Yesterday I wrote a post about keeping chickens near the house and one of the advantages I listed was being able to easily feed your chickens scraps from the kitchen, but I also stated that this activity is illegal in the UK.
This seemed to surprise quite few commentators so I thought I'd look into it more and see if what I said was actually right (I have been wrong before!).
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| A Chicken picture from last year that I love! |
You could argue a case if your a vegan family but the rules are in place to prevent the risk of cross contamination with high levels of animal proteins (although chickens are omnivores) and to reduce the risk of salmonella.
So the rules state that vegetables, like a glut of courgettes, can be taken from the veg garden straight to the chicken pen, but if they go to the kitchen first then they can only go on the compost heap, as your kitchen is an unregulated space.
What do you think to these rules?
Potentially sensible when applied to commercial farms with sheds that house 10,000 birds, but not appropriate to the average domestic chicken keeper? Or a good rule to help control what chickens are fed.
I'm fairly sure I don't need to put my opinion on here as most of you will know where I stand on this.
Isn't it the same for pigs? We're getting pigs next year and my thoughts are the same for the pigs as our own chickens. They're ours, within reason we will do what we like with them. 😊
ReplyDeleteYep, the same for pigs. We're also getting pigs next year (so my daughters tell me anyway). It's a shame with so much food getting wasted that the laws are like this.
DeleteAnother set of rules made by people in offices who need to find something to fill in their time so they can earn a salary, so not to be taken notice of by us homesteading folk!
ReplyDeleteJobs for the boys! Most wouldn't know a real days work if it came up and hit them in the face!
DeleteWell I'm sure you know what I think of this rule too, especially in vegetarian households!!
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the reasons I installed a veg prep sink over on the veggie patch, so I can do the majority of the vegetable preparation over there and chuck all trimmings to the birds and soily water back on the beds.
It seems a daft rule but it is grounded in some of the terrible outbreaks we have had in this country, caused by feeding like to like.
Hi Sue--I just love your idea of cleaning up the vegetables at the source. I don't know why that never occurred to me?????? I especially like the idea of returning the water to the beds. Thank you!
DeleteI was thinking of putting a outside sink in for this reason as well. I also have an idea for something I'm going to sell so watch this space!
DeleteOurs is literally an old Belfast sink on brick supports, sited under the tap that we use for the hosepipe to the polytunnel. It has no plughole at all but we put a big bucket under it and use that to throw all the water straight back onto the beds. On rainy days the bucket (and the bowl in the sink) also fill with rainwater which we use to water in the polytunnel.
DeleteWe're thinking of installing a similar idea over at the back of the house for washing dirty doggy feet.
I will continue as I always have scraps go to the chickens, although they dont get meat, but they do get vegetable prep scraps
ReplyDeleteThey seem to love them as well! Chicken go mad for anything chucked in the pen.
DeleteRiciculous isn't it? When I was a kid, and that wasn't all that long ago, mid fifties, there used to be a farmer that came round in a wagon where we lived, and we all had what was called a 'pig bin'. All our household scraps went into it and the farmer would take them away to feed his pigs. Stank like high heaven by the time he'd gone round them all! I think it must have been a left-over from the war days.
ReplyDeleteI should imagine that the pigs fattened really well on it as well. In those days there would be far less additives in the food as well so those pigs probably ate better than most people do in the UK these days!
DeleteIf the chickens aren't sold, it seems like overkill.
ReplyDeleteI guess it's the selling of the eggs that bothers them. I bet they don;t like people selling eggs anyway!
DeleteI vote stupid rule. We have regulations here that prevent me selling eggs without a food safety license...
ReplyDeleteJust sell the box they come in and give the customer the eggs!
DeleteThat's silly. I feed my hens scraps all the time. People not being educated........
ReplyDeleteI agree!
DeleteThere is always the one who thinks that it is okay to feed hot dogs and kebabs to the chickens and then sell the eggs. I remember boiling up swill for our pigs, it did whiff a bit but they couldn't get to it fast enough.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't eat a kebab so there's no way I'd feed it to my chickens!
DeleteAgree with Vera.
ReplyDeleteI think we're all with her on this one!
DeleteMaybe if we stopped feeding politicians, they would go away.
ReplyDeletehahaha love this
DeleteWe need a like button for this!!
DeleteWe can dream!!!
