new research debunks trad views on nutrition

[RoyalChick]

EXACTLY. Met is the hardest AA to find in good quantity in green growing things.

Protein building begins with Met (in almost every case). Literally the first amino acid used to build a protein is Methionine. Now Met is often cleaved off later in the process - its why the needs for Lys and Thre are higher than Met - but without Met to start with, none of the others can be used. Its like the train engine moving box cars around to build a bigger train....

I edited my earlier post to thank you for taking the trouble to explain it all but you were too quick off the mark and missed my edit.
So thank you again!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Regarding the ultra-processed chicken feed pellets: Can you recommend some options that are at least minimally processed? I’d love to grow my own feed one day, but I’m years from that.

The closest I’ve ever seen to locally milled and minimally processes was when I lived in another state years ago. There was a local mill that would sell to local feed stores.

ETA: Nevermind, I see that we are in different countries. I’m sure the feed sacks differ on each side of the Atlantic.

I'm ambivalent on the whole "ingredient count" thumb rule. Its perhaps a good guide if you don't know anything, but the number of ingredients does not necessarily make a feed better, or worse. Right now there are a large number of feeds being produced with a laundry list of latin coming from the vitamin.mineral premix being added to raw grains during milling to make a complete feed.

Here's example from a very popular one:
Monocalcium Phosphate, Organic Dehydrated Kelp Meal, Salt, DL Methionine, Calcium Carbonate, Vitamin A Supplement, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Vitamin E Supplement, Menadione Dimethylpyrimidinol Bisulfite, Riboflavin Supplement, D-Calcium Pantothenic Acid, Niacin Supplement, Choline Chloride, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Folic Acid, Thiamine Mononitrate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Biotin, Manganese Sulfate, Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Sulfate, Copper Sulfate, Sodium Selenite, Dried Aspergillus oryzae Fermentation Extract, Active Dry Yeast, Dried Lactobacillus acidophilus Fermentation product, Dried Lactobacillus casei Fermentation product, Dried Lactobacillus plantarum Fermentation product, Dried Enterococcus faecium Fermentation product, Dried Bacillus licheniformis Fermentation product, Dried Bacillus subtilis Fermentation Product.

If you don't know the vitamin and mineral content of the grains you are grinding (and chances are, you don't), that Premix provides a phytate Phosphorus source, some trace minerals, Salt, extra Methionine (because its so hard to get in green growing things), another calcium to ensure an appropriate CA : P ratio, Vitamin A, D3, E, K, B2, B5, B3, Choline Chloride (you don't need this - its included as a growth promoter - but its also found readily in nature in animal and fish meat, in chicken eggs, in soybeans, and in some grains, like the germ of wheat kernals), B12, more B12, B1, B6...

and then you get to all this stuff [Dried Aspergillus oryzae Fermentation Extract, Active Dry Yeast, Dried Lactobacillus acidophilus Fermentation product, Dried Lactobacillus casei Fermentation product, Dried Lactobacillus plantarum Fermentation product, Dried Enterococcus faecium Fermentation product, Dried Bacillus licheniformis Fermentation product, Dried Bacillus subtilis Fermentation Product]

Those are almost entirely enzymes either to make nutrition in the feed being offered either more bioavailable, or to coutneract some of the antinutritional factors present in the assumed grain mix.

Do they make things better? Maybe. Depends on your grain mix. Do you need them? Again, depends on your grain mix. They (like all those water soluable B-vitamins that get flushed if they aren't used) are present as insurance, possibly entirely unnecesary insurance.

OTOH, if your feed is "corn, whole wheat, milo, peas, oyster shell (as a source of calcium carbonate)" its not necessarily superior just because it has a limited number of ingredients, all of which you can pronounce. Neither is it necessarily worse. Does it have at least the minimum levels of the desired B vitamins? Selenium, non-Phytate Phosphorus? a bunch of other things I could rattle off? WHO KNOWS. In regards trace minerals particularly, their content in grains varies with climate and grounds - two bushels of corn, from the same state, harvested the same day, may have hugely differing levels of selenium, based entirely on its presence (or lack) on the fields where its grown. and another bushel harvested later in the year on the same fields could have still different levels.

Read your guaranteed nutrition tag. It and the mill date are the two most useful piece of information on the bag.

 

[Vata Raven]

Those who want to assume their pasture is adequate are engaged in far more risky behaviors than I am comfortable with myself.

It's because you have to obverse your flock, right?

Say you grow a clover and white millet cover crop (as an example), and they mostly eat... the clover. The following pasture you have to remove the millet and replace it with another plant they might like, and keep the clover and maybe increase the amount.

You have to do trial and error to figure out what they like to eat.

 

[saysfaa]

...
In the second 1932 study it would be helpful to know what Missouri Ration is.
...

