Chickens Fav Treats!!!!

[Mister B]

Love feeding my chickens safe fun treats! Here are some great ones they are sure to enjoy!
- watermelon
- green beans
- tomatoes
- lettuce
-potatoes
Celery leaves
Post your Chickens Fav Treats

OMG Potatoes. My chickens LOVE potatoes. Fried or mashed. If I feed them scraps, potatoes are the first thing they eat. Then cornbread and pizza if available. They do not like pinto beans, though. I occasionally (every few months maybe 3-4 times a year) give them a suet block. They love it. I also give them mealworms. I started raising mealworms just for the chickens.

 

[Mister B]

Seeing the amount of veggies fed to the birds, a good place to find slightly off veggies are produce stands. They throw away mostly good food. I used to get boxes of tomatoes, watermelon, cantaloupe and greens for my goats and cows. I haven't thought of it for a while, I'll have to hit up the produce stands for their leftovers. You will have to go through to get rid of rotten food, but for my experience, it was fully edible stuff. Just slightly off or blemished.

 

[twinbeaks]

You would have to feed an astounding amount of nightshade veg (high in oxalic acid) to actually cause a calcium deficiency though. I read somewhere that you'd have to consume numerous CUPS of spinach in order to deplete the amount of calcium in a single-serve yogurt container. So really not a big deal unless fed in excess.

woah.....that's a lot of spinach

 

[twinbeaks]

OMG Potatoes. My chickens LOVE potatoes. Fried or mashed. If I feed them scraps, potatoes are the first thing they eat. Then cornbread and pizza if available. They do not like pinto beans, though. I occasionally (every few months maybe 3-4 times a year) give them a suet block. They love it. I also give them mealworms. I started raising mealworms just for the chickens.

just for the chickens.

 

[tantricdragon13]

This is a great thread! From what I'm hearing, I'm going to have to get a watermelon for my girls!

My chooks are only 13 weeks old, so they are still learning what is good to eat. Here are a few things that they seem to like:

-tomatoes
-potatoes
-lettuce
-weeds
-corn on the cob

And they went nuts for:

-bread
-spent brewing grains
-scrambled eggs
-mealworm frenzy!

They also found a wild strawberry patch in the backyard and have been chowing down on the leaves and fruit.

 

[twinbeaks]

This is a great thread! From what I'm hearing, I'm going to have to get a watermelon for my girls!

My chooks are only 13 weeks old, so they are still learning what is good to eat. Here are a few things that they seem to like:

-tomatoes
-potatoes
-lettuce
-weeds
-corn on the cob

And they went nuts for:

-bread
-spent brewing grains
-scrambled eggs
-mealworm frenzy!

They also found a wild strawberry patch in the backyard and have been chowing down on the leaves and fruit.

hey... I heard that potatoes are not good fro chickens. To clarify that go to the thread called "whats good and whats not" PS:I created it

 

[LindaB220]

hey... I heard that potatoes are not good fro chickens. To clarify that go to the thread called "whats good and whats not" PS:I created it

Cooked are fine. Just not raw peelings.

 

[subhanalah]

You would have to feed an astounding amount of nightshade veg (high in oxalic acid) to actually cause a calcium deficiency though. I read somewhere that you'd have to consume numerous CUPS of spinach in order to deplete the amount of calcium in a single-serve yogurt container. So really not a big deal unless fed in excess.

I have to admit, I am used to feeding animals cups of greens as their main diet (lizards, goldfish) so maybe that's why I feel the way I do about it lol. Reptiles require so much calcium in their diet, they are prone to metabolic bone disease (more specifically omnivorous and herbivorous lizards due to their diet not consisting of vertebrates) and it's really something you don't want to mess with.

 

[jtn42248]

Here is the actual quote:

"Oxalic acid is a natural product found in spinach and some other plant foods including rhubarb. (Levels are so high in rhubarb leaves that we don't eat them - they're poisonous). It imparts a sharp taste to beet greens and chard that I don't like, especially in older leaves. Concentrations of oxalic acid are pretty low in most plants and plant-based foods, but there's enough in spinach, chard and beet greens to interfere with the absorption of the calcium these plants also contain. For example, although the calcium content of spinach is 115 mg per half cup cooked, because of the interference of oxalic acid, you would have to eat more than 16 cups of raw or more than eight cups of cooked spinach to get the amount of calcium available in one cup of yogurt."
Andrew Weil, MD

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA400344/Avoid-Vegetables-with-Oxalic-Acid.html

Note that he states the interference with the absorption of calcium is of the calcium contained in the plant itself. He goes on to state that it typically will not interfere with the absorption of calcium consumed at the same time from other sources. Note also that he states you would have to eat "more than 16 cups of raw or more than eight cups of cooked spinach" in order to absorb the amount of calcium in one cup of yogurt.

So, it would appear, based on Dr. Weil's statement, that spinach would be o.k. as a treat so long as you were not expecting it to provide a source of vegetable calcium to your birds. I, however, will continue to err on the side of caution and not give it to my flock as a treat or otherwise. There are plenty of other treats that they enjoy as much or more without risking anything in their health.

 

[K9Dave]

Seeing the amount of veggies fed to the birds, a good place to find slightly off veggies are produce stands.  They throw away mostly good food.  I used to get boxes of tomatoes, watermelon, cantaloupe and greens for my goats and cows.   I haven't thought of it for a while, I'll have to hit up the produce stands for their leftovers.  You will have to go through to get rid of rotten food, but for my experience, it was fully edible stuff.  Just slightly off or blemished.

A local grocery store gives me their clippings and now they're giving me the "decorative fruit". They cut it all fancy for the display and after a couple days they exchange it when the watermelon and such starts to lose it's color. I hang it from a string with a wood screw in it. They hollow it out from the inside. It's pretty fun to watch. Especially if you hang it to where they have to jump to get it.

I took a little play by play of my little Michael Jordan this morning. 5 week old BO.

Switched to cabbage