Should chickens eat meat?
We're talking cannibalism, swill, and Mad Cow Disease ...
Quick answer: there is no inherent issue with it from a chicken or health point of view.
However, you may need to check the laws regarding the feeding of “swill” in your Australian state.
“Swill” includes meat products, and some states - for eg, Queensland - explicitly ban the feeding of certain meat products to chickens, including backyard birds. More information is at the bottom of the article.
Contents
Isn’t that how “Mad Cow Disease” (bovine spongiform encephalopathy - BSE) started?
So chickens shouldn’t eat meat either!
About meatmeal
Meatmeal-free poultry feeds
Introduction
Many people will have seen their own chickens, or pictures/videos, of other peoples’ chickens eating meat - either cooked or raw chicken meat, or any other kind of meat.
Many have had the horrifying situation of seeing chickens eat other members of the flock, particularly if they’re injured or have died in the pen.
More prosaically, many people will throw kitchen scraps containing chicken to their flock, particularly the results of boiling up chicken for stock.
Unpleasant as this is to see, your chooks don’t know they’re eating chicken. It's just meat, and chooks are omnivores; which means that meat is a normal part of their diet.
I thought chooks ate grass and seeds and things?
Chickens, like pigs and humans, are omnivores. They’ve evolved in jungle and rainforest conditions to be supremely unfussy about where their nutrients come from (unless you present them with manufactured pellets, of course, at which they notoriously turn up their beaks in disgust!).
This means that can and do cheerfully source and eat:
Grasses and other soft, broad-leaved plants. They tend not to like hard or sharp leaves such as rosemary, conifers, and the like.
Seeds and nuts
Fruits
Grubs and larvae (particularly maggots)
Insects of all kinds (although they tend not to like ants very much)
Eggs - either their own or of other animals, they’re not fussed
Fresh meat - they can and do opportunistically chase and kill small animals such as lizards, snakes, rats, mice, and are not adverse to the accessible young of larger animals such as rats, mice, and birds - including other hens’ chicks.
Dead meat - they are remarkably effective scavengers of anything dead, being particularly fond of the maggots feeding on dead meat, as well as the meat itself.
They don’t differentiate between kinds of meat; it’s all the same to them.
So yes, they can and do eat other chickens.
Isn’t it cannibalism?
If chickens are eating chicken meat then technically yes.
However, cannibalism isn’t actually a problem as such. It becomes a problem because it allows some species-specific illnesses and diseases to be be easily concentrated and transmitted, or may even allow species-specific illness or disease to jump to other species (see “mad cow”, below).
It can also indicate a wider issue with the broad animals’ environment. For example, female rabbits may be found eating their offspring, in response to external stressors (food shortages, major change in environment, and so on). The doe’s survival instinct has decided the nutrients offered by the offspring outweigh the requirement to breed, at that point in time. The doe survives to breed again; the rabbit kit may not have survived to adulthood to breed.
Humans have made cannibalism a moral issue, separate to the health issues, for a range of reasons too varied to go into here.
Where cannibalism occurs in domesticated chooks, it's generally due to poor husbandry (ie not removing dead chooks from the pen quickly enough), overcrowding, boredom, injury, and/or lack of nutrition. These are all easily fixed, prevented, or managed in a domestic flock.
This is why it’s vital to deal instantly with a bleeding wound in injured chooks. Red blood triggers chooks to peck at the source, and they don’t stop until the blood goes away. This is often how chickens kill and cannibalise eachother; because of what might otherwise have been a perfectly ordinary wound.
To manage a bleeding wound:
Remove the chook from the flock.
Clean the wound thoroughly with a saline wash, and/or a suitably-diluted iodine-based antiseptic such as Betadine.
Keep the bird away from the flock until the wound has stopped bleeding - at least a day, or overnight.
Spray the wound and the immediate area with a blue-coloured antiseptic spray such as Centrigen or Bluekote.
This disguises the colour, and the other chooks in the flock will ignore it from there.
The chook can now safely be placed back in the flock.
But in an of itself, chickens eating chicken meat isn’t an issue.
