Glenda Heywoodo
Songster
ARTICLE ON FEEDING CHICKENS
Glenda Heywood
here are articles for chicken feeding
Grass-Fed Chickens?
Chickens will consume 30% of their calories from grass, if allowed to truly "free range." Since grass is very low in calories, that's a WHOLE LOT of grass! Another thing chickens need is animal protein. Chickens are omnivores, just like the humans they've kept company with for all these millennia.
The new "all vegetarian" chicken is a convenience to the mass-producer, who thus doesn't have to worry about the potential of latent animal diseases in animal sources of poultry feed; and animal protein is very much more expensive for the farmer
But, strictly vegetarian-fed chickens are potentially undernourished. An all-vegetarian diet is not natural for them ~ they need animal protein. The ideal is for a chicken to be free to roam grasslands and other natural habitats that are not denuded. There, they consume myriad bugs and wild plants, along with their choice of plantlife. If supplemented with a goodly assortment of grains, and especially with fish meal, such chickens will be the healthiest around, and live and lay eggs for many, many years. In England, where fish meal is the major source of protein in poultry feed, country farmers may have a couple thousand chickens roaming on rich grasslands; their chickens can lay for 12 (yes 12!) years, or more.
This website's sponsor
Adelle Davis
Chickens that are free to consume as much living grass as they want, along with the myriad other living things in a natural grassland or meadow, give significant health benefits to the consumer today, just as this poultry diet has done for the thousands of years of domestication of the chicken. Meat and eggs from grass-fed poultry, which is very low in fat, have high levels of Omega-3 fatty acids. Eggs from "pastured" (another form of "grass-fed") poultry, high in omega-3 fatty acids, will lower one's "bad cholesterol" and raise the "good cholesterol." More and more consensus is emerging that grass-fed or pastured poultry eggs are good for the heart, and that not only should they not be avoided, they should be specifically included in the diet.
There are two main kinds of fatty acids, Omega-3 and Omega-6. We need approximately equal amounts of the O-3's and the O-6's in our bodies. But, because of not allowing our feed animals to eat grass (even cows don't eat much grass any more ~ they eat largely corn), we are getting huge proportions of Omega-6 fatty acids, and very little Omega-3.
When we are oversupplied with Omega-6, our "bad cholesterol" rises, and our "good cholesterol" stays low. When we get equal amounts of Omega-3's and -6's, the good cholesterol rises and the bad cholesterol drops. But our diets have been so high in Omega-6 for so long, we really need to focus almost exclusively on eating Omega-3-rich foods to balance the levels out.
Strange to think that eating beef and drinking whole milk is the healthiest thing to do! That is, of course, 100% grass-fed beef and milk. See the Eat Wild website for full clarification on eating Omega-3-rich foods. I myself have reduced my overall cholesterol 40 points, as well as bringing down the bad cholesterol while raising the good cholesterol over the past 2 years (2006-2008), by switching to grass-fed and naturally-raised chicken, beef, and lamb, and adding much fish to my diet.
I have eaten 2 dark-yolk eggs a day during this time. Trader Joe's, if you have one near you, offers 100% grass-fed milk (Trader Joe's Cream Top) and butter (Irish KerryGold) and cheeses. If you phone their main number, they can tell you if a product is 100% grass-fed. As for grass-fed poultry and eggs, you really need to go to Farms That Sell Eggs, or find a grocer who has connections with health-minded poultry-farmers.
Also effective heart-health builders are all forms of wild (not farmed) seafood. Why not farmed? Because farmed fish are fed corn, which is, for the first time in the history of the world, putting Omega-6 fatty acids into the ocean's food chains, where they've never been before. Pretty soon, farmed fish might be causing heart disease, just as corn-fed beef has done all these decades of our "advanced" farming methods. TV shows scientists' efforts at creating ideal diets for farmed fish, and I greatly hope that they will re-consider the use of Omega-6 feeds in farmed fish!
Omega-3's come from the green parts of plants, while Omega-6's come from the seeds of plants. The entire food chain of the ocean is based on one-celled, green plankton, which is the "grass" of the sea. Plankton has no seeds, so all wild seafood has only Omega-3 fats.
