[Tanada]

Lest we forget the bug experts have now discovered half a dozen worms with gut bacteria that digest PE and PS plastics for energy. By rights if the plastic is too cheap to recycle the logical course of action is to feed it to meal work larvae and feed most of the resulting grubs to poultry. Makes for lots of healthy hens laying lots of nutritious eggs, all based on a waste product and a little system engineering.

Hmmm. Chicken, the meat fortified with plastic. Probably not the best marketing idea, but it it's profitable, industry will do it.

Just curious, do you have any concept off the top of your head what laying chickens are fed in those big factory sheds today?

If so write down what you think it is then research what it really is. If even one of the items you think they are fed is something different I posit they could substitute almost anything without you ever being wise to the change unless it was a huge media story.

[vtsnowedin]

Here you go.

Home Fresh Extra Egg Layer is a high-energy, calcium-fortified grain diet formulated specifically to support egg production in layers. As a complete, balanced diet, no additional nutrient supplementation is required. It's a natural choice for egg-production for laying chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys and game birds.

Protein: 16%; Fat: 3%; Fiber: 4%
Vegetarian diet providing wholesome grains and healthy plant proteins
Naturally balanced with added amino acids, minerals and vitamins
Locked Formula: no substitution of inferior ingredients
NutriVantage technology for added immune support

Ingredients:
Ground Corn, Soybean Meal, Processed Grain By-Products, Calcium Carbonate, Monocalcium Phosphate, Dicalcium Phosphate, Vegetable Oil, Mineral Oil, Salt, Roughage Products, Vitamin A Acetate, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Vitamin E Supplement, Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex (Source Of Vitamin K Activity), Riboflavin Supplement, Niacin Supplement, Calcium Pantothenate, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Folic Acid, Biotin, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Thiamine Mononitrate, Choline Chloride, DL-Methionine, L-Lysine, Reed-Sedge Peat, Salt Of Butyric Acid, Dried Bacillus Subtilis Fermentation Product, Dried Trichoderma Longibrachiatum Fermentation Product, Dried Bacillus Amyloliquefaciens Fermentation Product, Dried Aspergillus Oryzae Fermentation Extract (Phytase), Hydrolyzed Yeast, Calcium Iodate, Copper Sulfate, Ferrous Sulfate, Manganese Sulfate, Zinc Sulfate, Copper Amino Acid Complex, Manganese Amino Acid Complex, Zinc Amino Acid Complex, Selenium Yeast.

Guaranteed Analysis:
Crude Protein (min.) 16.0%
Lysine (min.) 0.75%
Methionine (min.) 0.37%
Crude Fat (min.) 3.0%
Crude Fiber (max.) 4.0%
Calcium (Ca) (min.) 3.3%
Calcium (Ca) (max.) 4.3%
Phosphorus (P) (min.) 0.6%
Salt (NaCl) (min.) 0.2%
Salt (NaCl) (max.) 0.7%
Vitamin A (min.) 4,275 IU/lb.
Vitamin E (min.) 21 IU/lb.

Feeding Recommendations:
Home Fresh Extra Egg is designed to be fed as the sole diet to laying hens, turkeys, ducks, game birds and geese.
For additional feeding recommendations consult your local KNG Representative.
The suggested feeding program is intended solely as a guide. The variables of management, environment and breed may dictate changes in the birds' requirements.

[Tanada]

Here is a secret for you, that 'healthy vegetarian diet' is not the natural diet of chickens or most other poultry, its simply the sales pitch to use the cheapest food commodity for the return in eggs produced.

Free range chickens certainly eat grain, cracked corn especially as it is a cheap base. They also get calcium supplement, in our henhouse we used crushed sea shells sprinkled on the grain each morning to promote thick strong egg shells. Without the supplement you often ended up with thin fragile shells that broke in normal handling. But, free range chickens spend lots of time pecking and scratching. If you pay attention you will see the main targets of peck and scratch are not worms, though they will eat one if the catch it. the main target are insects, especially ants, and the grit they get when pecking them up acts as grinding material in their gizzard to reduce those tough insect exoskeletons into digestible material. Insects are high protein/high fat in larval form and if you ever want to see a chicken riot dump a scoop of meal worms or other larvae in the middle of a flock of chickens doing the peck and scratch routine.

https://youtu.be/zZ0MFZP-MFw

[vtsnowedin]

Here is a secret for you, that 'healthy vegetarian diet' is not the natural diet of chickens or most other poultry, its simply the sales pitch to use the cheapest food commodity for the return in eggs produced.

No not a secret to me. That is just the first commercial food analysis I googled up. I know of other feeds that have recycled chicken and fish cannery waste dried and mixed with the grain because as you say the chickens are very carnivorous. Back many moons ago my father was raising chickens commercially (1920s) and had the misfortune to have a cow fall into a well and die. He had the cow ground up hide hooves and all and fed it to the flock a few gallons worth at a time through the winter. As you say the flock went wild each day racing to get their share. My father said it made their combs bright red, a sign of good health, and increased egg production considerably.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Lest we forget the bug experts have now discovered half a dozen worms with gut bacteria that digest PE and PS plastics for energy. By rights if the plastic is too cheap to recycle the logical course of action is to feed it to meal work larvae and feed most of the resulting grubs to poultry. Makes for lots of healthy hens laying lots of nutritious eggs, all based on a waste product and a little system engineering.

