Ron Strider
Well-Known Member
A plumber and equine scientist are combining forces to create a new chicken food made entirely out of cannabis.
And the chooks are gobbling it up.
Six month ago, after a friend told them about its health properties, Joel McCarthy and fiancé Ely Meggitt started experimenting with hemp, which is made from the cannabis plant.
"We started testing the stuff at home with our own chooks," Mr McCarthy said.
According to the pair, not only did the chickens love eating it, but it seemed to boost their health, even creating "glossier coats".
Ms Meggitt, an equine scientist, sent the hemp off to test its nutritional value and it came back trumps – with a 26 per cent protein content.
"We all know protein is essential for egg production in chooks [and] our seed husk meal sports 26 per cent protein," Mr McCarthy said.
They said the oils in it were also "really good" and were behind the chickens' shiny, newly glossy coats.
The couple has rented a factory at Coolum Beach, on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, to use for packing of the hemp product, but said "the testing and stuff" still went on at home.
The product is made solely from the hulling process of Australian grown hemp seed.
Mr McCarthy said they were the first company in Australia to be offering it to the market as chicken feed.
He said the nutritional value of the hemp product was so good that a person would not need to feed the chickens anything else.
"Nutritionally, it can sustain them and be the sole feed," he said.
While from the same cannabis plant as the drug marijuana, hemp has no psychoactive effect even though it contains a very small amount of the psychoactive component tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).
Mr McCarthy and Ms Meggitt are not the first people to be feeding hemp to their chooks.
They said prior to the 1930s, help was widely fed to birds in America.
"In the '30s they had a marijuana prohibition, but the bird seed companies using hemp told [the US] Congress if they stopped feeding [them] hemp seeds, the songbirds wouldn't sing," Mr McCarthy said.
The couple has only just started officially selling the product, with the first pallet sold this week but Mr McCarthy said interest was so high he did not have time to do plumbing any more.
News Moderator: Ron Strider 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: High protein hemp finds favour with Sunshine Coast chickens - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Author: Kathy Sundstrom
Contact: Contact Us - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Photo Credit: Joel McCarthy
Website: ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
And the chooks are gobbling it up.
Six month ago, after a friend told them about its health properties, Joel McCarthy and fiancé Ely Meggitt started experimenting with hemp, which is made from the cannabis plant.
"We started testing the stuff at home with our own chooks," Mr McCarthy said.
According to the pair, not only did the chickens love eating it, but it seemed to boost their health, even creating "glossier coats".
Ms Meggitt, an equine scientist, sent the hemp off to test its nutritional value and it came back trumps – with a 26 per cent protein content.
"We all know protein is essential for egg production in chooks [and] our seed husk meal sports 26 per cent protein," Mr McCarthy said.
They said the oils in it were also "really good" and were behind the chickens' shiny, newly glossy coats.
The couple has rented a factory at Coolum Beach, on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, to use for packing of the hemp product, but said "the testing and stuff" still went on at home.
The product is made solely from the hulling process of Australian grown hemp seed.
Mr McCarthy said they were the first company in Australia to be offering it to the market as chicken feed.
He said the nutritional value of the hemp product was so good that a person would not need to feed the chickens anything else.
"Nutritionally, it can sustain them and be the sole feed," he said.
While from the same cannabis plant as the drug marijuana, hemp has no psychoactive effect even though it contains a very small amount of the psychoactive component tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).
Mr McCarthy and Ms Meggitt are not the first people to be feeding hemp to their chooks.
They said prior to the 1930s, help was widely fed to birds in America.
"In the '30s they had a marijuana prohibition, but the bird seed companies using hemp told [the US] Congress if they stopped feeding [them] hemp seeds, the songbirds wouldn't sing," Mr McCarthy said.
The couple has only just started officially selling the product, with the first pallet sold this week but Mr McCarthy said interest was so high he did not have time to do plumbing any more.
News Moderator: Ron Strider 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: High protein hemp finds favour with Sunshine Coast chickens - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Author: Kathy Sundstrom
Contact: Contact Us - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Photo Credit: Joel McCarthy
Website: ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
