People love chickens that are “vegetarian fed.” But chickens are not vegetarians.

[hack89]

Many of the largest U.S. sellers of organic eggs boast that their hens are vegetarian, and for an increasingly food-curious public, this may be great advertising. A carton of Eggland’s Best advertises that the company uses “vegetarian fed hens.” Horizon promises that their eggs “come from hens that are fed a 100% organic, vegetarian diet.” Land O Lakes hens have a diet with no animal fat or by-products.

Yet for the chickens, who are natural omnivores that readily devour bugs and small animals when they’re available, the forced vegetarianism can be a disaster.

Chickens on an unsupplemented vegetarian diet typically fall short of an essential protein-based amino acid known as methionine, and without it, they fall ill. Worse, the birds will also turn on each other, pecking at each other in search of nutrients, and these incidents can escalate into a henhouse bloodbath, farmers say.

“They’re really like little raptors - they want meat,” said Blake Alexandre, the owner of a 30,000 chicken operation in far northern California that keeps its birds on pasture. “The idea that they ought to be vegetarians is ridiculous.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/29/consumers-love-chickens-that-are-vegetarian-fed-never-mind-what-the-birds-want-to-eat/

Chickens are little dinosaurs.

[Cleita]

1. We feed the garden snails to our chickens as a treat.

They must be French chickens.

[leveymg]

2. Yes. But, they shouldn't be little cannibals.

Ground up chicken isn't part of their diets in the wild, AFIK.

[hack89]

4. I would certainly agree with that. nt

[hobbit709]

8. I've seen them kill and eat their own.

[Thinkingabout]

29. You are right, they have used de-beaking to avoid young chicks from pecking

Others. What happens in the cartoons when chickens are scratching in the yards for worms, etc.

[bvar22]

53. They only de-beak the chicks in Tyson Chicken Concentration Camps.

We raise chickens, along with about everybody else around here.
You can't give away eggs or a young rooster.
Nobody "de-beaks" their chickens.


Before we got our birds about 8 years ago, I thought they were vegetarian too,
but after watching our flock attack, and eat, and fight over the remains of a young copperhead, I became a believer that they are indeed descendents of the Velociraptor.
Chickens are fast..... and merciless.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=268x4739

[Thinkingabout]

54. Check the history before you say it only happens in Tyson Concentration Camps.

[bvar22]

66. I'm sure it also happens at other Factory Chicken Processing Plants.

I know of no other reason to mutilate the young chicks unless they are kept in the extremely crowded conditions of a Factory Farm.

[KittyWampus]

61. There is a new book out on Chickens- "Why Did The Chicken Cross The World"

http://www.amazon.com/Why-Did-Chicken-Cross-World/dp/1476729891

Fairly good read.

Chickens are most abundant animal on the planet. Descended from Jungle Fowl.


From ancient empires to modern economics, veteran journalist Andrew Lawler delivers a sweeping history of the animal that has been most crucial to the spread of civilization across the globe—the chicken.

Queen Victoria was obsessed with it. Socrates’ last words were about it. Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur made their scientific breakthroughs using it. Catholic popes, African shamans, Chinese philosophers, and Muslim mystics praised it. Throughout the history of civilization, humans have embraced it in every form imaginable—as a messenger of the gods, powerful sex symbol, gambling aid, emblem of resurrection, all-purpose medicine, handy research tool, inspiration for bravery, epitome of evil, and, of course, as the star of the world’s most famous joke.

In Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?, science writer Andrew Lawler takes us on an adventure from prehistory to the modern era with a fascinating account of the partnership between human and chicken (the most successful of all cross-species relationships). Beginning with the recent discovery in Montana that the chicken’s unlikely ancestor is T. rex, this book builds on Lawler’s popular Smithsonian cover article, “How the Chicken Conquered the World” to track the chicken from its original domestication in the jungles of Southeast Asia some 10,000 years ago to postwar America, where it became the most engineered of animals, to the uncertain future of what is now humanity’s single most important source of protein.

