Some people often think, does chicken get tired of its usual food and want to change its table and eat other items like us humans? Yes, indeed, chickens are eager to try different tastes and get very excited when feeding meals different from their usual food.
The variety of foods that you provide to your chickens helps them obtain various nutrients that enhance their production. Among these meals comes the guts, as some may consider taking advantage of chicken guts and recycling them by offering them as chicken food.
So can chickens eat guts? And what is the nutritional value that will accrue to chickens from eating gut? Are there risks for that? In the coming lines, we will give you a full answer to everything that goes on in your head about feeding chicken guts.
Can Chicken Eat Chicken Guts? Are Guts Safe For Them?
Yes, chickens can eat gut, as chickens are excellent foragers that eat everything they meet. They are also carnivorous birds that also like to eat any meaty food. This includes larvae, insects, worms, guts, fish, or anything!
Chicken are brought on curiosity, it is designed to search for food constantly, it always wants to search for new food instead of its traditional feed, so it will scratch anything in front of it in the hope of getting a delicious meal.
This is what grandmothers and mothers used to do, they used to provide leftovers and guts to the chickens along with other scraps of food.
This is really an advantage for chickens, as the diversity of their food sources makes them get a huge amount of nutrients that raise the value of their meat and eggs.
This always makes the nutritional value of chickens raised in an open yard outperform the nutritional value of those raised in chicken farms and forced to eat certain feeds throughout their lives.
The Nutritional Benefits Of Feeding Chicken Guts To Chickens
So, are there any nutritional benefits of feeding guts to chicken? Let’s find out:
1. Good Source Of Probiotics
It is known that chicken intestines contain microbes that help digest and absorb food. So a meal of guts contains a good amount of these microbes. Scientists have found that these microbes that live in the digestive system of animals and chickens play an important role in their health.
This is what has been done so that the guts are converted into feed for chickens and animals. Microbes aid in the digestion of food and protect against diseases, including those caused by pathogenic microbes.
To understand the role of chicken gut microbes, we must first understand the chicken’s digestive system. The digestive system performs complex functions as it has to convert complex plant fibers into simple sugars that the chicken consumes to produce proteins. The chicken uses these proteins to produce eggs and meat.
It is the gut microbes that carry out these complex digestive diversions and processes. To date, more than 600 microbial species have been discovered in chicken intestines! This is the result of extracting and analyzing microbial DNA from the chicken gut.
2. An Important Source Of Protein
Protein is a vital component for poultry as it plays a major role in growth, egg production, adaptation to the environment and immunity, and many other biological functions.
Where there are some amino acids that carry out the respective functions. There is lysine, which improves the carcass quality of chickens, with type IIb fiber composition, which has a low-fat content, and its loss rate (loss of nutrients) is low in cooking.
Threonine also plays an important role in regulating digestive secretions and metabolism. There are a large number of other amino acids, such as methionine, tryptophan, and others that play an important role in the chicken’s vital functions.
It can be expensive to meet a protein deficiency by adding expensive amino acids. While the animal protein the chicken gets from the gut is a respected boost of animal protein that the chicken needs.
Precautions When Feeding Chicken Guts To Chickens
You can’t feed any type of guts to your chicken, because there is a lot of risks to that. Instead, you need to learn how to prepare them and feed them to your chicken in a correct way:
Proper Handling And Preparation Of Chicken Guts
It does not require much effort from you, you can present it as it is and leave the task to the chicken to chop and scratch it by itself, or you can cut it into small pieces and mix it with the chicken feed.
You can boil it and serve it cooked to the chicken as well. Choose the appropriate option for you, but take care to handle it carefully and sterilize your hand, utensils, and place of preparation after preparing it.
You really do not want to suffer any harm as a result of the salmonella bacteria present in the chicken meat. Which may cause digestive disorders such as diarrhea, vomiting, and bloating.
Ensuring The Quality And Freshness Of Chicken Guts
Certainly, the guts must be fresh and healthy. it is preferable to serve the guts directly or a little bit of slaughter. So there is no time for rotting and contamination of the guts as a result of bacteria and food waste present in them, which may harm the chicken
Make sure that they are from healthy chickens and not sick, as if these guts carry a virus or an infectious microbe, they will be a source of infection for the whole flock.
Possible Risks And Hazards Of Feeding Chicken Guts To Chickens
Here are some hazards that you need to keep in mind when feeding chicken guts to your chicken:
1. Indigestion
Chicken body cannot handle large amounts of protein in the gut. As digesting too much protein at one time puts a lot of pressure on the stomach of a chicken, and the body cannot store excess protein so it is disposed of as waste.
2. Kidney Failure
Consuming more protein represents a great burden on the chicken kidney. Which requires it to purify the body from these amounts of amino acids resulting from protein metabolism. If protein consumption continues for a long time, there may be risks of kidney failure.
3. Significant Increase In Ammonia Output
Increasing protein consumption means increasing the excretion of ammonia that results from protein metabolism. Ammonia causes many health problems for chickens, such as respiratory distress, and eye, and trachea damage.
4. Burns On The Feet And Skin
Consuming more protein makes the chickens greedy for drinking water. Increased water consumption leads to moisture in the bedding areas, which leads to the appearance of blisters and burns on the skin and feet.
How To Feed Chicken Guts To Chickens? Frequency And Quantity
The matter must be in moderation to avoid its risks and benefit from its nutritional value. The guts cannot be considered a regular meal like fodder, served at any time and in any quantity. You can offer it to the chickens once a week as a side meal with fodder and other foods.
The quantity should not be large, just measure it according to what your chicken is used to eating and what is suitable for its number. so as not to leave them with the opportunity to eat food from the guts, which may harm their bodies.