Isn’t that how “Mad Cow Disease” (bovine spongiform encephalopathy - BSE) started?
In very, very brief (and very very broadly), “mad cow disease” (true name: bovine spongiform encephalopathy - BSE) occurred because cows were being force-fed meatmeal made from sheep that had a disease called “Scrapie”. The illness damages a vital protein called a “prion”, which eventually damages the brain and kills the infected animal. Due to the long incubation period of the disease, it was possible for infected animals to show no signs of illness, and thus be processed for into both human and animal feed.
Unfortunately, the heat-treatment process that creates meatmeal doesn’t kill the damaged prion; and because herbivores don’t have the enzymes to digest meat properly, the prion could make its way into their bodies.
Once the damaged prion got into cattle, it became BSE.
And when the infected cattle got processed into beef and eaten by humans, it could and cause an illness called variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (vCJD).
This Wikipedia article on the topic is a pretty balanced overview of the situation, and there are many other reputable articles on the topic, if you need to know more.
The whole thing is a complete inditement of livestock management processes - force-feeding meatmeal to herbivores is, frankly, quite despicable. It made them put on muscle-rich weight at a remarkable pace, sure; but cattle are herbivores. They lack the enzymes and bacteria to process and handle all the bacteria, protein, and other novel nutrients that come along with meat-eating.
They should be allowed to put on their weight slowly and naturally on grasslands, their natural feed.
Yes, herbivores can and do eat some meat-based products - see below. A tiny amount, widely-spaced apart, digested slowly and gradually. Not large quantities on a daily basis.
Omnivores, on the other hand, are designed to eat meat. Chickens eating meat in general is not a problem, the same way it isn’t a problem for humans to eat meat.
So no. There is no relationship between the force-feeding of herbivores on meatmeal made from infected animals, and chickens eating healthy meat of their own species.
Note that the zoonotic diseases we know of in poultry - avian influenza (H5N1 - check) in particular - are transmitted by viruses expelled through sneezing. Unwell birds are not processed for food for any other animal, including chickens. The H5N1 variant of avian influenza is not currently in Australia (as at 2023).
What’s that about herbivores not eating meat?
Herbivores are called that because their primary diet is plant-based. This includes all parts of a plant; root, leaves, flowers, fruit/grain/nut, bark, and branches. Different herbivores do better on different parts of a plant - sheep prefer leafy grasses (also called “forbs”); goats prefer woodier materials - branches and leaves from shrubs and trees; wombats like roots and starchy materials.
Herbivores will get a tiny amount of their protein from an animal source. For example, insects on the plant itself, grubs under the bark and in the roots, worms in the fruit and nuts; broken eggs on the grass.
Herbivores eating meat, bones, and other animal parts are well-documented enough to be regarded as “rare but normal”. It seems likely that meat products for herbivores can be regarded as a necessary supplement in the same way that plant materials are a necessary supplement for carnivores. They don’t need a lot, and a little goes a long way, but that little is necessary.
What they don’t need, and shouldn’t get, is large quantities of meat, in any format.
So chickens shouldn’t eat meat either!
Actually yes, they should - see “I thought chooks ate grass and seeds and things?”
When you, or your ancestors, are a ground-dwelling animal at the bottom of the food chain, it makes sense not to be too fussy about where your nutrients come from. Rats, mice, pigs, and humans are all omnivores.
Most poultry feeds therefore contain meatmeal, which is heat-treated animal byproducts (quite probably including poultry byproducts), which is perfectly safe for poultry food.
(It just should not have been used as herbivorous livestock feed!).
About meatmeal
Meatmeal is meat and meat by-products that have been heat-treated into a sterilised powder. The “blood and bone” fertiliser you can get for your garden is pretty much the same thing, but may have other additives that make it unsuitable for animal feed.
When added to animal feed, it’s identified as “restricted animal material” - RAM. You will see this on animal feed bags: “Does not contain RAM” or “Contains restricted animal material”.
Meatmeal is suitable for consumption by animals that have the enzymes to process meat - omnivores and carnivores.
It is not suitable for herbivores. Thus, restricted.
