Ethical feeding

Elle Jay · **Posted:** Sun Aug 28, 2011 2:43 pm

I have read that tinned cat food (not fish varieties) can be fed to chooks ( I think it was for extra protein). I spent quite some time in the supermarket reading cat food labels, only to discover that ALL cat food varieties other than fish actually contain some CHICKEN, even if they are called beef, lamb, etc. Hubby shakes his head at me, but I think it is just totally wrong to feed chicken in any form to chooks. I'm not sure what others think, but thought people should be aware of what is in things like cat food.

Petite Poulet · **Joined:** Thu Jun 09, 2011 7:17 pm **Posts:** 5219

Hi, Elle Jay,

There is a post in Chickens on Cat Food. I think that you can feed chooks the fish variety. The home brand tins have a high fish content and are under $1. My chooks don't like it though.

Hope I have been of some help.

andre · **Joined:** Tue Oct 13, 2009 5:21 pm **Posts:** 612

Yes I don't think it is a good idea to feed chicken back to chickens. Nothing to do with ethics, its all to do with disease risk. That is how Mad Cow disease got out of control.

MoreChookRoom · **Joined:** Mon Aug 29, 2011 4:24 pm **Posts:** 1

Can I ask what disease risk you think there may be? Cat food is cooked or at least semi cooked? would the dry food be a better option to wet canned?

samanthahobbs · **Posted:** Sat Sep 03, 2011 4:11 pm

I have found that a lot of cat canned foods have chicken in them too.
I feel weird about feeding chicken meat to my hens!!
I feed home brand (from Foodland here in Adelaide) tuna canned food to my hens. They LOVE it!!
In fact if I give them their warm brekky without the tuna, they get cranky!! I try and give them something different for brekky each morning so they don't get too demanding, but it is not working!! No tuna means noisy and cranky hens carrying on most of the morning!!

purefeather · **Joined:** Wed Sep 29, 2010 6:36 pm **Posts:** 736

I beg to differ with you on the mad cow disease theory Andrew, chooks are omnivores like humans. Like humans they'll even eat their own kind and anything else that doesn't move quickly enough. On the other hand cows are herbivores, so obviously they will sicken if given a diet consisting of animal by-products, hence mad cow disease.

kwinagi · **Joined:** Sat Dec 15, 2007 8:58 pm **Posts:** 236

i agree wtih purefeahter, although i can see the reasoning behind andrewschooks.

however as omnivores i don't think chickens are likely to develop a terrible disease such as mad cow disease, whicih was caused by feeding infected sheep meat meal to cattle.

andre · **Joined:** Tue Oct 13, 2009 5:21 pm **Posts:** 612

purefeather wrote:

I beg to differ with you on the mad cow disease theory Andrew, chooks are omnivores like humans. Like humans they'll even eat their own kind and anything else that doesn't move quickly enough. On the other hand cows are herbivores, so obviously they will sicken if given a diet consisting of animal by-products, hence mad cow disease.

Frankly the omnivore defense is simplistic nonsence. I could point out that there is of course a human form of mad cow disease that was spread though human canibalism in ages past when that was practiced in places like PNG. If this simplistic omnivore defence held then that could not happen.

Herbivores can and indeed do digest appropriate foods derived from non plant sources without trouble.

Fundamentally feeding a species back to itself is a dodgy practice from two perspectives, the first is disease risk and the second comes from accumulation of toxins, heavy metals and the like in a circular food chain.

Hens and Hobbits · **Posted:** Tue Sep 06, 2011 10:19 am

Our daughter came home from school rather distressed the other day, someone had told her that day old male chicks were macerated and processed as the protein component in chicken feed. :shock:

I did not know what to tell her.

Is this true?

andre · **Joined:** Tue Oct 13, 2009 5:21 pm **Posts:** 612

Hens and Hobbits wrote:

Our daughter came home from school rather distressed the other day, someone had told her that day old male chicks were macerated and processed as the protein component in chicken feed. :shock:

I did not know what to tell her.

Is this true?

No I think they go to dog food.

AUSTRALIAN POULTRY FORUM™

Ethical feeding

Who is on the Forum