Sharks! What the heck happened

[ross]

I always figur if yu fill a kid with candy they won't eat / get what they need . Just different ways I guess . Hope doesn't mess up their insides . Many yrs ago I used to feed "sweet feed" mix to horses lots a Gooey molasses etc . They just come a running for it , problem was even with reg store bought horse worming regular couldn't keep control. After that used it sparingly & went back to whole oats & good hay only wormed twice a year no problems . A little off topic but not really .Taught me to feed what needed . Apples , carrots altho they love caused problems in swelling legs , sour guts . Etc . Just talkin from many years experience . What goes in has gotta come out one form or other . Luck

[WLLady]

Bones have a ton of natural salts...most people dont realize that-its the reason mice and critters eat bones in the wild and antler sheds and stuff. Salt doesnt mean just sodium...salt can be potassium salts, sodium, calcium...they are typically limited in nature. Ever seen deer licking a road surface in the winter? Theyre getting calcium and sodium salts from the stuff spread on the roads in the winter. Sorry-science geek here...salt to me isnt the stuff in the sprinkler thing on the table-thats sodium....lol

[Robbie]

No matter what you feed as treats if they are in one spot they will get nasty. Feeding raw back to same species is a definite no...cooked isnt so bad-it kills most things. But it wont kill the prions that cause mad cow and scrapies...is there a mad chicken disease? Never run across that. Chickens can get "hooked" on salt though...i would definitely not feed high salt anything-chickens have enough heart troubles as is....

WLLady chickens don't get mad cow disease. The reason they are freaked about meat (cow) in chicken feed is because of the possibility of mechanical transmission of BSE when they feed poultry manure back to cows. (And other things you don't want to know about the food supply).

[WLLady]

I know.....i work in neurology lol.
i was actually wondering if there ever was any documented case of prion disease in chickens....that would be the only danger in feeding chicken back to chicken....
and there is also the possibility of prion from beef getting into chicken and then being fed to people-there is prion disease in humans its called creutzfeld-jacob disease. It comes from somewhere-and can come from eating beef from cows with prion disease or sheep with scrapies. I dont think its ever been proven to survive through an intermediary like chicken and infect people but i can tell you that in the lab it takes 2 days soaking in concentrated sodium hydroxide base coupled with subsequent incineration to inactivate the prion proteins. They are very resistant.

[Robbie]

Were they going nuts trying to eat the eggs, or were they drinking the stock? I just can't picture what would set them off like that.

[Robbie]

I know.....i work in neurology lol.
i was actually wondering if there ever was any documented case of prion disease in chickens....that would be the only danger in feeding chicken back to chicken....

Cooked chicken......... There is the possibility of mycoplasma and other diseases being spread by feeding raw chicken back to chickens. I was amazed to discover that (aside from flu of course) that there was any disease in commercial flocks.

PS: BTW yes chickens have prions, (sorry I just wanted to use that one somewhere) (reference for WLLady with links to 6 abstracts http://www.mad-cow.org/chickens.html) but I don't think anybody cares- here's a quote from Nature:
( Published online 31 January 2003 | Nature doi:10.1038/news030127-12)

" Scientists currently have no idea whether fish - or chickens, turtles and frogs, which also harbour prions - suffer diseases as a result.
This is partly because they don't know what symptoms to look for. "Who would recognize a hen with a damaged brain anyway?" asks Roger Morris, who studies prions at the MRC Centre for Developmental Neurobiology in London."



SORRY SANDY I couldn't help it

[WLLady]

Cool! Yes sorry sandy!!!

[kdms]

Our birds get some leftovers as well, but generally only from the vegetable kingdom, and I usually try to spread it over a fair distance just to give the smaller ones half a chance to get SOME of the treat.

Funniest thing we've seen yet was The Great Tomato Race....when I chucked a whole tomato into their 3/4 acre and the entire flock took off after the leader to get the tomato. They literally did laps along the fence line until the tomato fell apart. :rofl1:

[SandyM]

I love a good hijacked thread!! Carry on :)

[SandyM]

Were they going nuts trying to eat the eggs, or were they drinking the stock? I just can't picture what would set them off like that.

Definitely the eggs. Normally I would break up eggs, but I just poached a whole slew, threw in a tin pan for them and poured some stock over top. Craziness!!!

I chopped up the eggs and took it back out later for them with heavy supervision. All was well. Maybe size has an issue ... Who knows. Regardless, I'm happy to hand over chicken drama to my son for a few days while I escape next week!!