Dandelion flowers and greens... yogurt... at what age can they eat it?

[MissPrissy]

The yogurt is good for them. Not a cup full but a couple tablespoons with some crumbles over top like granola.

It is also good to give them some limited exposure to the ground they will be living on. You don't have to bake the dirt. Just give them some clean soil out of the front yard flower beds. LOL

Momma hens take them EVERYWHERE very early in life. Why should we not expose them to the environment early as well?

 

[Ringo71]

That's what I was thinking MissPrissy.

I've got Amish folk all around me and they don't fuss at all with the chickens. You see mother hens running around their yards with little chicks all the time. You would think if eating dirt and grass was bad for them they wouldn't let them out of the coop. Amish, for the most part, live off what they raise. If something were going to kill their food source, I think they wouldn't let it happen for long.

I guess I may have went a little too far with putting the dirt in the oven. hehe

I think most of the people that over protect their chicks/chickens, like me baking my dirt, have them as pets. Kinda like one person spending 50 bucks for dog food and me buying dog chow! lol My dogs look every bit as good as theirs! hehe

 

[Lea71]

I started giving my girls small treats since day 3...yogurt was their first treat and some hard boiled egg. A few days into it I started giving them chopped kale and chard, everything organic of course. Oh, and they loved having oatmeal with flaxseed, cooked. I give mine one treat a day, sometimes two. I mix the yogurt with chopped greens to make it a bit less messy....I think the yogurt is very beneficial to their health.

Have fun!!!

 

[MissPrissy]

See, I don't consider yogurt and green treats. To me that is normal food. Even for my ducklings and goslings I make sure they start life with puree greens - usually spinach - and yogurt. the first few days I make sure it is room temp or tepid. When they get bigger and I turn off the lamp then they get cool and cold treats.

 

[Wildsky]

My momma hen was teaching her baby to scratch around before a week old (dirt floor coop), at around a week they finally came out of the coop - and the baby gets just as excited by snack time as all the rest of them....
(Baby can even eat sunflower seeds now - shell on)

My little one is now almost 4 weeks old, but just last week I saw momma hen showing her little baby how to eat a grasshopper (tiny one) mom even squished it a little first.

 

[chickenannie]

Yeah, I have 4 hens with chicks and the mommas are so busy scratching the dirt and calling the chicks over to eat a tiny seed that they completely ignore the dish of feed I put next to them. I know momma is trying to teach them the scratch-scratch thing, but gosh you'd think she'd have the common sense to let them eat straight from the plate too.

 

[Ringo71]

I just noticed how many animals you guys have. Makes my 2 german shorthair pointers, 1 lab, 1 Austrian Shep, and 12 buckeye chicks look like childs play.

I would only have the 2 gsp but people keep dropping dogs off on my road. I can't believe somebody would drop a lab puppy off out in the middle of BFE. Maybe they heard I'm a sucker for dogs? lol

 

[DottieMarie]

Ringo, thanks for starting this topic; you've asked the same questions I've been wondering. (bty, I have 6 GSP's; been a breeder for 20 years now and I can't say enough about the breed)

Can anyone tell me more about the yougurt and greens....how do I prepare it for my 5 day old chicks? (RIR, Barred Rocks and Buff Orp's)

 

[MissPrissy]

Chop it up and mix it in and put it in a dish. sprinkle the top with chick crumbles like granola to get their attn. They have to learn what is food. It won't take long before they are stampeding before you can set the dish down.

 

[DottieMarie]

Just regular plain yougurt? Should it be organic?