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  • From: "John Smith" <mikakigr@gmail.com>
  • To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Mad Chicken disease? (was Re: composting chickens)
  • Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2007 00:43:51 +0200

Thanks for your enlightening reply, Harvey. That description was on the gruesome side. Not the pretty side of nature we get from the kids' books!
 
John

 
On 2/25/07, Harvey Ussery <huboxwood@earthlink.net> wrote:
> 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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