Chicken Banana Skin Feed

[NameIwish]

You are doing the wrong math. You are looking at the cost but your calculations ignore the nutritional aspect of feeding banana peels to your flock.

You should take another run at it from a different perspective. First, determine what your flock's nutritional needs are. Then get or create a feed calculator and plug in the values for whatever food materials are available to you. Then try to come up with a ration that both utilizes your resources and meets the nutritional needs of the flock.

Bananas are low in protein and fat, so while they have some great vitamins and minerals they will only "dilute" the nutrition that is in whatever else you are feeding your flock. But if you take that into consideration and then compensate by adding in more foods that are higher in protein and fats you could potentially balance the ration out.

Personally, if I wanted to really utilize banana peels (and I do use a lot of them), I would buy some composting worms, feed most of the banana peels to the worms, and then feed the worms to the chickens as a more nutritious alternative treat. I could still feed a small quantity of the banana peels to the chickens as another treat, but without reducing the flock's overall nutrition too much.

Good point. I tried the composting and it drew rats.

When I find free-range worms - I tell the chickens. Some of my birds like 'em, some not so much.

 

[NameIwish]

I think banana skins have a lot of pesticides. Banana skins are not meant to be eaten by humans so the amount of pesticides on the surface of a banana is not a problem.

As one who has tried 'the patch' to quit smoking, I can assure you that 'the skin' is no barrier to pesticides.

 

[Altairsky]

According to lab analisys, the highest concentration of pesticides on fruit is in the skin. Comparing vegetables to mammals makes no much sense.
Fruit with edible skin are subjected to stricter pesticides rules than fruit with not edible skins. Certain fruits like lemons found in grocery stores are explicitly labeled as "skin not edible - skin treated with **** (insert pesticide name).

 

[Zenmonkey]

Thank you kindly for the update! I'm glad to hear the it continues to be well received by your birds. Unfortunately for my birds, the rabbits aren't likely to share!

 

[NameIwish]

According to lab analisys, the highest concentration of pesticides on fruit is in the skin. Comparing vegetables to mammals makes no much sense.
Fruit with edible skin are subjected to stricter pesticides rules than fruit with not edible skins. Certain fruits like lemons found in grocery stores are explicitly labeled as "skin not edible - skin treated with **** (insert pesticide name).

Citation?
Never seen such a label on the lemons we buy by the bag full.
You can't simply assert such stuff without backing it up. Anecdotally, of course, my hens love the stuff and are healthy egg laying machines. And the folks who eat our eggs will brook no substitutes.
"according to lab analysis" is a meaningless phrase. Which lab? What analysis?
Nor does the sentence "comparing vegetables to mammals makes no much sense" make any sense at all.
Do your research, cite and link to your sources - or simply admit you are just stating your opinion.

 

[ChaosMom]

Citation?
Never seen such a label on the lemons we buy by the bag full.
You can't simply assert such stuff without backing it up. Anecdotally, of course, my hens love the stuff and are healthy egg laying machines. And the folks who eat our eggs will brook no substitutes.
"according to lab analysis" is a meaningless phrase. Which lab? What analysis?
Nor does the sentence "comparing vegetables to mammals makes no much sense" make any sense at all.
Do your research, cite and link to your sources - or simply admit you are just stating your opinion.

Altairsky lives in Europe (Italy, I believe.) It is entirely possible that such a warning label is present there. (I have no info on the rest.)