Delete:D
haha, I think I'[m with you on this one. There's a few lower down the chain that need this as well though!
DeleteIts the Nanny state once again. Next they will be making rules about how many squares of toilet paper you are allowed to use for each wipe.
ReplyDeleteIt's four I think....
DeleteOh, fer Pete's sake! To that ridiculous ruling I say, "Ppthfffft!" (I agree with Vera, too.)
ReplyDeleteA middle finger to the man is sometimes needed!
DeleteThis is so assinine. So, let me get this straight. Purchased food that has been inspected and deemed healthy for my family is somehow a danger to feed to chickens. Sure. I guess that logic does sell more commercial feed.
ReplyDeleteThey're omnivores much like us so I imagine that they can eat most of what we can. Animals are very good at not eating things that are bad for them.
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ReplyDeleteI was a 'dinner monitor' at school in the 1960s and 70s, and the food waste was scraped into drums and carted off to the local pig farmer. If you read John Seymour, he recommends a bucket under the sink for rinsing off plates before washing up! How things change...I reckon it's big agri business behind these rules to make us buy animal feed.
ReplyDeleteThey don;t want the little guy doing anything. They want it all taxed and controlled, for them big farms are the way forward.
DeletePfffftttt!!! That's my opinion!
ReplyDeleteWith you on that one!
DeleteBaloney! My free range chickens eat worms, grubs and even the odd dead mouse left by the cats...can you imagine the awful things the caged birds eat...bits of dead rats and rat droppings? They don't seem to be very well regulated...I will stick to my kitchen scraps!
ReplyDeleteI guess the rules are grounded in sound principles, but you always get better mileage through education. By making it illegal, they missed the opportunity to educate good food practices. Because more people are going to disregard the rules, than obey them. A kitchen is more likely to pass Salmonella onto children, before chickens, if that's how food is prepared in it.
ReplyDeleteWhich is what I find so silly about this ruling. You're allowed to have an uncertified kitchen to prepare food for your own children, but it's not good enough for the livestock? They should have a ruling about how many chickens you're allowed to feed scraps to, from an uncertified kitchen, which would meet with how many chickens you're allowed to keep in a backyard in the first place. Then educate on how that food should be kept before feeding to the chickens (ie: fresh is best, refrigeration is your friend, and separate meats from plant material, until serving).
Whilst I agree it seems overkill and many here have commented that it seems odd that the kitchen is seen as fit to prepare for humans but the scraps from the same kitchen aren't to be fed to animals.
ReplyDeleteThink about this.
The scraps fed to the animals isn't just the left over corn flakes, veg trimmings, cold beef scraps etc.
It's also (unless rigorously segregated) the uncooked chicken cuttings, raw pork scraps and other uncooked meat products.
For example,we know that the majority of chicken in um supermarkets is contaminated with campylobacter. So you prepare your chicken dinner and throw the trimmed chicken bits in the scraps along with the potato peelings, some old rice from the fridge etc. Now the whole bin is contaminated with campylobacter and if you feed that to the chickens or pigs so pare they.
They could have made a song and dance about boiling the swill for a certain length of time to sterilise it, or rigorous separation of waste streams, but then there's always the risk of someone not boiling enough of not separating the waste streams. A simple, don't do it is clear and unambiguous.
Don't forget they traced the foot and mouth outbreak to pigs been given scraps from a local Chinese restaurant. It could just as easily been a local household feeding scraps to their pigs.
We all have regulations that annoy us and seem nonsensical to us "on the ground" but that doesn't always mean they are bad. Think on it from the perspective of someone trying to keep an entire country's agriculture free of outbreaks, then think what you'd do.
There is a version of "mad chicken disease" which is why my hens only get cooked chicken scraps.
ReplyDeleteI put my kitchen waste on the compost heap.... but the compost heap is in my bird run 😊
ReplyDeleteI put my kitchen waste on the compost heap.... but the compost heap is in my bird run 😊
ReplyDeleteI would never ever feed my girls chicken or any meat. On principle. But as a vegetarian they don't get the chance. I will however continue to feed them left over kitchen scraps.
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ReplyDeleteThanks for taking the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and love learning more on this topic. If possible, as you gain expertise, would you mind updating your blog with more information? It is extremely helpful for me.
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ReplyDeleteI really like your take on the issue. I now have a clear idea on what this matter is all about.. my explanation
ReplyDeleteNews to me
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