The oilier the fish, the more Omega-3 it has. There have never been any Omega-6 fats in ocean fish, until we started adding corn to the farmed fish diet. We have always known that people who raise cattle in the traditional manner, 100% grass-fed, have great heart health, and have the cleanest of arteries. Cattle concentrate the Omega-3's of the grass. The amount of Omega-3 in green plants is very small; the cattle and other ruminants, which eat huge quantities of grass, concentrate the Omega-3 in their systems, imparting it to us when we consume the meat and milk.
Poultry, however, needs some grain in the diet. It is very difficult to raise 100% grass-fed poultry. Tests show that even greatly-reduced-grain ration in poultry diets, supplemented with very large free-range grass consumption, still produces meat that is relatively high in Omega-6's compared to the meat and milk of grass-fed ruminants. These carefully-structured dietary tests, conducted by our members in Malaysia, showed that adding seafood to the chickens' diet is what raised the Omega-3 levels by the greatest amounts.
Click to read more on Omega-3's at Eatwild.com
Jo Robinson, author of the EatWild website, and the fabulous book, Why Grass-Fed Is Best!, describes one study where 23 people ate 2 more eggs than they usually did every day. The study only lasted 18 days. One group ate eggs enriched with Omega-3's; the other ate regular commercial eggs. Among those who added the Omega-3 eggs to their diet, their good cholesterol went up, their bad cholesterol went down, and their total cholesterol count did not change. Not so for those who ate the ordinary commerical eggs; their cholesterol levels went up. What we haven't known until the last few years is that eggs, from properly-fed chickens, lowers the bad cholesterol and raises the good.
Please, you owe it to yourself and your loved ones to find out about grass-fed poultry and Omega-3-rich eggs. We will put as much information up as we can possibly fit onto our Pastured Poultry Page --- please visit often. Above all, get a copy of Why Grass-Fed Is Best!
Introduction
The basics of what chickens need to eat, and how you can easily give it to them
Feed Recipes
Blend some or all of your own chicken feed, whether you're a beginner hobbyist, or commercial grower. Recipes supplied to ChickenFeed by America's leading, health-oriented, poultry nutritionists.
Protein Calculation
Protein is discussed. How to prepare soybeans is described. A simple, well-known "calculator" for blending feed for correct protein amounts is given, along with a table of the protein content of several feeds.
Feeding Instructions
Detailed instructions on feeding poultry, excerpted from a 1979 book, The Family Poultry Flock (Edited by Lee Schwanz, Farmer's Digest, Inc.) These are standardized instructions in the commercial format, useful for getting started.
Feeding Baby Chicks
Want to start from Day One, to raise the healthiest possible chicks? Here are chick-feed formulas from the farm kitchens of 1912.
Feed Producers
This is an informational website only. But our Feed Producers may well be able to supply your needs. Please go to the Feed Producers page if you are looking to buy or sell Chicken Feed products. Alternatively, you may ask hundreds of professional chicken farmers anything under the sun if you join a chicken-oriented group in YahooGroups.
The PasturePoultry and the ChickenFeed groups are especially helpful for feed information (note: copy these names exactly when searching at YahooGroups
Feed Producers is a list (continually updated here at ChickenFeed) of producers of natural, "biological" and/or organic chicken feeds and feed supplements
Online Experts
The cream of the crop, in ChickenFeed's opinion. People who come through on questions about nutrition of poultry, sources of farm and poultry products, services and information, practical advice, and anything we haven't thought of yet!
Pastured Poultry
Move the flock across their food ~~~ open grassland ~~~ instead of bringing the food to them. Creates amazing health and quality, besides creating extremely fertile acreage wherever the "chicken tractor" is moved.
Farms Selling Eggs
Farms around the country that sell REAL eggs, and other nutritous things. See pictures, phone them with questions, and best of all, if you find some in your State, visit and buy.
Worms for Feed
Mix your garbage and leaves to make pounds of top-quality protein, as fresh as it gets, too. Farmers everywhere are saying,
"Why didn't we start this long ago?"
Labels
List of what's in commercial feeds, according to the label
About Nutrition
We all have a choice between getting by with mediocre health, or creating optimum health. This section is for those pursuing the optimum for themselves, their families and their farms.
