On Fri, 16 Apr 2004 22:16 Ingrid Bauer/Jean-Claude Catry wrote:

>... the chickens like to eat the
>left over fishes but they have a stop on them easelly.
>they are opportunist omnivores and will gladly
>eat dead animals meats when given opportunity .

...

>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.

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.

Keith