It is in table 3

 

[ChicFil- A]

According to Tim Spector, Food for Life: the new science of eating well, Jonathan Cape 2022: xiv
Myths that have benefited the food industry and which we should now dispel include: all calories are equal, low-calorie foods are good, high-fat foods are bad, artificial sweeteners are healthy, high levels of processing are harmless, and food and vitamin supplements are as good as real food.

Spector is Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King's College London, and honorary consultant physician at Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals. These are all world class institutions. He is writing about human diet and nutrition, but much of it applies to chicken diet and nutrition too.

For example, that UPFs (ultra processed foods) made up of many chemicals make us feel hungrier, over-consume, and increase risks of disease and earlier death. This applies to chicken feed pellets, which are specifically designed to achieve the first two, and don't care about the last two because the chickens that they are designed for are not intended or expected to live very long.

I do not expect those BYCers who trot out their tired dogmas on food, feeds, and fats, at any and every opportunity, to stop doing it, but their views are now being labelled as myths by people who really know what they're talking about, and have extensive evidence to prove it.

And the chicken feed industry is catching up with the human feed industry on these matters, so attempting to dismiss it as irrelevant won't wash either.

 

[ChicFil- A]

Very interesting and true, It’s all in the marketing,
Take a stroll down the isle of and feed store and their marketing is for junk no chicken keeper needs…(.ie) chicken treats all kinds of chicken junk food, scratch and extra grain are treats …. not chicken candy

 

[ChicFil- A]

Very interesting and true, It’s all in the marketing,
Take a stroll down the isle of and feed store and their marketing is for junk no chicken keeper needs…(.ie) chicken treats all kinds of chicken junk food, scratch and extra grain are treats …. not chicken candy

Outstanding cook

 

[Perris]

Regarding the ultra-processed chicken feed pellets: Can you recommend some options that are at least minimally processed? I’d love to grow my own feed one day, but I’m years from that.

The closest I’ve ever seen to locally milled and minimally processes was when I lived in another state years ago. There was a local mill that would sell to local feed stores.

ETA: Nevermind, I see that we are in different countries. I’m sure the feed sacks differ on each side of the Atlantic.

we do, but I'm sure you can buy whole grain sacks there, straights for single cereals or mixed e.g. some wheat, some barley, some whatever (it'll say on the sack). The seed - and grain is grass-type plants' seed - is nature's way of preserving nutrients, and contains everything a new plant needs to start growing bar water, just as an egg contains everything needed to make a chick. It is one of the most nutritious foods available. It starts to deteriorate as soon as it is broken open (e.g. milled). If you don't mill it, and store it somewhere cool and dry, it should be good to go for at least a year - again, it has evolved to hold its goodness until conditions are right for that plant to grow. You can give your chickens nutritious food without growing it yourself. Any feed store worth its salt will sell whole grain (and dried pea sacks) as well as commercial prepared feeds.

 

[Perris]

That is interesting - particularly the protein.
My chickens, and one in particular love eating grass. But they seem quite selective about what kind of grass and when.
A clumping type grass that they ignored in the late summer - so much so that I had to hack it down - is now being intensely grazed by my ladies.

this article https://orgprints.org/id/eprint/28090/7/28090.pdf titled 'Fulfilling 100% organic poultry diets: Roughage and foraging from the range', is relevant.

It "investigates the role that ranging and forage feeding can play in contributing to fulfilling nutritional requirements of poultry". It includes Table 1. Amino acid requirements as percentage of laying hen/broiler diets (Merck vet manual 2014), listing not just lysine and methionine but 4 others too, and summarizes that Grass/clover Grass/clover swards can have a crude protein content of 20-24% and lysine and methionine content of 0.99 and 0.30% (DM basis) respectively. "Intake of grass/clover may be 10-30g/hen/ day rising to 20-40g/hen/day for nutrient-restricted hens....Dandelions in a sward can contribute to the nutrient supply of foraging poultry. Crude protein content can range from 13.8% to 22.8% (DM basis) with lysine and methionine contents of 1.40 and 0.46% respectively. Other herbs of note that are both palatable and of nutritional value to poultry include chickweed, fat hen, plantain and birdsfoot trefoil. Seed companies can provide organic herbal ley seed mixtures with a variety of herbs that provide a range of nutritional benefits for foraging poultry".

It also considers their waste (usually ignored in these discussions): "Nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P) surpluses have shown to be lower in eggs from hens that have access to forage. One study found surpluses of N and P to be approximately 0.9 and 0.3g per hen per day respectively where forage was accessed, whereas in systems where concentrates made up the entire diet the average N-surplus varied from 2.5-3.4g per hen per day and the average P-surplus was around 0.8g per hen per day."

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Those things all sound like thay are grown in big stainless steel vats that look more like a brewery than a corn field. Ain't technology great; I mean seriously.

Hoenstly, I don't look for them in feeds for my own animals, but I don't try and avoid them, either.

and yes, likely are produced in something that looks like a commecrial brewery.