Cutting up food?

[jenesis536]

When giving the chickens scraps or stuff from the garden, how small do I need to cut stuff up? Yesterday I gave them some apple, leftover meat, greens from the garden, etc. but I was chopping it up in really small pieces for them...

What do you all do? It's kind of time-consuming to prepare the scraps every day, so if I can get away doing larger pieces it would sure help, but I don't want them choking on stuff either or not eating it because it's too big.

Thanks!

 

[HEChicken]

I have not found they need stuff to be cut up for them - they're pretty good at tearing it up themselves. Even my month-old chicks, when I throw an apple core into them, will have a fun time as one will pick it up and look for a private place to eat it while all the others take chase. As one "steals" it from the beak of the first, a little is torn off and so it goes. When we make salad, we throw them the seed part of peppers, the thick stems of lettuce leaves and so on - it all disappears rather rapidly.

 

[MandyH]

I feed mine whole watermelons, there is no need to chop anything up. They will eat it, don't worry.

 

[jenesis536]

What about meat? Like the fat parts of a steak?

 

[Chicken.Lytle]

I found that it is a good idea to make sure stuff is either too big to choke them or too small to choke them. Stuff that is "just right" will get part way down a greedy gullet .

 

[jenesis536]

That makes sense - thanks for the replies!