What treat did your chickies get today?

[Teila]

Lettuce; pasta and roast beef.

 

[MeepBeep]

Today they got a sealed 5 gallon bucket of the stores deli 'kosher sour cabbage' (looks like coleslaw with cranberries to me ) that was one day expired, and a couple of badly dented #10 cans of white hominy...

I wasn't sure how they would react to the sour taste of the cabbage, no worries they dove right in...

 

[Bridebeliever]

For those of you that can't get anything from the chain grocery stores. Google "Gleaners" and then your city or nearest city. A lot of places have gleaner groups and they ARE able to get food from the national chains. I know many people that actually feed their families using this organization...but even the Gleaners wind up throwing over ripe produce out.

 

[desertrocks]

We have a community center in the neighborhood that does food boxes every Thursday and it is pretty well-known that I have started raising chickens to sell eggs. I am replacing someone who did it for the last 20 years out here so am filling a void. Quite a few folks from the neighborhood bring me the greens and veggies that they don't use. Last Thursday we got about 100# of shredded lettuce, cabbage, whole heads of Romaine and copious amounts of fresh spinach. I packed a 16cu/ft fridge so they have been working on that all week.
This time of year, there is so much fresh produce, I have to remind myself that I want them to feed heartily on their regular food and temper how much I give them.
I have to admit that balancing between not wanting to let good greens go to waste and overfeeding them veggies is a problem I wouldn't mind having year round.

 

[MeepBeep]

I packed a 16cu/ft fridge so they have been working on that all week.

This is my biggest problem during the summer, I have no cool area to keep a lot of the stuff cool, so I can't store much if any from day to day... During the winter since I heat the coop to 35°-40° and it's a huge building, I basically have a huge walk in cooler and can keep stuff for several days with ease... Next year I'm considering building small walk in cool room in the coop building, using just your basic house window AC unit on a small highly insulated room, anything is better then 100° temps...

As for balancing the greens, most greens don't have many calories, chickens eat based on calorie needs so even if you feed them a ton of greens they will generally still need to eat 'good' food to fill their calories for the day... Not saying it's perfect but I have not seen much if any egg production drop when I toss in a ton of fresh greens as long as they have a side of commercial feed as well to round it off... I'm not saying it should be an everyday thing but a few days of lots of greens doesn't seem to mess with their overall dietary needs...

 

[BlueOrpingtons]

Hey BlueOrpingtons apologies that I do not know the answer to your question but I couldn’t help but reply that if I tossed acorns into my gals run they would have carried on like I had tossed in a grenade!

Around here corn on the cob is also a chicken trap apparently!

yep my birds love corn on the cob, and oats

 

[BantyChooks]

mine too! corn on the cob is their favorite! just bagged 3 bushels of corn for the winter, and the chickens got all the cobs!! they loved it!!

 

[GGBEAR]

Mixed corn bit of bread mash potato stuffing chicken and veg lol

 

[Welsummer Rancher]

Mealworms

 

[RedDol]

I had chickens before that would attack me if I went outside with mealworms or ANY kind of treat. My chickens now turn up their beaks at EVERYTHING. Mealworms, fresh veggies. I haven't found anything they like. I don't get it. They love to forage though.