Can a chicken eat too many worms?

[Rickduncan101]

Your chickens can get parasites with access to the dirt even if they never ate an earthworm in their life. I would only say it would be a problem if you were going out and buying tubs and tubs of night crawlers to feed to them. Ranging birds can eat whatever bugs/worms they find and it is perfectly healthy for them. Mine have access to my 40x60 garden and 30 acres of field (also berries, an orchard and another larger garden far out in the field). They eat bugs and worms from sun up to sun down. If I’m in the garden mine too eat whatever I dig up. When we till up the garden with the tractor in the spring you should see mine. They wait on the side for the tractor to finish then they rush in eating up every worm in sight. One thing to note is that when chickens free range they do not eat nearly as much vegetation as they do bugs. I am outside quite a bit, many days for 5+ hours and from my observation a chicken free ranging will eat 90-95% bugs vs maybe 5-10% vegetation. Also it depends on what vegetation your property offers. Not all vegetation is created equal and not everything is palatable to chickens even if it is technically safe for them to eat. I feed 20% Flock Raiser and my chickens free range on my 30 acres all day long. I have had no health issues other than the occasional bumble and no deficiencies. My birds are all a healthy weight when I weigh them, bright eyed, shiny feathered and very active. For ratio reference I am currently at 10 chickens and 10 ducks so 20 birds on 30 acres of field…It is an all you can eat buffet of bugs.

that is very helpful. I live in the city and a random chicken walked up to me today. I dug in the ground and she went nuts over the earth worms, small worms and grubs. I built a small hutch for tonight, but I will build something a little nicer tomorrow.

 

[Hibiscsumile]

I have to many super worms and wanted to feed to our chicks. We were worried that they would not be good for them. I posted the question and someone said they were better than mealworms as easier to digest. Does anyone else use them?

 

[akroberts1085]

I have really hard ground. My chickens are still young but they can't really get too much of the bugs due to the ground. I did wet it down for them but still they didn't get many bugs, grubs or worms.

 

[Montymoo]

My girls don’t want anything to do with worms, but they go crazy for grubs!