Don they put all sorts of yucky horrible stuff in chicken feed?
It depends on your threshold of yuck, but not usually. You can easily ruin the productivity of a flock by forcing them to eat things they don’t like or that aren’t good for them. Chickens have a high metabolism and are very productive, and this requires careful feed formulation. As with most pet and livestock foods, it’s a good idea to taste chicken feed yourself. I’d switch suppliers if I ever ran into off-flavors (like burned, rancid, or other yucky tastes). In my experience as an amateur chicken-feed taste tester, it has always tasted wholesome, though very bland. It would make a great cereal for particularly ascetic health-food types. The bulk of just about every chicken ration consists of corn and soybeans, with other ingredients playing only a very minor part. This is not to say that there are never disgusting ingredients in chicken feed, because sometimes there are. The most unpleasant ingredient is chickens. “Spent Hen Meal” consists of whole hens, ground, steamed, and dried. W
