Scraps law explained
PUBLISHED: 10:23 13 September 2012
Why are you not supposed to feed kitchen scraps to chickens? There is a town in Belgium that has been giving two hens to residents who want to reduce household waste. People reduce their waste by feeding the chickens kitchen scraps and benefit from fresh eggs. The project has been running for several years now and is very successful, significantly reducing the amount of waste that goes to landfill.
Victoria Roberts says:
The law on not feeding scraps to chickens is a British law. Belgian laws may well be different. The reason scraps are illegal for chickens is the potential for contamination in a domestic kitchen leading to disease transference and disease risk. One of my vet students did a project with two sets of backyard flocks, those fed scraps and those not. In the latter case the incidence of Salmonella was 0.05% and the incidence of Salmonella in the flocks fed scraps was 37%! Not good for any human, but especially if young children are in contact. A cabbage leaf taken from the vegetable garden to the hens is fine, just not any food that has gone via a domestic kitchen. Most kitchen waste can be composted, however, thus reducing landfill.