Hmmm. Chicken, the meat fortified with plastic. Probably not the best marketing idea, but it it's profitable, industry will do it.

Just curious, do you have any concept off the top of your head what laying chickens are fed in those big factory sheds today?

If so write down what you think it is then research what it really is. If even one of the items you think they are fed is something different I posit they could substitute almost anything without you ever being wise to the change unless it was a huge media story.

Based on both of our comments, it seems we are in agreement, overall. I'm not sure what you seem to be upset about, re my comment. (My referral to marketing re plastic was obviously sarcastic. No?)

(Look, I've seen news pieces on commercial scale "free range" chickens in CA, and it's clearly not the idealistic view of 7 chickens running around on a huge grassy farm eating seeds that the industry would like us to believe.)

[Pops]

A hen's diet: anything that doesn't eat her first!

[vtsnowedin]

A hen's diet: anything that doesn't eat her first!

Yah pretty much but they wont eat citrus like orange peals etc. They do love a red cabbage hung from a string.

[Tanada]

Lest we forget the bug experts have now discovered half a dozen worms with gut bacteria that digest PE and PS plastics for energy. By rights if the plastic is too cheap to recycle the logical course of action is to feed it to meal work larvae and feed most of the resulting grubs to poultry. Makes for lots of healthy hens laying lots of nutritious eggs, all based on a waste product and a little system engineering.

Hmmm. Chicken, the meat fortified with plastic. Probably not the best marketing idea, but it it's profitable, industry will do it.

Just curious, do you have any concept off the top of your head what laying chickens are fed in those big factory sheds today?

If so write down what you think it is then research what it really is. If even one of the items you think they are fed is something different I posit they could substitute almost anything without you ever being wise to the change unless it was a huge media story.

Based on both of our comments, it seems we are in agreement, overall. I'm not sure what you seem to be upset about, re my comment. (My referral to marketing re plastic was obviously sarcastic. No?)

(Look, I've seen news pieces on commercial scale "free range" chickens in CA, and it's clearly not the idealistic view of 7 chickens running around on a huge grassy farm eating seeds that the industry would like us to believe.)

Not upset with you Outcast, sorry if it came across that way. Bad day on the health issues front so I am perhaps a little short tempered and that may be how I came across, but I assure you it was unintentional if that is the case.

I happen to have grown up on a small poultry farm and my family partnered to raise grass fed beef cattle with my uncles family so industrial farms are something of an annoyance to me. The folks who point at factory farms and think every farm is like that annoy me too lol, mostly vegan evangelists in my experience.

I also agree the problem is when a government, bought and paid for by lobbyists, sets the standards to define 'free range'. You just know that definition is going to be totally self serving and unrealistic.

[Ibon]

After the entomologists are finished picking through their specimens at our light traps the next morning lots of native birds habituated to the lights come in and start picking off part of what remains and then finally the chickens make it over and clean up what the entomologists and native birds rejected.

This is permaculture eco tourism since we feed the entomologists omelets in the morning.....

[Newfie]

Good one, made us laugh!

Thanks.

[careinke]

After the entomologists are finished picking through their specimens at our light traps the next morning lots of native birds habituated to the lights come in and start picking off part of what remains and then finally the chickens make it over and clean up what the entomologists and native birds rejected.

This is permaculture eco tourism since we feed the entomologists omelets in the morning.....

Nice

[Newfie]

Kind of interesting. Shipping gas from Europe to Australia.

https://gcaptain.com/gasoline-cargoes-d ... nal-trade/

At least 400,000 metric tons of gasoline have been shipped or booked for delivery to Australia from northwest Europe since the start of this year, according to shipping data compiled by Bloomberg. Over 10,000 tons of marine fuel will probably be consumed to transport these cargoes just on one leg of the journey, more than some refineries produce in a day.

[ROCKMAN]

Chevron to buy Anadarko Petroleum in a $33 billion cash and stock deal

Chevron plans to acquire Anadarko Petroleum in a cash and stock deal the company valued at $33 billion. The transaction values Anadarko at $65 per share, a 37% premium to Thursday's closing price. Chevron's deal represents the 11th biggest ever for an energy and power company

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/12/chevron ... -deal.html

Just another example of why I smile when someone posts about the “death” of the oil industry. As we reach and past global PO it may likely become all the more profitable then it has been for many years. That’s the REMAINING portions of the industry…not all the EXISTING companies today. Some time in the future the world won’t be producing 90+ million bbls of oil per day but 60 million bbls of oil per day. But it will be far fewer companies producing that oil. And some companies with perhaps more bopd coming out of the ground then they are currently producing. And with fewer competitors then they have today. And if alt energy sources available that can substitute for oil aren’t developed in sufficient cost effective volumes then a true seller’s market will exist.

Yes: a number of “ifs”. But regardless we are many decades away from Exxon. Chevron and a few other Big Oils from drying up and blowing away. And PO will be their salvation. I’ve explained this dynamic before with few grasping the reality. As time passes and the industry continues to consolidate perhaps a few more will become believers of this major component of PO.

[ROCKMAN]

Newfie - Yes, just one more side effect of the US becoming the largest oil refining country on the planet. And with product exports growing to record levels. As a result we end up with a huge amount of gasoline as a byproduct. We were once the major buyer of gasoline from Europe refiners. Now they need to develop new markets regardless of how far they have to ship.