Feeding chickens scraps

[Egglayer123]

Is it ok to feed my hens house hold scraps?? ive boiled up potatoe skins until they went soft is it ok 2 give these??
Thanks

 

[goldnchocolate]

I've heard that "raw" potatoes are bad for them but I don't see what could be wrong with "cooked" potato skins. Even I eat baked potato skins. yum!

I've also heard that tomatoes are not good for them but I used to feed my chickens the extra tomatoes from my garden and they loved them. I think that chickens can eat just about anything that people can eat.

 

[Mrs. K]

I find that mine do not eat raw potato peelings.

However, I do throw almost all the scraps to them, and for the most part they eat it like candy, one never needs to feel guilty cleaning the fridge again, cause you are making eggs!

 

[Davaroo]

The proper feeding of kitchen scraps has something of a method to it. Let me summarize....

1. All kitchen scraps should be lightly cooked into a sort of stew, first. Meat, bacon, fish, poultry, cooked eggs, vegetables, potatoes, rice, scraps, you name it, can all go into the pot. Just collect it over a week and make a stew of it on the weekend. Cook it for 20 minutes or so. Do not use rotten or spoiled foodstuffs.

2. Keep the stew in the icebox until wanted. You may wish to split it into daily measures, as you will want to use it up before the next batch is made.

3. To prepare for feeding, warm the "kitchen stew" over the stove (or microwave) and mix it with about an equal measure of the regular feed. Add just enough warm water to the mix to make a damp mash. Include any left over bread stumps, stale crackers, oatmeal or other cereal products as may be available.

4. Feed this mix as the last feeding of the day, before the birds go to roost. This sustains them through the night.
You may also make this the first feeding, to get them going ion the morning, It is particularly welcome on winter mornings, for it's warming effects.

This is taken from the 1946 edition of "How To Grow Your Own Food."

 

[Egglayer123]

great advice thanks

 

[Davaroo]

No problem; it's my pleasure.
Keep in mind that most things I offer have some basis in old practice, since that is my field of study. I have nothing against modern things, mind you. I use many modern accoutrements.

It is only that I wish to know how to get along without them. For this reason, I have studied the old books; essentially, I know much of what the rest of the "flock," as it were, has forgotten.

Most interesting, at least to me, is much of todays chickeneering has veered off from the tried and true. We end up re-inventing, and in time come back very close to where it all started... or not. Humans are funny like that.

I expect some if what I suggest will sound weird or outside the usual. It's encouraging when someone pays a bit of heed.

Do with it as you will.

 

[Mrs. K]

how odd, I have never made a stew, I just keep a bucket in the kitchen and scrape the scraps in there as I am cooking for us, and as I clean up after a meal, I also clean out the fridge, and anything that has lost its appeal, old fruit, leftovers goes out to the girls or to the dogs.

Once in the bitter cold, I made hot cornmeal mush, but with the moisture in it, it froze solid to fast. My chickens liked it better when I made cornbread, but I only did that when it was seriously cold, corn gives them heat, and it was near -25 F degrees.

This does not make up a huge amount of their diet, perhaps 15-25% of it. But none have died from it.

 

[donrae]

Yeah....I'm not cooking that stuff up, but thanks!

I also just keep a bowl on the counter. They don't eat raw tater peels, I don't know that I've tried cooked peels as we usually eat them.

 

[Davaroo]

There were several reasons for cooking the kitchen mash. Not the least of which were pathogens.
Refrigeration was not widespread, even in 1946 Britain, so it was a good idea to cook things up a bit.
Food was more "coarse" than the homogenized comestibles that we are accustomed to and many of the ruddy bits were broken down into fodder more palatable to the chickens by cooking.
Thus, the whole of the mash was blended and made easier to digest. It also mixed better this way with the available grain feed. These are the reasons given.

As with all things livestock-ish/chickeny there is no single ONE way of doing things. What you do and what I do are going to be different.
With luck you will hit on a way that works for you. If you do not, however, there is always another way.

"Most interesting, at least to me, is much of today's 'chickeneering' has veered off from the tried and true.
We end up re-inventing, and in time come back very close to where it all started... or not. Humans are funny like that."

 

[dainerra]

However, I do throw almost all the scraps to them, and for the most part they eat it like candy, one never needs to feel guilty cleaning the fridge again, cause you are making eggs!

at my house, we call this "recycling!"