Is it okay to feed my chickens dry doog food?

-- Maggie (ruby@isp360.net), March 02, 2002

Answers

I'm thinking dog food is made out of scrap meat, and could be a vector for mad cow or an other TSE to farm animals. Mad chicken disease? Doubtful but if your ruminant animals got into it. Current law in Canada allows animal meat in nonruminant feedstuffs so it would be OK. I feed it to pigs and the ducks do get into it.

-- Ross (amulet@istar.ca), March 02, 2002.

Maggie, I have tried it, and I would recommend grinding it up or perhaps soaking it, to make it easier for the chickens to eat. They just cant chew those crunchy balls like they were made to be chewed. And pecking them doesnt really break them up like you would think. But the protein is very high, and therefore a good supplement, I think.

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), March 02, 2002.

I don't remeber where I read it but I have been feeding the chickens occasional cat food. They were my "baboon chickens" this past summer - no tail feathers on most of them! I was told they needed more protein - that and the lab puppy took out about 5 of them in 2 days - so if they were overcrowded, that problem got solved (he also managed to deplete the flock of 2 roosters, giving the old girls a break!)

We had problems almost from the beginning.....We built a coop and fenced yard for 25 hens and 4 roosters. Then nearby neighbors who had ordered 30 chickens about the same time had a custody battle erupt that caused them to have to move back to the city almost overnight! Soooooo, we inherited many more chickens than we were prepared for.

We culled about 15 - but had too many and too many roosters (5, I think, survived.) So the survivors (of pecking, the puppy, and culling) had low-protein problems. To make a long story longer....the cat food must've helped because I now have the most beautifully-feathered hens! And we are collecting eggs again (after a 2-month hiatus when it the days were shorter and it was consistently cold or snowing more than now.....)

So I vote for dry cat food -- we buy the cheapest bags at Costco and throw out a 2-cup measure a few times a week.

-- Elizabeth (hemsley@hdo.net), March 03, 2002.

I, too, remember reading that cat food was better than dog food when needing to supplement chickens. It has to do with the source and type of protein. I can't remember what the exact differences were, only that dry cat food was recommended over dog food.

-- Bernie from Northern Ontario (bernadette_kerr@hotmail.com), March 03, 2002.

Our peacock loves the dry cat food !!

-- Helena (windyacs@npacc.net), March 03, 2002.