Feeding bread to chickens?

[RodNTN]

Any table scraps go to my chickens, a little won't hurt, just don't overdo it

 

[chickengeorgeto]

I agree. Bread is ok. Dehydrated rice is a no-no as it swells....

This urban legend "nugget" of wisdom was first voiced by that world famous chicken expert Ann Landers in her advise to the love lorn column. The year was about 1988. I have searched the whole world over and I still have not found any more great revelations from Mrs Landers on the subject of chickens. Poppycock like Mrs Landers advice is what makes this web sight necessary to refute the bull that everyone from PETA to shyster feed companies keeps trying to propagate.
https://www.thoughtco.com/do-birds-explode-if-they-eat-wedding-rice-3298982

 

[Anagram]

This urban legend "nugget" of wisdom was first voiced by that world famous chicken expert Ann Landers in her advise to the love lorn column. The year was about 1988. I have searched the whole world over and I still have not found any more great revelations from Mrs Landers on the subject of chickens. Poppycock like Mrs Landers advice is what makes this web sight necessary to refute the bull that everyone from PETA to shyster feed companies keeps trying to propagate.
https://www.thoughtco.com/do-birds-explode-if-they-eat-wedding-rice-3298982

Yes I agree - did you see my "research" in an earlier post? I found the same things that you did. To be fair, there is very conflicting data out there but - I trust an ornithologist and this is what made me agree with "uncooked rice is okay". However, I am still with the everything in moderation group. I posted a link to the snopes article which had some information from some ornithologists.

 

[drumstick diva]

I've read that only 10% of a a chicken's feed should come from treats & leftovers. Like kids with candy they rather eat that than feed that is nutritionally good for them.

My friend's bantams love to eat chicken. My friend reassures them that it's "not a relative," - the dog gets some also.

 

[RWise]

OK bread is not great, white, whole wheat (buns the worst), but what about those multi seed and grain breads? Some of these have 21 grains and seeds in them, would these be any batter for our girls?
I can get $5 50lb bags of this bread, and I do in the winter,,,

 

[theoldchick]

Bread is okay in limited amounts. But don't forget you can make eating bread challenging for the chicken to eat. Make the chicken work for her calories.

A suet cage works great.

Putting bread balls in a bottle works great. (So does scratch feed!)

 

[heatherwk]

Like everything its all in moderation, its not like your chucking a loaf at them so don't worry!
My girls love pizza too.

 

[bawkbawkbawk]

Another

I did fact check and because there is so much conflicts no data out there, checking further was needed: I love snopes because they will actually do the research for you. So snopes says "False". Even consuming the rapid amount that would get eaten quickly at a wedding (as opposed to eating in the rice field where it is more time and work to obtain each grain of rice) sounds like it would not tear/burst the crop, which is my concern. Here is the snopes article, with ornithologists quoted.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/against-the-grain/

I think anything in moderation not spoiled of course.

Snopes may be right about this but they have been widely discredited for other so-called "fact checks" so I would read them with a, um, grain of salt. Or rice.

 

[adkhunter1590]

My neighbor gets a pickup truck bed load every Saturday from a local warehouse. It’s all sorts of different breads, white, wheat, multi grains, buns, potato, cinnamon raisin, blueberry, etc. it’s all within 3days to a week from its sell by date so they can’t ship it to stores and either junk it or give it to farmers. He feeds his cows with it and I grab a few loafs of whatever for my chickens each week. In the winter I was feeding them a loaf a day. Now that they are back outside free ranging I’m only tossing a few slices out each day along with their daily 2 scoops of corn screenings mix. They love their daily bread more than just about anything. I did the loaf a day for almost 6 months as winter was long and hard here with no health problems. I think it helped them get through our extreme cold this winter better than any previous winters. Egg production hardly dropped compared to last winters as well. Also helped cut down on feed costs which is always a bonus. I’ll continue feeding them bread as long as my neighbor continues to get free bread lol.

 

[bawkbawkbawk]

That is fascinating! How great that the bread doesn’t go to waste and no downside to the chickens or (presumably) the cows.

I wonder if anyone has had any negative effects at all from feeding bread to their chickens or if it is just an urban legend?