Should I make my chicken vegan?

[Howtolivelife]

Do I stop it from eating my earth worms?

Is this for a laugh?

I'm serious, I don't think it's healthy for it to be eating all those worms

yes! my chickens have been proudly vegan for a year now

Really? I'm so glad it's possible, I've been looking into corn based diets for mine

let chickens eat what they want!! God has made them perfect in the way that they are. Leave them be! Unless you want to cage with concrete floor but I don't think that in their best interest..........

@Howtolivelife

Really? I'm so glad it's possible, I've been looking into corn based diets for mine

Wait a second, do you not feed your chickens?..... chicken feed is usually vegetarian, at least the one we had was and we weren't buying anything fancy

"Layers pellets" says approved by the vegetarian society

Why wouldn’t it be healthy for an animal to eat it’s natural diet? Are you force feeding them extra worms to make them fatter??
Chickens are omnivores. They need a range of foods to be healthy.
What’s unhealthy is an animal being deprived of its natural foods by a human who thinks they know better. It’s a chicken, stop anthropomorphising the poor animals.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/29/consumers-love-chickens-that-are-vegetarian-fed-never-mind-what-the-birds-want-to-eat/%3foutputType=amp

True, but my chickens are rather carnivorous, I saw one eating a snail the other day!

Free-range chickens will eat all sorts of things if they want to, bugs, grubs, worms, you name it. I once saw them fighting over a dead frog they'd found in a puddle. Good luck though 🤞

They must need quite a lot of calcium to make the shells of the eggs. Is vegan chicken food fortified with calcium? I don't know anything about chickens (I clicked on this thinking it would be about cooking!).

Then if you were selling them as food you could advertise them as vegan chicke- wait. Oops.

@timeisnotaline

Then if you were selling them as food you could advertise them as vegan chicke- wait. Oops.

Do you monitor them 24/7 to make sure they don't eat any roaming bugs or grubs @mummyofchickens?
(Hoping you were being facetious!)

Chickens are omnivores so why don't you think it's healthy for it to be eating worms? Do you know anything about chickens? You really shouldn't be keeping them if you don't. If they're vegetarian then they need the right supplements, but why would anyone force an omnivorous animal to be vegetarian?

My chickens were at their happiest following me around while I lifted up rocks and lumps of wood so they could gobble up the wood lice and bugs that lurked beneath
It feels quite cruel to put measures in place to prevent them getting access to the sort of food they naturally seek out
Surely that’s more at odds with vegan values than letting them peck at whatever worms or grubs they would naturally find?

How would you do that? Put them in a cage with no access to greenery?
Let them roam, let them forage for grubs. They wont eat stuff they dont like.

What wrong with a snail??
Wild animals are generally speaking very good at regulating their own food intake. It’s not like the chicken is eating macdonalds for breakfast every day.
They will eat what they need. Some animals proteins but mostly plant matter.
Just let them feed how they want to if you truly care about their welfare and not some misinformed virtue signalling.

True, but my chickens are rather carnivorous,

Chickens are naturally omnivores, like humans.

How do you plan to stop them?

Dear God, MN seems to have slipped into a parallel universe today!

My chickens would stage a rebellion if I never gave them leftover lasagne again.

I would love to see you try OP.
I do limit the parts of the garden our chickens can Free Range in as they are wildlife murderers.

Why on earth would you want to deprive them of their natural diet? That's just nuts.

Given that the only way to do this would be to keep them on concrete, no you absolutely should not.
Most good chicken feed is vegetarian afaik- you used to be able to get cheaper feed with fish meal in which gave the eggs a fishy taste but I haven’t seen it recently.

In trying to train our hedgehog to be vegan on a Monday but the little prickly sod just won’t stop eating insects!!