[mopinko]

60. yup.

had a hen that managed to get herself stuck, and by the time i found her there wasnt a whole lot left.

[hunter]

62. I'm pretty sure that was the original point of this advertising.

Many chickens were being fed chicken meat "byproducts" including male chicks (useless for egg laying) and old chickens that were no longer laying their quota of eggs. These are the same sorts of practices that endangered humans with "mad cow" disease and other horrors.

The chickens a few of my siblings raise are fed "vegetarian diets" mostly, kitchen leftovers occasionally, but they also live outside and have easy access to insects.

They are, as others have said, little raptors. When I was a teen I picked up a board in the family garden, and the chickens came running, as they usually did whenever anything in the garden was disturbed. Unfortunately there was a mouse nest under the board with pink baby mice... it was a very ugly scene, bloody carnage all around my feet.

[MineralMan]

3. Neither are people who eat chickens.

[hobbit709]

5. They're miniature velociraptors.

a friend of mine started raising half a dozen chickens on his place. No more ticks, scorpions, other creepy crawlies. He says not even the lizards are safe in the summer.

[GreatGazoo]

50. True. They are cited as the "closest living relative of the T-Rex"

http://www.drgrowitall.com.au/2014/05/the-chicken-is-the-closest-living-relative-of-the-t-rex/

[arcane1]

6. I think it was David Sedaris who first showed me that chickens eat meat

In a most horrible story involving newborn bunny rabbits.

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. Who buys a vegan chicken... and why? n/t

[cali]

9. Is it bad to feed them bologna?

I used to. They loved it mixed with rice or noodles and table scraps.

[Cleita]

15. They eat worms and all other kinds of bugs. I don't think bologna will hurt them. n/t

[hack89]

18. Only feed them free range bologna. nt

[mainer]

10. My son raises free range chickens

I mean TRULY free-range. They sometimes roost in the trees. He feeds them grain, but if he has any kind of meat or scrap animal parts, and tosses it to them, they attack it ravenously. Chickens love meat. And they love insects -- which are not vegetarian food.

[Cleita]

16. Wish we could leave our chickens to roost in the trees. Coyotes and hawks would

make them disappear in a hurry if we did that.

[haikugal]

25. Everyone loves chicken!

[MADem]

36. I think I saw one of your son's chickens in a Geico commercial!!!! nt

[kaiden]

11. This is SO true!

I tell people that if they're buying eggs from "vegetarian-fed" hens, then there's no way those birds are "cage free." My hens will chase down and eat a mouse -- the whole damned thing -- and they're better mousers than my cats. ALL birds are omnivores.

[Arkansas Granny]

19. Even hummingbirds eat insects. They do not survive on a diet of nectar alone.

http://wildbirdsonline.com/articles_hummingbirds_eating_insects.html

[Zorra]

12. When I was a kid we'd pick the hornworms off the tomato plants

and feed them to the chickens.

[FLPanhandle]

13. Our backyard chickens will eat bugs, small lizards, anything you give them.

Frankly, chickens will eat anything.

[JCMach1]

14. Anyone who thinks they are vegetarians have never watched them fight over a chicken nugget

... Of course maybe there isn't much meat in that anyway.

My chickens will eat any insect they can find. The have also nommmed snakes on a number of occasions.

[gollygee]

17. I've always thought that was weird

why "vegetarian" is a selling point for chickens or their eggs. ("From vegetarian-fed hens.) That pretty much guarantees some kind of factory farm setting, or they'd be eating bugs and stuff. Only chickens who never go outside and are forced to eat what they're fed are vegetarian.

[Boudica the Lyoness]

20. My chickens steal what the cats kill.

It's really horrible. Right now I have a hen looking after two ducklings, so they do have a sweet side.

[pinboy3niner]

21. If you feed them CORN FLAKES does that save a step in frying?

[hifiguy]

28. DUzy!

And just for good measure, YAK!!!!