Abstracts
Research about poultry, from the US Department of Agriculture. Easy to search; tons of info
Glenda Heywood
here are articles for chicken feeding
Grass-Fed Chickens?
Chickens will consume 30% of their calories from grass, if allowed to truly "free range." Since grass is very low in calories, that's a WHOLE LOT of grass! Another thing chickens need is animal protein. Chickens are omnivores, just like the humans they've kept company with for all these millennia.
The new "all vegetarian" chicken is a convenience to the mass-producer, who thus doesn't have to worry about the potential of latent animal diseases in animal sources of poultry feed; and animal protein is very much more expensive for the farmer
But, strictly vegetarian-fed chickens are potentially undernourished. An all-vegetarian diet is not natural for them ~ they need animal protein. The ideal is for a chicken to be free to roam grasslands and other natural habitats that are not denuded. There, they consume myriad bugs and wild plants, along with their choice of plantlife. If supplemented with a goodly assortment of grains, and especially with fish meal, such chickens will be the healthiest around, and live and lay eggs for many, many years. In England, where fish meal is the major source of protein in poultry feed, country farmers may have a couple thousand chickens roaming on rich grasslands; their chickens can lay for 12 (yes 12!) years, or more.
This website's sponsor
Adelle Davis
Chickens that are free to consume as much living grass as they want, along with the myriad other living things in a natural grassland or meadow, give significant health benefits to the consumer today, just as this poultry diet has done for the thousands of years of domestication of the chicken. Meat and eggs from grass-fed poultry, which is very low in fat, have high levels of Omega-3 fatty acids. Eggs from "pastured" (another form of "grass-fed") poultry, high in omega-3 fatty acids, will lower one's "bad cholesterol" and raise the "good cholesterol." More and more consensus is emerging that grass-fed or pastured poultry eggs are good for the heart, and that not only should they not be avoided, they should be specifically included in the diet.
There are two main kinds of fatty acids, Omega-3 and Omega-6. We need approximately equal amounts of the O-3's and the O-6's in our bodies. But, because of not allowing our feed animals to eat grass (even cows don't eat much grass any more ~ they eat largely corn), we are getting huge proportions of Omega-6 fatty acids, and very little Omega-3.
When we are oversupplied with Omega-6, our "bad cholesterol" rises, and our "good cholesterol" stays low. When we get equal amounts of Omega-3's and -6's, the good cholesterol rises and the bad cholesterol drops. But our diets have been so high in Omega-6 for so long, we really need to focus almost exclusively on eating Omega-3-rich foods to balance the levels out.
Strange to think that eating beef and drinking whole milk is the healthiest thing to do! That is, of course, 100% grass-fed beef and milk. See the Eat Wild website for full clarification on eating Omega-3-rich foods. I myself have reduced my overall cholesterol 40 points, as well as bringing down the bad cholesterol while raising the good cholesterol over the past 2 years (2006-2008), by switching to grass-fed and naturally-raised chicken, beef, and lamb, and adding much fish to my diet.
I have eaten 2 dark-yolk eggs a day during this time. Trader Joe's, if you have one near you, offers 100% grass-fed milk (Trader Joe's Cream Top) and butter (Irish KerryGold) and cheeses. If you phone their main number, they can tell you if a product is 100% grass-fed. As for grass-fed poultry and eggs, you really need to go to Farms That Sell Eggs, or find a grocer who has connections with health-minded poultry-farmers.
Also effective heart-health builders are all forms of wild (not farmed) seafood. Why not farmed? Because farmed fish are fed corn, which is, for the first time in the history of the world, putting Omega-6 fatty acids into the ocean's food chains, where they've never been before. Pretty soon, farmed fish might be causing heart disease, just as corn-fed beef has done all these decades of our "advanced" farming methods. TV shows scientists' efforts at creating ideal diets for farmed fish, and I greatly hope that they will re-consider the use of Omega-6 feeds in farmed fish!
Omega-3's come from the green parts of plants, while Omega-6's come from the seeds of plants. The entire food chain of the ocean is based on one-celled, green plankton, which is the "grass" of the sea. Plankton has no seeds, so all wild seafood has only Omega-3 fats.
