles of the avian caeca: a review https://doi.org/10.1017/S0043933913000287

at the end of the study - before being destroyed. Followed by inspection of villi lenght and crypt depth, among other purposes. Do they release such birds in the EU rather than euthanise?

Unless you refer to (generally) roosters which are deliberately given a cecectomy for use as human analogues in studies intended to provide some insight into human metabolic processes.

 

[Perris]

you claimed

How to feed chickens is the most studied of all species regarding nutrition needs, even more than how to feed humans, or dogs, or cats

I pointed out that the chickens that are studied are either broilers - so up to about 5 weeks old, otherwise known as chicks or baby birds - or cecectomized roosters, i.e. adult male birds that have had their ceca surgically removed or ligated before the experiments on diet began. There are even papers on what difference it makes to digestion between removal and ligation. There are even papers by the surgeon in chief of this method responding to challenges by other poultry nutritionists on the appropriateness, or otherwise, of his methods in the so-called precision fed laboratory results. eg. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1056617119323177
especially issue 3, which compares the AA digestibility values of baby birds and incomplete roosters. Where's the laying hen figures?

Frankly, I find this work disgusting.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

you claimed

I pointed out that the chickens that are studied are either broilers - so up to about 5 weeks old, otherwise known as chicks or baby birds - or cecectomized roosters, i.e. adult male birds that have had their ceca surgically removed or ligated before the experiments on diet began. There are even papers on what difference it makes to digestion between removal and ligation. There are even papers by the surgeon in chief of this method responding to challenges by other poultry nutritionists on the appropriateness, or otherwise, of his methods in the so-called precision fed laboratory results. eg. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1056617119323177
especially issue 3, which compares the AA digestibility values of baby birds and incomplete roosters. Where's the laying hen figures?

Frankly, I find this work disgusting.

I don't agree with it either.

The vast majority of studies aren't conducted on birds which have had cecectomies performed, and as the the paper you linked shows, the reliability of those studies is questioned. Neither is the methodology is the easiest/cheapest (and thus most widely practiced). Early studies were usually growth/performance studies. Other studies collected the droppings of live, unaltered birds (with potential concerns due to the effect of bacteria in the chicken's digestion). Still others use chemical markers, again without performing surgery on the birds. Titanium dioxide is a popular indigestible marker. Yet others euthanized the birds at study conclusion before performing an analysis of the bird's digestive tract (I've read a lot of these).

Frankly, I've read nothing which suggests that performing cecectomies on study birds provides consistently superior results to other study methods, though I've not looked into it deeply, as the very vast majority of the studies I have read do not rely on such methods.

 

[11th Hour Poultry]

QUIZ at the END:

It's always people that make feeding chickens a complicated thing. There is a reason they do that.

Educate yourself, they say. Control the fat levels, they say. Control the vitamins and minerals, which are somehow impossible to get from whole foods and you have to keep buying commercial bags of chicken feed to get it, they say. You can't get enough protein from whole grains or whatever blah they say.

It's always corn, wheat, soy, whole grains in perfectly balanced pelletized bites so that every bite gets that exact amount of nutrition that a chicken needs........ I just typed dots. I'm going to type more dots..................These dots represents the dull, see-through-the-bullcr** look on my face. Here are some more dots.............................................................................................................................................................................

They're the ones saying "get educated"......I used to laugh, but it's actually not funny. It's just mind numbingly sad. The ignorance. The devotion to commercial chicken companies and bagged feed. The thought that people won't know how to feed their chickens when the bags of feed stop coming to their local tractor supply because of supply chain issues or world war or civil war or dr. fauci telling everyone to stay home and put a mask on your chicken.

Fun fact, chickens eat meat and fish. Meat are fish are protein for those of you wondering how to meet the nutritional requirements for protein. Minnows are fish. Beef is meat. Reptiles are meat. Amphibians are meat. Goats are meat. Despite what some might try to tell you, it's not rocket science to give a chicken some protein or any of the B vitamins. It's actually very easy. You don't even have to measure!

I know, I know, you can't believe it. But guess what? I'm going to tell you a big surprise that a couple people are still going to disagree with and make excuses about to try to keep you in the mindset of being a slave to the industrial chicken complex.

Here it is. Here's the big surprise!

CHICKENS CAN CONTROL HOW MUCH OF SOMETHING THEY WANT TO EAT AND DON'T CARE WHAT WANNABE NUTRIONISTS DECIDE FOR THEM.....What does that mean? Have you ever filled you feeder with crumble or pellets and your chickens didn't eat it all and walked away to eat grass or weeds or bugs?

Yes, they know what they need and how much of it. What does it say when they walk away from "PERFECTLY NUTRITIONALLY BALANCED CHICKEN FEED"??? It means a lot.


Pop quiz for the chicken nutritional experts and the google searchers:

5 chickens walk into a restaurant.

They share everything they order evenly on one plate. Other than the one plate of food, they also get grass, weeds, or insects that they encounter.

They order:

1/4 pound 80/20 cooked ground beef (don't strain the fat)
1/4 head of cabbage
5 baby spinach leaves (each chicken gets 1 leaf)
5 1/4 teaspoons minced carrots
1/4 strawberry
1/2 baked sweet potato


Questions:

1. Did one specific chicken prefer more of one menu item than all the other chickens combined?

2. Were there leftovers of any of the menu items on the plate when they left the restuarant?

3. Have all 5 of the chickens' nutritional requirements been met after eating at the restaurant?


Hint: Google doesn't know the answers.