Question about raw eggs and raw milk where the animals are being fed some grain

[bharminder]

Hi,

Although I'd like to say I'm consuming raw eggs and raw milk from grass-fed only animals, it seems business and industry has corrupted century long traditions. So I've compromised for some time now with eating free range, fertile eggs that are fed grains, and pasture raised organic raw milk that is also supplemented with a good amount of grains.

Now my question is whether these foods have advantages despite being fed grains. I know for one thing, the omega 6 content will substantially increase with grain feeding and without grass, the omega 3 content will diminish significantly. So it's possible healthy foods like raw eggs can become unhealthy with abnormal fatty acid ratios.


So maybe there is some level of balance, where a little bit is better than nothing....and maybe that's where I want to go with this. Currently I'm eating about 4 dozen of these eggs per week and about a gallon or two of milk a week. The thing is, I really like variety....for taste and nutritional sake both.....so if I stopped drinking the milk and decreased this egg consumption, I'd probably increase the meat intake of different wild fish and other shellfish, and grass fed meats.

I guess one way to ask what I'm trying to get at here, is that is grass fed beef/ lamb automatically, no matter what, better than free range fertile eggs that are fed grains (and have access to pasture...though I don't know how much access, the yolks vary from yellow to deep orange..even within 1 dozen box...it's not really a consistent color from egg to egg to say one way or the other unfortunately).


Thanks

[Haai]

I think you'd be better off replacing the eggs with "wild fish and other shellfish, and grassfed meats".
Keep in mind that eggs and milk are naturally seasonal foods and so would originally have only been available at certain times of the year (in temperate climate). In the summer the animals will have much more access to fresh grass than in winter. So I think the quality of eggs and milk will be much higher in the summer compared to winter.

[bharminder]

Yeah I agree with you...it doesn't make sense to eat too many eggs (or milk) in the winter, especially if they are also being supplemented with grains. Maybe it would make sense if they were only fed dried forage and some fresh vegetables, like from your own personal farm animals, ....but otherwise I wasn't planning to eat much milk or eggs in the winter , especially from local sources. Thank you

[eveheart]

I don't think chickens eat grass, anyway. Birds eat grains and bugs. "Pastured" hens have access to the outdoors to run around. It pays to ask questions, because some "pastured" hens are only let out for brief periods of the day. Keeping hens in a coop at night is good where predators or weather is a problem.

Grain-finished beef is another then altogether. Cattle is not a grain-eating species. To me, grass-fed, grain-finished (usually the last 90-days - that's a long time!) is a marketing ploy to make the beef sound non-grain-fed and be unnaturally tender. I avoid it.

[bharminder]

Oh I see.........what do you think about the fact that the milk I get is from organic cows but get about 8 lbs of grain per day, 365 days a year, along with their grazing in summer months and hay in winter months?

[eveheart]

I've heard that grain-fed cows give way more milk than grass-fed cows, so it's probably an economic necessity for the dairy farmer. It's good to know what you are getting so that you can make these kinds of decisions.

[bharminder]

Yeah I agree with what you said there.....I spoke via e-mail with a grassfed only dairy farmer who lives too far from me but preaches sustainable but quality farming practices like grassfed only, milking by hand, etc. He told me that by grassfeeding, he experiences a 40% milk production drop, but that the quality is far superior.

I liken grain fed milk, even as low as 15% of the diet, as creating diluted milk. So you would need to drink 2 or 3 gallons of milk from grain fed cows compared with only 1 gallon of milk from a grass fed cow.

[RawZi]

 

...doesn't make sense to eat too many eggs (or milk) in the winter, especially if they are also being supplemented with grains. Maybe it would make sense if they were only fed dried forage and some fresh vegetables, like from your own personal farm animals, ....but otherwise I wasn't planning to eat much milk or eggs in the winter ...

    If you have a farm, and you have some organs or anything else from slaughter that you have no use for, I think that's very good food for chickenfood for their health.  

    I think aajonus said somewhere that milk is particularly good for Summer food.

    I have read that Tibetans traditionally eat white foods (milk) in Summer, and red foods (yak meat) in winter.

    People I've talked with on this forum who depend on local foods because that's how it is in their countries have said they have to wait for Spring for milk and eggs to be available.

    It may make sense not to eat eggs in Winter, as they don't really put weight on you, and you need denser foods in Winter.

    Similar might go for feeding types of grain to animals. There's Winter wheat for example which is more nutritious yet more fibrous, and there's Spring wheat which is less fibrous and also a few less nutrients.  Everything in nature changes throughout the year, including what became available for the animals.