[pinboy3niner]

33. Nice marmot

[hifiguy]

34. The Dude abides, man.

[pinboy3niner]

38. You want a chicken toe? ...

[hifiguy]

42. WITH nail polish!

[Warpy]

22. Anybody who's ever known a chicken

knows how outrageously stupid that commercial is.

Chickens spend their lives scratching for grubs and pecking at tree bark for insects. While they'll happily eat grain, it's not enough to keep them healthy.

[Revanchist]

23. Some animals just aren't meant to be vegetarians

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

27. Tofu lion was the clip I thought of too.

I've never even noticed eggs from 'vegetarian chickens'. Didn't realize that was a 'thing'.

[hifiguy]

30. Ahh, Futurama.

Much missed it is.

[NuclearDem]

45. You're vegetarians! Nobody cares what you think!

Uh--uh--eh, SHUTUP

[hlthe2b]

24. There continue to be attempts to introduce insects to the human diet--

whether or not that "flies", iIt only makes sense to feed them to chickens...

[haikugal]

26. Introduce? People all over the world love to eat insects....lol

[hifiguy]

31. Renfield liked them

[haikugal]

37. Allll right, have it your own way..... LOL

MOST people cook their insects but of course there are always "purists"....

[hlthe2b]

47. Yes...I meant "introduce" to American diets.

[haikugal]

49. Tsk, I knew that...poke, nudge, nudge.

[KamaAina]

32. I've thought that farmers should raise bugs as chicken feed

thus saving all that grain for the biscuits.

[mopinko]

59. they do.

raising black soldier flies for maggots is a thing.

[KamaAina]

64. Maybe farmers like you do

but what about Tyson, Perdue and Foster Farms?

[mopinko]

65. dont know how far up the food chain it goes.

but it is pretty darned easy and efficient.

[cwydro]

35. I raise chickens.

They eat every kind of insect, grass, scraps, etc., but never seen them eat an animal.

They're free range and can eat what they want.

I have seen the ducks eat frogs.

[hack89]

39. I have seen them eat snakes and lizards. nt

[cwydro]

56. Mine are too spoiled

I suspect, lol.

[H2O Man]

41. I raised chickens

for about 40 years. They will eat dead rodents, etc.

[cwydro]

57. Gah!

Thank god mine have not done so.

That would put me off the eggs !

[pinboy3niner]

40. Thankyou for keeping us a breast

And to think some ridicule our cause as just a poultry concern!

[hifiguy]

43. It's always good to have a leg up

on these sorts of issues.

[pinboy3niner]

44. Eggzactly!

[CanadaexPat]

46. You misunderstood:

it's not a vegetarian diet, it's a diet of vegetarians.

[GreatGazoo]

51. LOL!

[Jamastiene]

48. Oooh, a henhouse bloodbath.

That's gonna leave a mark. This should be interesting.

[BronxBoy]

52. Ugh.........

This type of advertising plays right into the stereotype of organic and sustainable farmers as "kooks" Our chickens love bugs. And if you aim to have as sustainable a farm as possible, you want your hens to serve as insect control in addition to providing fertilizer. Oy vey

I know Will Harris well and while he strives to run a humane, sustainable operation he definitely is not a doey eyed farmer. His research on the Black soldier fly is actually pretty interesting and may actually provide some natural feed solutions for aquaponic solutions among other things

[BainsBane]

55. I want free range

and preferably locally produced. I never noticed anything for vegetarian-fed, nor would it influence whether or not I bought it.

[pinboy3niner]

58. Height of hypocrisy: Demanding the chickens you eat be vegetarian fed

[Brickbat]

63. Locally Laid pastures its chickens, and supplements with feed.

It makes a difference.

[NCTraveler]

67. I am pretty sure we can chalk this up to elitism, privilege and a lack of common sense.

Who the hell would be sold on vegetarian chickens. A fool and their money.......