Leftovers for Chooks

[terrier]

I agree we need to replenish lost salts, but by eating a well balanced diet with the natural salts in it, not by adding extra salt ad hoc. Adding lots of salt to your friends horses food to counteract digestive problems is OK as a one off to sort out a problem, but not as part of their regular diet. I have in the past put up salt licks for my horses and apart from the occasional lick, they just ignore them, so now I don't use them.

[terrier]

If a chef laced my food with salt, I'd send it back Some of the most popular resteraunts I've been to, I find that there is very little salt added to the food. Less salt, better tasting food.

[Hans Mum]

My lot have had the most expensive treat ever today! Not quite caviar but almost - they've had some seafood risotto containing salmon and lobster, and I've given them the lobster carcasses and coral to peck out the bits. They think they're in heaven! Just hope the eggs don't taste fishy tomorrow

hate to tell you a colleague told me they'd given fish skins and scraps to their chicks and they got fish flavoured eggs a couple of days later and no she said they werent nice

[terrier]

If I put some single malt in their water, will I get REAL SCOTCH EGGS?

.. on second thoughts.. I'll get me coat

[Flummery]

The grass in the run will come up half cut.

(I'll get mine too!)

[Noodle]

If a chef laced my food with salt, I'd send it back Some of the most popular resteraunts I've been to, I find that there is very little salt added to the food. Less salt, better tasting food.

OH owns a restaurant and I went with his brother after he'd had some sort of scare or other and told not to eat any salt. He said it was the first place he'd been to where everything hadn't tasted the same! They use as little salt as possible in the cooking, it's on the table so people can add it, it quite difficult to take it out again!

[tricky]

If I put some single malt in their water, will I get REAL SCOTCH EGGS?

.. on second thoughts.. I'll get me coat

very funny terrier , made me chuckle , get it chuckle

i shall get me coat too

[terrier]

the grass in the run will come up half cut.

(i'll get mine too!)

............. :d :d :d

[Hilary B]

Where do horses find salt in the wild? Anyway, horses are nosy and will try out all sorts of tastes to see if they like it. As you say HilaryB, there is natural salt in food, that stimulates the tastebuds and you taste the food better. Adding EXTA salt to food has the opposite effect and masks the taste of the food. People who put salt on their food to 'enhance' the flavour are fooling themselves. They have desensitised their ability to taste the natural flavours of the food by using salt, therefor, they need extra salt. What they now taste is salty, bland, food.

Wild horses, like wild cattle, elephants, wild sheep, etc seek out places where the earth is salty. There is natural salt in MEAT, but very little in plant material (in between for dairy produce, apart from cheese where it is added in the processing as a preservative). There is a big difference between adding SOME salt and over-doing it. As I said, the individual flavour of food is mainly smell. There are only 6 'tastes', salt being one (until a couple of years ago they only recognised 4).

[di]

About one of the only things I can remember from The Old Testament(...had a pretty Strict Baptist upbringing!)...is that Job said something(can't remember that bit!)was like eating egg without salt!...so we've obviously been using it for a while longer than the last few years!BTW...eggs are the only thing I add salt to....not sure if it's psychological,but always think they need it.

[di]

Sorry...in answer to the question...I don't add salt during cooking(Andi covers it once cooked!)but I'm sure the small quantities that you'd use won't hurt.As for other veggies...ours will eat raw carrot peelings,but I usually just throw everything bar the greens in the same pan as the tattie peeings & mix it with a little warm mash for their brekkie.

[frias]

As Hilary says there is a big difference between adding some salt and overdoing it. If you watch any TV chefs they all salt the food before cooking. My OH trained at a top college and is a master chef, craft guide of chefs. My family have owned hotels and restaurants and I've never met a chef who doesn't add some salt. Going back to salt and chickens. I've just been looking on a website that says kelp is good for chickens as it has natural salt. Some salt is also added to pellets. (I wish I was clever enough to add a link.)

[frias]

If a chef laced my food with salt, I'd send it back Some of the most popular resteraunts I've been to, I find that there is very little salt added to the food. Less salt, better tasting food.

I should hope any chef worth his 'salt' wouldn't lace the food with too much. If you can taste the salt then there is too much.

[terrier]

Maybe we should pack off all our native Welsh Ponies to Northwich, there's plenty of salt there. I don't think they are going to find much of it on top of a Welsh mountain. If we can't taste food, only smell it, then why do people use salt, which is a taste. Which ever way you look at it, the salt taste is so strong that it will overpower the essence of the more bland food. Am I imagining that I can now taste food better than when I used salt? If,as you say, horses actively look for salt, why do my horses turn their noses up at it? I suspect its that they get enough in their daily food ration, which is as near as I can get it to how they would eat in the wild.
I'm sure that people don't lay into whole blocks of salt at mealtime, the amount that they put on their food is minimal, yet the medical profession still say we eat too much salt, so how much is 'enough' without 'overdoing it'.

[frias]

I think the medics say we eat too much salt because of the amount of processed food most people eat now.