[Dorothy]

One chicken needs about an acre to find enough food to not have its food supplemented. Even grain feeds are usually supplemented with either soy or fishmeal to achieve the high protein diets that chickens need to pump out 300 eggs a year. Soy can be really bad for chickens.

Even if you get pastured hens it DOES NOT mean that they find their own food. The only place you will find that is if just a small amount of hens are raised on a large ranch for the people that eat them. I love to watch the hens jump up in my yard to get grass seeds. Hens do eat grains. Most chicken food though is almost exclusively corn especially if it is organic because it's hard to get a good enough variety of different grains and still get that organic label. Even backyard chicken folk don't realize that the pellets are super high heated.

I feed my hens food produced by a local person, my leftovers and I will grow them bugs myself when there are not enough in the yard - which is almost always. Hens do not usually eat grass - they eat grass seed. They do eat other greens though.

I have seen my hens catch even a small snake.

Chickens are mostly carnivorous.

But I could go on about chickens forever!

[Wolf]

One chicken needs about an acre to find enough food to not have its food supplemented. Even grain feeds are usually supplemented with either soy or fishmeal to achieve the high protein diets that chickens need to pump out 300 eggs a year. Soy can be really bad for chickens.

Even if you get pastured hens it DOES NOT mean that they find their own food. The only place you will find that is if just a small amount of hens are raised on a large ranch for the people that eat them. I love to watch the hens jump up in my yard to get grass seeds. Hens do eat grains. Most chicken food though is almost exclusively corn especially if it is organic because it's hard to get a good enough variety of different grains and still get that organic label. Even backyard chicken folk don't realize that the pellets are super high heated.

I feed my hens food produced by a local person, my leftovers and I will grow them bugs myself when there are not enough in the yard - which is almost always. Hens do not usually eat grass - they eat grass seed. They do eat other greens though.

I have seen my hens catch even a small snake.

Chickens are mostly carnivorous.

But I could go on about chickens forever!

Please tell me more about chickens.. My aunt recently got her own chickens for egg laying, but they were feeding the chickens organic feed, although I don't think that would be the best for them to eat.  They live in arizona though, and they have no grass in their backyard, so I'm not sure how the chickens are going to eat anything other than the organic chicken feed they bought for them, and I would really love to tell them all the information they need to make their chickens the healthiest they can be.. and also because I want to try eating those eggs raw, because they'll probably be really good..

I also eventually want to have my own chickens someday too, for the eggs, and will want to know how to keep them as healthy as possible.

[Dorothy]

Hey Wolf. You just gotta give chickens feed unless you have an acre per chicken of good foraging land - it just doesn't happen. But feeds differ greatly. You want to stay away from pellets because of the extremely high heats it takes to make them into pellets. If you have raw milk you might have raw whey? That's what I put our feed into and then there is little waste. You can always make your own feed from buying grain from the health food store if you have just a few hens. The big issue is protein. Hens fed on a vegetarian diet are being tortured just like a dog would be. I mean - they will live their first and second year which is as old as your standard layer hen gets to live - but I think the eggs show it. I give my hens flax seed to make the eggs high in omega 3 fatty acids. You can give your hens most of your leftovers - which is great food for them if you eat right. You can give them your leftover raw meat. I dehydrate all my leftover pieces of vegetables and powder them and add them to their food. Having hens has reduced the waste in my house a great deal. But the most important thing to do for hens in a place like Arizona would be to supplement greens and bugs. Grown your hens bugs and they will be very well fed indeed. Bugs are their most natural food. Live bugs. Many feeds add soy to give the chickens enough protein - but it's bad for them and most hens dye of ovarian cancer because of it. I've come to the conclusion that hens only stop producing as many eggs because of how badly they are fed. Mine are 3 years old and they are supposed to be making significantly fewer eggs - but they haven't slowed in the least. I have a friend who also feeds her chickens really well and she says none of her hens have ever slowed down until they die of old age.

So get yourself hens that are designed for egg laying and forget about the idea that you have to cull them - that is if you never want any chicken meat - which we don't. My chickens will probably live forever and hopefully lay most of their lives. They eventually do run out of eggs - but it takes a really long time. They are born with all the eggs they will ever be able to lay - but I think the slowing down of laying and that they don't lay when stressed or in winter or summer - that's just because their food is so bad. My hens lay constantly all year.

Well, that should get you started.

[Wolf]

Thank you very much!.. I will try to give this information to my aunt, as well as remember it for the future if I ever get my own chickens.

