Is it safe to feed raw meat to chickens? Is it legal?

Chickens can eat raw meat and they love it! However the answer isn’t that simple. It is illegal to feed meat and meat by-products to poultry in Canada, Australia¹, and the United States² to prevent the spread of some diseases.

This article will help you determine if feeding raw meat to your flock is the best choice in your circumstance, and provide some alternatives if you choose not to. 

Chickens need protein

Chickens are omnivores. They eat food from either plant or animal origin. Just watch baby chicks attack a spider in the corner of their brooder. Bugs are animal protein!

Protein is a crucial component to animal health. Protein sources provide essential amino acids and support the immune system ensuring optimal bird health.

Egg farmers note that a layer chick needs 21% protein until 8 weeks old, 16% protein to 18 weeks old, then 17% protein through their laying lifetime (a hybrid hen requires 18%). 

The rapid growth of broiler chickens need 21% protein through to 4 weeks, then 16% until maximum weight is obtained.

Although it’s not acceptable for Canadian chicken farms to feed animal meat to their birds, it may be permitted in your area. You will be glad to know that it is a great source of protein. It can increase egg production and help grow new feathers after moulting. Feeding table scraps to backyard chickens is a great way to reduce food waste.

Can chickens eat raw meat?

Food born illnesses (food poisoning) are a common concern in regards to raw meat. In Canada, the top food born illnesses that affect people are Norovirus, Listeria, Salmonella, E.Coli, and Campylobacter. 

Salmonella can be transmitted to chickens through contact with contaminated droppings, manure piles, dead carcasses, barn dust and rats or mice³. The remaining food born illnesses are not known to infect poultry through the ingestion of raw meat. 

Infected poultry can spread salmonella to people through feces, undercooked chicken, or contaminated eggs. 

 A study done by Public Health Ontario, Canada, identified salmonella in 0.3% of 1,025 Canadian chickens tested⁴. In most cases, adult chickens with salmonella don’t show any symptoms.

Chicks under 3 weeks old are the most at risk, the mortality rate is almost 100%. Symptoms may be weakness, loss of appetite, diarrhea. It is not recommended to feed any type of meat to chickens under 3 weeks of age. 

There are an estimated 87,000 cases of salmonella in Canadians every year⁵, however only 6,000-12,000 cases are reported annually. The estimated risk of contracting salmonella food poisoning is 0.22%⁶. The vast majority of those infected recover without any intervention. 

Cleanliness is the greatest preventative for all diseases that may affect your flock!

You may also choose to only offer cooked types of meat (salmonella dies at 145 degrees F) and avoid feeding raw eggs, as an added prevention measure. Check out this article for more information about salmonella and backyard chickens.  

Newcastle disease is a highly contagious viral disease affecting poultry that can be spread to birds through contaminated carcasses. There have been no reports of Newcastle disease in Canada.

How to feed meat to chickens without breaking the law

The Maggot Bucket. This is only possible in warmer months when flies are present.

• Using a 5 gallon pail with a lid, drill approximately 8 holes through the sides near the bottom
• Hang the pail a foot off of the ground
• Add meat scraps, road kill, innards etc.
• Wait

Within a few days, the flies will have laid their eggs. Soon, hundreds of maggots will be feasting on the decomposing material.

The larva fall out of the holes on the sides of the pail where the chickens have a feeding frenzy.

It doesn’t take long for the larva to consume all of the meat and in the mean time your chickens were kept entertained and well fed. See it in action here.

I unintentionally made a maggot bucket once. 

 It was a tragic experience when a racoon killed 14 of our chickens. I collected the dead birds and tossed them in a burning barrel. It was an old barrel with some rusty holes near the bottom.

After a few days, there was an obvious nasty stink!

An infestation of maggots was wiggling in the bottom of the barrel! It didn’t take long for our free-range chickens to find this delicacy where they would peck them out of the rusty holes near the bottom of the barrel. Never any waste on the farm… 

Why do some countries ban feeding meat to poultry?

Canadian chicken farmers were no longer permitted to feed meat products to poultry in 2001⁷.

This was a proactive, preventative measure put in place after an outbreak of Mad Cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy), which was linked to feeding meat products to cattle, slashed beef production. 

The Canadian Health of Animals Regulation states:

“112- No person shall feed meat, meat by-products or food that is suspected to contain meat or meat by-products to swine or poultry, or permit swine or poultry to have access to the meat or by-products.”

“113.1- No person shall feed the carcass of an animal or part of one to livestock or poultry, c) unless it is processed in a manner that would prevent the introduction into Canada of any reportable disease or any other serious epizootic disease.”

Mad cow disease is a prion disease. Prion diseases are of concern since they can be transmitted to humans and the results are fatal. When this disease infects sheep and goats it is called Scrapie, when seen in deer or elk, Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD).

Interestingly, there has never been a case of spontaneous prion malformation in chickens. “Parenteral and oral challenge of prion agent has failed to infect chickens. Thus several studies have attempted to find the feature of the chicken prion protein that leads to prion disease resistance.”⁸

What if I break the rules?

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is responsible for regulating recycled food products in Canada and food safety. They use a risk based approach to verify that products meet Canadian Standards.

Your family backyard hens are not a dire concern, they have much bigger fish to fry. However, they are within their rights to issue fines (AMP- administrative monetary penalties) to individuals and companies. A personal fine begins at $500, where as any situation where monetary value is exchanged, begin at $1300. ⁹

How can I provide essential nutrients if chickens can’t eat raw meat in my area?

