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  • From: Harvey Ussery <huboxwood@earthlink.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Mad Chicken disease? (was Re: composting chickens)
  • Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2007 12:33:58 -0500

Sorry, but the thought of feeding chickens with chicken meat reminded me of
the Mad Cow scare where I seem to have read that something was caused by
feeding cows feeds containing cow protein. Yes, I know that cows are totally
herbivore whereas chickens are probably omnivores, but still I find
it something of a perversion to force them into cannibalism, which does not
usually happen in nature.
John Smith

Oh no, now we have to worry about Mad Chicken Disease?!

Just kidding, John--your question is an entirely legitimate one. Remember what I was suggesting feeding the birds: scraps/residues left over from the making of chicken broth. In our case, that broth might have cooked 24 hours. Hardly a good candidate as a vector for spread of disease.

Yes, chickens in some situations can be cannibalistic. And yes, that seems to be natural behavior--they zero-in on the weakest and eliminate them from the flock that way. So an injured bird may be set upon by the flock and eaten (alive--I've seen it happen--gruesome sight). In situations of stress, the same behavior may emerge--I guess because in stressful situations, the weak individuals start to succumb first. (The more confined the birds, the more stressed. That's why commercial flocks always debeak the birds--to get away with a production model in which all the birds are stressed to the limit and the flock is always teetering on the edge of collapse.)

I've never seen any evidence that chickens eating other chickens--alive, dead, or cooked--that didn't have an infectious disease is any cause for concern. In the fly season, I now routinely cycle the entrails from poultry slaughtering, as well as flock members that have died by accident, thru my maggot-breeding buckets. For a description of my methods and setup, see http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Feeding-Chickens-Maggots.html

And by the way, Mark Purdey, before his untimely death last year, made an excellent case that Mad Cow was *never* caused by feeding cows other (diseased) cows and sheep, as bad a practice as that always was in and of itself. Rather, MC was caused by an excess mineral in a widely-used insecticide, and other environmental toxins. The potential liability costs are astronomical, hence the effort to suppress the evidence and keep alive the prion theory of MCD. OT for this post, but if interested: http://www.markpurdey.com/ You can easily link to a lot of other sites that explore this topic as well.

Harvey in northern VA
www.themodernhomestead.us




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