Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

People love chickens that are “vegetarian fed.” But chickens are not vegetarians.
Washington Post ^ | April 29, 2015 | Peter Whoriskey

Posted on 04/30/2015 11:46:17 AM PDT by C19fan

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.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Food; Pets/Animals
KEYWORDS: chickens
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-57 next last
To: ShadowAce

evil PP chickens!

:p


21 posted on 04/30/2015 12:20:50 PM PDT by GeronL (Clearly Cruz 2016)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: muir_redwoods

“chickens are predators”

*chill down spine*


22 posted on 04/30/2015 12:21:51 PM PDT by GeronL (Clearly Cruz 2016)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: GeronL

US chickens are heavily armed.


23 posted on 04/30/2015 12:26:33 PM PDT by Leep (To put it in laymen's terms liberal/progressive ist coo coo.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: C19fan

I guess they have no clue where the term “hen pecked” comes from. They will eat anything including each other if they have to.


24 posted on 04/30/2015 12:27:15 PM PDT by zek157
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Leep


25 posted on 04/30/2015 12:28:28 PM PDT by GeronL (Clearly Cruz 2016)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: C19fan

As a city girl who’d love to live in the country, I so love coming on posts like this and finding out all about chickens and livestock, etc. It makes FR so informative and entertaining.


26 posted on 04/30/2015 12:30:09 PM PDT by miss marmelstein (Richard the Third: "I should like to drive away not only the Turks (moslims) but all my foes.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: C19fan

27 posted on 04/30/2015 12:32:57 PM PDT by bunkerhill7 ("The Second Amendment has no limits on firepower"-NY State Senator Kathleen A. Marchione."))))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GeronL

“It gets worse. There are now people demanding eggs from chickens fed only grass”

Colorado chickens. Horrible to eat, but fun to watch.


28 posted on 04/30/2015 12:37:59 PM PDT by EQAndyBuzz (two if by van, one if by broom)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Katya

The food fed to fatten up cows can be quite creative. Besides the base food of a grain slurry, typically of corn and corn byproducts (husks, cobs), there may be soy and soy hulls, spent brewery grain, spent distiller’s grain, and other cereals. CAFO nutritionists can get pretty creative, though, sometimes including cotton byproducts, old candy (including wrappers), beet and citrus pulp, and peanut shells in their cows’ diet. These creative feeds might bring a greater nutritional value than just corn feeding.

A grass fed cow will eat anything: graminoids (hundreds of different species of sedges), shrubs, clovers, and random leaves if they can get to them. Basically, they’ll eat what ever is in reach, green, and leafy. Because of this, grass fed beef is more nutritional if the cows have access to good stuff to eat.

If grass fed cows do not have good food at their feet, they will be stringy, tough, and unpalatable. To make up for that, it is not too hard to finish with a fattening up process that makes them good and tasty with the product of both worlds. I like the distiller’s spent grain method because it makes use of a distillery by-product. Maybe the cows get a little zing on their last days on earth.


29 posted on 04/30/2015 12:41:23 PM PDT by jonrick46 (America's real drug problem: other people's money (the Commutist's opium addiction).)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: bunkerhill7

LOL! GMO chickens strike back!


30 posted on 04/30/2015 12:42:20 PM PDT by jonrick46 (America's real drug problem: other people's money (the Commutist's opium addiction).)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: Leep

Where did those infected cows who gave mad cow disease to the next cows, get MC in the first place?


31 posted on 04/30/2015 12:54:37 PM PDT by Ditter
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: C19fan

Vegetables are what food eats.


32 posted on 04/30/2015 12:55:23 PM PDT by dfwgator
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: EQAndyBuzz
“It gets worse. There are now people demanding eggs from chickens fed only grass” Colorado chickens. Horrible to eat, but fun to watch.

I've heard of "A Chicken in Every Pot", but "Pot in Every Chicken"?

33 posted on 04/30/2015 12:56:01 PM PDT by dfwgator
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: Katya

When you are trying to purchase something that isn’t available,

the phrase you’re looking for is

“business opportunity”.


34 posted on 04/30/2015 12:57:31 PM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: grobdriver

One food show had the host visiting a cheese farm in France. The “best” cheeses were made from Summer milk, when the cows were grass and wild flower fed, versus Winter milk when the cows were fed hay.


35 posted on 04/30/2015 1:09:41 PM PDT by Calvin Locke
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: MrB

There are actually farms in Maryland producing them... I just don’t have time to drive there as well during the week. I have ordered them via the internet... as interest in pastured animals increases, I’m sure stores will begin stocking them.


36 posted on 04/30/2015 1:11:14 PM PDT by Katya (Homo Nosce Te Ipsum)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: Ditter

BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopy) is believed to have started when cattle feed included rendered sheep that had been put down because they had a rare but well-known disease called “Scrapie”.

That’s what I have heard, anyway.


37 posted on 04/30/2015 1:13:03 PM PDT by Don W ( When most riot, neighborhoods and cities burn. When Whites riot, nations and continents burn.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: jonrick46

I read an article that cattle acclimated to an Alpine climate have much higher levels of CLA... due to the grass they eat. I also don’t have a problem with cattle that are 10% or less finished with grain products. I think Kerry gold butter is 90% grass fed.


38 posted on 04/30/2015 1:14:47 PM PDT by Katya (Homo Nosce Te Ipsum)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: jonrick46

I read an article that cattle acclimated to an Alpine climate have much higher levels of CLA... due to the grass they eat. I also don’t have a problem with cattle that are 10% or less finished with grain products. I think Kerry gold butter is 90% grass fed.


39 posted on 04/30/2015 1:14:52 PM PDT by Katya (Homo Nosce Te Ipsum)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: C19fan

They need bugs—lots of bugs.


40 posted on 04/30/2015 1:21:49 PM PDT by familyop (We Baby Boomers are croaking in an avalanche of corruption smelled around the planet.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-57 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson