Comment by triceratops
3 days ago
> Lions can't eat ducks or chickens. We can and do.
As in they can't catch them? Or they can't survive on a diet of them? I'd be surprised if it was the latter.
3 days ago
> Lions can't eat ducks or chickens. We can and do.
As in they can't catch them? Or they can't survive on a diet of them? I'd be surprised if it was the latter.
The cannot catch them so they are not adapted to them.
Our cat does not eat lamb as he is not adapted to lamb, but he does eat a lot of duck purring to the skies.
Do you have a source for lions not being able to subsist on a diet of poultry?
Lions can subsist on a diet of poultry, but suboptimally.
If we assume that lions' best diet is beef [1], then chicken [2] would be less optimal for them.
[1] https://tools.myfooddata.com/protein-calculator/171797/100g/...
[2] https://tools.myfooddata.com/protein-calculator/171140/wt9/1
Look at the amino acid ratios. Leucine to valine ratio is about 0.66 for chicken and 0.8 for beef. This means that protein synthesis will be bound by valine in case of chicken and what is not used in the protein synthesis will be converted to glucose and then stored as fat. Chicken will be about 80% (0.66/0.8) as nutritious as beef, judging just by two essential amino acids ratio.
2 replies →
Seems like it would take a lot of chickens to maintain a lion, and that would possibly require a large amount of effort for little gain compared to larger game. Lions can definitely catch chickens if there are some around and they care to.
1 reply →
When was the last time you caught a duck?
My dad told me of one Christmas he spent in Sheffield in the early 60s. He'd been ill or something and missed his train back home so he was moping about miserably. Then his Polish flatmate came home, took him to a park and taught him how to catch a duck (he mimed the actions used, with some string as a snare) which they roasted for Christmas dinner. There's something grim, damp, probably illegal, but also convivial and ingenious about the story that makes me think of Withnail and Marwood in Regent's Park.