>
> >the main thing with raising animals on their natural diet
> >is to allow them to have the choice and let them regulate
> >their intake by instinct .
>
> Their insincts don't seem to be able to handle an over-abundance of
> goodies - at least initially.  I gave my hens some a bowl of fresh sinews
> and other meat cast-offs, finely chopped, a few weeks ago and they were
> very sick for a couple of days.  I recalled afterwards making the same
> mistake about ten years ago.  Now I give them no more than a
> desertspoonfull each a few days apart.
>
> Instinct for hens - like humans - can be built up only on the basis of
> experience.  If they have never in their history been confronted regularly
> with more meat than they could handle, they don't know when to stop.

not only ! ,experience for sure play a fine tuning  role but the genetic
memory of original foods is very active even without experience , any new
born animal even if raised in isolation from older animals will know by
sense of smell and taste what to eat and how to eat provided they are
presented to only original foods .
any foods denatured or not original to the species ,   presented to an
animal or human takes the risk for some reason to become addictive .
choice is important if you give sinew to your chickens and worms i bet you
they will not touch the sinew even if "uneducated ".

you can imagine also the possibility for a wild fowl to encounter a dead
animal and eat to the stop .( they will not be able to eat sinew without the
help of a knife )
>
> There may be a Paleo lesson for humans in this, too: instinctive eating
> works with the basic foods, but is ineffectual when we confront
> unaccustomed (especially manufactured) foods.

that is what the guidelines of instinctive eating are about :only original
foods that are in their natural state .as found in nature
I add myself:  in the proportions as found in natural context ( limiting the
overeating of domesticated fruits so frequent in peoples following this
diet ).

jean-claude