Feeding

[Witch300]

Dose anyone feed there chickens cat food and if so when and dose it mater what kind

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I dump my cat food bowls to the chickens. In the summer daily. I use Purina. Mine don't get a lot, and it's spread between a lot of birds. I wouldn't feed it daily in any quantity, but it can be used as a treat.

 

[SueT]

Hi, welcome to BYC! Cat food isn't ideal for chickens. If they get a little cat food, probably it's okay, but it's too rich for them to have a lot of it. Chicken feed is formulated to have the proper balance of nutrients for chickens....

 

[NatJ]

Dose anyone feed there chickens cat food and if so when and dose it mater what kind

I've only done it when I had a flock of chickens and a friend had a bag of cat food they wanted to get rid of. I gave a small amount of cat food to the chickens each day until it was gone.

I've read of some people that use cat food as a supplement for chickens that need more protein (example: molting), because cat food usually has more protein than chicken food. It is often cheaper to buy a higher-protein chicken food (like chick starter) rather than buying cat food to use as a supplement for the chickens, and there is no point in giving more protein if the chickens are eating a food that already has enough.

I would recommend that chickens be fed chicken food, not cat food, for most of what they eat. But a little bit of cat food should not do any harm, and may provide small benefits in some situations.