Commercial feed fulfills all of your chicken’s nutritional needs through mainly grain and grain by-products. You can buy these at your local animal feed store, they are often categorized as starter, grower/finisher, and layer ration. The bags will direct the poultry farmers when to transition from one type to the next.

How to make your own chicken feed

Protein-producing seeds include:

• soybean meal
• canola meal (limit vegetable fats to 5-10%)
• legumes (peas and lentils)
• approved meat meal, bone meal, and fish meal 

Energy, aka carbohydrates, come in the form of cereal grains, most commonly wheat and corn. Barley, oats and triticale are also viable sources of energy. 

Poultry require vitamins and minerals such as calcium (ground egg shells or oyster shell) and phosphorous. A chickens’ diet needs trace minerals like iron, copper, and iodine. Chickens receive vitamin A through eating greens, and vitamin D through sunshine or added cod liver oil.

Don’t neglect clean water! An egg is 76.1% water! A general rule is that chickens consume 2 cups of water a day per bird or twice their daily feed consumption. Be prepared for their need to double on a hot day. 

Below is a ratio of feed consisting of grain mixed with store bought feed.¹⁰

Meeting all of these nutritional needs on a regular basis can feel overwhelming! The Encyclopedia of Country Living breaks it down to ensure that the small scale farmer could easily replicate this poultry feed:

” Supply a menu made up of 2 parts finely ground wheat, corn (not too much corn), and oats, combined; one part protein- such as fish meal, meat meal, a daily small portion of canned cat food, chopped hard boiled or scrambled eggs, clabbered milk, yogurt, cottage cheese, or worms, bugs and grubs ( a combination of these is best for all; from a variety comes nutritional adequacy); and one part a variety of greens: alfalfa meal, alfalfa leaves, or fresh stuff- comfrey, chard, clover, lettuce, dandelion, cress, chives, grass, spinach, weeds (finely chopped). Pg. 671”¹¹

Common concerns when feeding meat to chickens

Although chickens will eat anything from road kill to fast food, limit high fat and high sodium foods, including foods high in sugar or containing preservatives. 

Given the opportunity, chickens will eat any kind of fresh meat. All types of beef; beef scraps, beef liver, beef fat, raw beef, cooked beef, you get the point. They will eat  chicken meat, pork fat, processed products like luncheon meat or fast food.

A good idea is to offer small amounts of meat throughout the week (2 Tbsp of small pieces per bird per day will fulfill the 24 gram requirement of layer hens¹²), limit “junk food” to once a week and ensure they are receiving a balanced diet with the proper nutritional value.

Homesteaders may be concerned that offering meat scraps to their flocks may encourage cannibalism or create adverse effects like eating their own eggs. Good news! It will not.

Before I was aware that we were not recommended to feed leftover meat to chickens, I fed them anything and everything. We never had any instances of cannibalism, obsessive pecking, or egg eating. 

If we ensure our feathered friends have a varied diet and ample amount of floor space, they will not develop these bad habits. Maybe even try free-range chickens.

If you still have an issue with the birds on your family farm, there may be underlying an health concern or deficiency. 

A healthy chicken with the ability to refuse (because they have an alternative), will not choose to eat something that is harmful to itself. Natural behaviours!

If I toss kitchen scraps in their coop that aren’t necessarily healthy for them, like green tomatoes, green potatoes, avocado pits, or mouldy food, they will leave them! They are picky eaters when they know something better is around the corner. 

Can chickens eat raw meat?

Chickens love to eat raw meat, but it might not be acceptable where you live.

Make effort to ensure your flock is getting adequate protein inputs.

Exercise a bit of creativity to ensure those meat products don’t go to waste and you can have happy, healthy chickens with little to no upfront cost, just some extra work. 

Moderation, alternative choices, and cleanliness are key.

Chickens are lovely simple birds that are immensely productive! 

More helpful information for raising healthy chickens:

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1. Queensland Government>Business Queensland>Industries>Farm, Fishing, and Forestry>Feed and Nutrition for Poultry>Laws against supplying and feeding prohibitive feed to poultry ↩︎
2. thetilth.com>Is it illegal to feed chickens chicken ↩︎
3. British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture>Salmonella Enteritidis Facts for Small Flock Owners ↩︎
4. Public Health Ontario>News>Cuddling Live Chickens Can Make You Sick ↩︎
5. Canada.ca>Health>Publications- Health>Publications- Food and Nutrition ↩︎
6. Estimated cases of Salmonella yearly in Canada (87,000) divided by the Population of Canada in 2023 (38,781,291) equals 0.0022433 (0.22%) ↩︎
7. Poultryworld.net>Canada Bans Feeding Scraps to Poultry ↩︎
8. Kim YC, Jeong MJ, Jeong BH. The first report of genetic variations in the chicken prion protein gene. Prion. 2018;12(3-4):197-203. doi: 10.1080/19336896.2018.1471922. Epub 2018 Jul 14. PMID: 29966485; PMCID: PMC6277184. ↩︎
9. Canada.ca>Canadian Food Inspection Agency>Compliance and Enforcement>AMPs ↩︎
10. saskatchewam.ca> Business and Industry>Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Industry>Agribusiness Farmers and Ranchers>Livestock>Cattle, Poultry and other livestock>Poultry>Poultry-General Nutrition ↩︎
11. The Encyclopedia of Country Living 10th Edition(2008) by Carla Emery. Page 671- “Chick Food”- Homegrown Diet All The Way ↩︎
12. Alabama A &M and Auburn Universities>Farming>Nutrition for Backyard Flocks ↩︎