Ruminants, in particular, must not eat meatmeal because they simply can't effectively digest it. It can cause fatal bloat. (Which does rather beg the question of why the poor British cows were being fed it in the first place. It really was an awful situation all round).
The problem is that apparently meatmeal tastes delicious, and many pet animals (such as goats, sheep, or horses) will move heaven and earth to get to it.
Meatmeal-free poultry feed
If you’re running your chooks in an area where you also have herbivores, having a meatmeal-free alternative is very handy.
In Australia, Darling Downs Layer from Barastoc is one such alternative with a high protein content that comes from soy and lupin meal instead, while Laucke’s Red Hen Free-range layer is also free from meatmeal. Any feed that describes itself as “vegetarian” will be suitable for the purpose, but ensure you check the protein levels carefully. You really do want a minimum of 15% protein, ideally 17%, to support a layer bird’s continued health. Meatmeal-free feeds often use soy or lupins to provide the necessary protein levels.
Most scratch mixes also contain no RAM. They are generally too low in protein to be the main feed for laying birds, and are designed as a supplement, to encourage and reward a chook’s natural “scratching” behaviour - hence the name.
Note, however, that poultry will always look to supplement their human-provided feed with whatever is around them; this includes plants, and the animals within their ecosystem such as insects, small mammals, eggs, and so on.
The only way to entirely prevent poultry from eating any animal-based food source would be to lock them up, away from the natural world, eating only what you provide. That is, “battery” or “barn” flocks.
“Vegetarian” eggs are entirely unnatural.
Isn’t it swill?
If your chooks are eating meat in scraps or other sources then yes, it’s officially defined as “swill”.
And that is a more real disease risk than “mad cow disease”.
According to the Queensland Department of Primary Industries website, swill is material that:
contains, or may contain, the carcass of a mammal or bird
contains, or may contain, material derived from a mammal or bird (including meat, eggs, blood, faeces)
has been in contact with either of these (including food or food scraps from a restaurant, hotel or home that may have been in contact with meat or meat products or other material derived from a mammal or bird).
This technically includes domestic kitchen scraps, if those scraps contain meat, egg, or diary products.
It does not include bugs, grubs, insects, and other animal-based materials that the poultry may source from a free-range environment.
If your kitchen scraps contain only plant-based scraps, then it’s not swill and can be fed to poultry safely, even in Queensland.
It is illegal to feed swill to pigs anywhere in Australia, as it comes with risk of passing on foot and mouth disease.
At the time of writing (March 2023), it is illegal to feel swill to poultry in Queensland ONLY.
… swill may contain viruses that cause serious diseases such as Newcastle disease or infectious bursal disease that can be passed on to poultry.
It is, however, legal to feed swill to poultry anywhere else in Australia.
This doesn’t mean meat products in general can’t be fed to poultry, either across Australia or in Queensland. There are things called “permitted animal products” listed in the Queensland legislation.
Permitted animal products include:
products rendered in accordance with the current Australian standard for the hygienic rendering of animal products. This includes meatmeal.
gelatine. So the leftover Christmas jelly is fine; as long as it doesn’t have custard or egg/milk creams or ice creams with it. The trifle is not ok, and neither is the pavlova.
used cooking oil that was used for cooking in Australia and has been collected and processed in accordance with the National standard for recycling of used cooking fats and oils intended for animal feeds.
milk of Australian origin or milk lawfully imported into Australia as feed for livestock.
milk products or milk by-products made in Australia and derived from milk of Australian origin or a milk product lawfully imported into Australia as feed for livestock. This does not include cheese.
The RSPCA has information on swill feeding as well.
Summary
Chooks can - in general - safely eat raw or cooked meat of any kind, including chicken meat.
Doing so does not risk causing illnesses such as BSE.
However, there may be laws regarding swill feeding in your location, and raw/cooked meat may be covered under those laws.
Swill feeding may risk passing on illness such as Newcastle Disease or salmonella.
Swill feeding laws do not include animals such as bugs, grubs, insects, etc that the poultry source themselves from a free-range environment.
Got thoughts on this? Have I made an error somewhere?