chicken feed / wheat totaly off topic

[Brian Trout]

Hi Kristinn,

I'm glad you're enjoying the thread.  I am too, although I'm getting a
little nervous about extending a non-piano related thread on the list.  But
I will post this little bit, thinking there might be some overall interest.

It's really a shame what 'modern agriculture' has done to the chicken.  The
caged birds in the 100,000 layer houses bear little resemblance to what a
chicken would live like in the wild, or even on open range (that's the way I
like to keep them).

Chickens in captivity generally eat what they have available to them.  Many
times it's a combination of corn, oats, wheat, bone meal, blood meal, oyster
shell,  and a whole bunch of other stuff, usually arriving in a premixed
form, resembling  bread crumbs or perhaps rabbit pellets.  Sometimes, for
various reasons, they will pick at each other and eat feathers or even pick
to the point of cannibalizing another, but that's usually because of poor
animal husbandry or poor nutrition.

On open range, a chicken finds a very interesting variety of things to eat.
They eat seeds of all sorts, bugs, leaves... they scratch in the dirt for
insects and grubs.  My normal feeding is to offer a good commercial mix
along with some oyster shell.  The balance is what they get on free range.
Many times in the lush summer months, they don't have much interest in that
commercial mix, especially with all the fresh food waiting for them
outdoors.  Chickens have a tendency to balance their own diet by eating what
they need when they have a choice.

Many people think of the chicken as a very dumb, stupid, lazy, almost
worthless animal.  But if you've ever been around wild or free range birds,
you find that they're not so stupid as you might think.  It's fascinating to
learn to hear their different 'calls' and vocal utterances and sometimes you
can even learn what some of them mean.

There have been many large chicken operations that have actually recycled a
percentage of their waste and fed it back to them in  fresh feed.  I believe
some of them gave about 25% of total feed as recycled waste.  That's sad.
In the natural world, it's a recipe for disease and sickness.  And
unfortunately, some of the same thinking goes into other areas of
'agriculture' and does indeed affect the food supply of our population.

As far off topic as this is, in some way, it's distantly related in that our
food supply affects the health of our populace.  It's all connected.

I'd say, I'm treading on pretty thin ice continuing to speak on chickens, so
I'll quit now.  But it's been a fun side track, at least for me.  :-)

Brian T.
btrout@desupernet.net