[bharminder]

How do you grow your own bugs? and which kinds? what do the bugs eat? how many can you grow? in what kind of containers, and how do you feed them to the chickens? do you have a rooster?

[reyyzl]

One chicken needs about an acre to find enough food to not have its food supplemented. ..

Even if you get pastured hens it DOES NOT mean that they find their own food. The only place you will find that is if just a small amount of hens are raised on a large ranch for the people that eat them. I love to watch the hens jump up in my yard to get grass seeds. ..

I feed my hens food produced by a local person, my leftovers and I will grow them bugs myself when there are not enough in the yard - which is almost always. Hens do not usually eat grass - they eat grass seed. They do eat other greens though.

I have seen my hens catch even a small snake.

Chickens are mostly carnivorous.

Depends on what vines and bugs you have growing on that acre, and what kind of soil it's all growing in too.

[Projectile Vomit]

How do you grow your own bugs? and which kinds? what do the bugs eat? how many can you grow? in what kind of containers, and how do you feed them to the chickens? do you have a rooster?

Unfortunately cheromiya_kid banned Dorothy, so she will not be able to respond to your question.

[Dorothy]

How do you grow your own bugs? and which kinds? what do the bugs eat? how many can you grow? in what kind of containers, and how do you feed them to the chickens? do you have a rooster?

Hi! I'm Back.

Ok - here goes. How you grow your own bugs depends on the type of bug you want to grow. In compost red wiggler and other worms can be grown (I have done this lots) and there are specific composters that make harvesting much easier that are in layers so that the worms leave one layer when composting is done to go to the fresh compost. The best of all bugs her in Texas are the Black Soldier Fly maggots and chickens love them. The BSFlies are native and are attracted to compost and can compost just about anything within 24 hours including things that one would not normally be able to put in a composter - like meat scraps for instance. If you google bio-pod you will see composters made specifically for them - but they also can be built. The beautiful thing about BSF is that the maggots naturally crawl up and in a circular pattern so one can build a composter to take advantage of this tendency and then the maggots harvest themselves. Superworms are a great favorite of all reptiles.... and birds evolved from reptiles and love them just as much. Superworms are a bit harder to produce easily because they need to be isolated before turning into beetles to reproduce. But I've done it and it can be rewarding. Silkworms I would like to try because they are supposed to be one of the biggest and tastiest and I have a mulberry tree - they eat exclusively mulberry leaves. Crickets are very easy to raise as well and lots of fun. I can talk you through this if you like. Mealworms are one of the easiest and most productive of worms to grow.

Mealworms, superworms and crickets are grown in simple plastic containers and you just give them a little bit of carrot or potato for food and moisture. Very cheap. You can use different substrates. How many you can raise is restrained only by your willingness to keep up with their care. They multiply rapidly.  Red wigglers, BSFlies and other compost worms depend simply on eating garbage so how many you have depends on how many you start out with for the worms.... and for all them how much compost you provide. BSFlies will be attracted if you add some garbage with their scent on it - but they will come even if there is no scent eventually if the container is correctly made. The flies btw carry no disease and do not go into houses.

If you bring out bugs to chickens and put them on the ground you will see how fast a chicken can catch and eat bugs. It's quite the show. You can leave the bugs in a container, feed them from your hand or put them on the ground.

I cannot have a rooster because of noise - I live too close to other houses. Roosters will conduct hens to food sources. In a sense, I take over this role for the hens. When I'm out in the yard they stay close by me.

I've asked my "chicken friends" what they think a chicken's diet would be in the wild and I have gotten a pretty good consensus that it would be AT LEAST 50% bugs. I really need to step up my bug production - especially in this drought. One of the funny things I have learned to do is to use my chickens as edgers. I water places that I don't want anything growing and the chickens dig it up as the bugs are attracted to the water and scratch away everything to find the treats. I also feed them in places where I would like them to scratch away growth. They love being under bushes in this heat and sun and for protection - so they are the perfect undergrowth destruction team. I have to do dramatically less weeding. The bug population in my yard is well-managed. They are great little workers. It's a delight to be able to reward them with their favorite treats that I grow for them.


 

[Dorothy]

Depends on what vines and bugs you have growing on that acre, and what kind of soil it's all growing in too.

Oh reyyzl - of course, of course. An acre is just an average. Here in Texas now with the drought each chicken would probably need more and in my previous yard in the tropics they would need less. The time of year is also pertinent. Some place would be big enough at some times of year and need some supplementation in others.