The oilier the fish, the more Omega-3 it has. There have never been any Omega-6 fats in ocean fish, until we started adding corn to the farmed fish diet. We have always known that people who raise cattle in the traditional manner, 100% grass-fed, have great heart health, and have the cleanest of arteries. Cattle concentrate the Omega-3's of the grass. The amount of Omega-3 in green plants is very small; the cattle and other ruminants, which eat huge quantities of grass, concentrate the Omega-3 in their systems, imparting it to us when we consume the meat and milk.
Poultry, however, needs some grain in the diet. It is very difficult to raise 100% grass-fed poultry. Tests show that even greatly-reduced-grain ration in poultry diets, supplemented with very large free-range grass consumption, still produces meat that is relatively high in Omega-6's compared to the meat and milk of grass-fed ruminants. These carefully-structured dietary tests, conducted by our members in Malaysia, showed that adding seafood to the chickens' diet is what raised the Omega-3 levels by the greatest amounts.
Click to read more on Omega-3's at Eatwild.com
Jo Robinson, author of the EatWild website, and the fabulous book, Why Grass-Fed Is Best!, describes one study where 23 people ate 2 more eggs than they usually did every day. The study only lasted 18 days. One group ate eggs enriched with Omega-3's; the other ate regular commercial eggs. Among those who added the Omega-3 eggs to their diet, their good cholesterol went up, their bad cholesterol went down, and their total cholesterol count did not change. Not so for those who ate the ordinary commerical eggs; their cholesterol levels went up. What we haven't known until the last few years is that eggs, from properly-fed chickens, lowers the bad cholesterol and raises the good.
Please, you owe it to yourself and your loved ones to find out about grass-fed poultry and Omega-3-rich eggs. We will put as much information up as we can possibly fit onto our Pastured Poultry Page --- please visit often. Above all, get a copy of Why Grass-Fed Is Best!
Introduction
The basics of what chickens need to eat, and how you can easily give it to them
Feed Recipes
Blend some or all of your own chicken feed, whether you're a beginner hobbyist, or commercial grower. Recipes supplied to ChickenFeed by America's leading, health-oriented, poultry nutritionists.
Protein Calculation
Protein is discussed. How to prepare soybeans is described. A simple, well-known "calculator" for blending feed for correct protein amounts is given, along with a table of the protein content of several feeds.
Feeding Instructions
Detailed instructions on feeding poultry, excerpted from a 1979 book, The Family Poultry Flock (Edited by Lee Schwanz, Farmer's Digest, Inc.) These are standardized instructions in the commercial format, useful for getting started.
Feeding Baby Chicks
Want to start from Day One, to raise the healthiest possible chicks? Here are chick-feed formulas from the farm kitchens of 1912.
Feed Producers
This is an informational website only. But our Feed Producers may well be able to supply your needs. Please go to the Feed Producers page if you are looking to buy or sell Chicken Feed products. Alternatively, you may ask hundreds of professional chicken farmers anything under the sun if you join a chicken-oriented group in YahooGroups.
The PasturePoultry and the ChickenFeed groups are especially helpful for feed information (note: copy these names exactly when searching at YahooGroups
Feed Producers is a list (continually updated here at ChickenFeed) of producers of natural, "biological" and/or organic chicken feeds and feed supplements
Online Experts
The cream of the crop, in ChickenFeed's opinion. People who come through on questions about nutrition of poultry, sources of farm and poultry products, services and information, practical advice, and anything we haven't thought of yet!
Pastured Poultry
Move the flock across their food ~~~ open grassland ~~~ instead of bringing the food to them. Creates amazing health and quality, besides creating extremely fertile acreage wherever the "chicken tractor" is moved.
Farms Selling Eggs
Farms around the country that sell REAL eggs, and other nutritous things. See pictures, phone them with questions, and best of all, if you find some in your State, visit and buy.
Worms for Feed
Mix your garbage and leaves to make pounds of top-quality protein, as fresh as it gets, too. Farmers everywhere are saying,
"Why didn't we start this long ago?"
Labels
List of what's in commercial feeds, according to the label
About Nutrition
We all have a choice between getting by with mediocre health, or creating optimum health. This section is for those pursuing the optimum for themselves, their families and their farms.
Abstracts
Research about poultry, from the US Department of Agriculture. Easy to search; tons of info
Realllllly useful!!!
