Dandelions

[Hayduke27]

My chickens are absolutely nuts for dandelions. Each day I go around and pick a bunch to throw in the run, and they devour them ravenously! I have tried feeding them grapes, and they don't even pay any attention to them. However, one dandelion on the ground will get devoured like a cow in a piranha tank. It's amazing.

Does anyone else have chickens with a serious taste for weeds?

 

[LDev]

18 months old and never been outside?? How does that happen?

They were commercial layers, been inside all their lives laying for supermarkets:-( they are now loving the outdoors and are full of energy. Their combs were pale and they were dejected when I got them the first day, but already their combs are red and they are happily scratching around and chasing any flying insect that they see hahaha. They were fascinated by the sky to start with! They were Rescues

 

[PrimroseMom1]

Mine love dandelions. I recently made up a suet cage of other favorites.

. They also can snack at their salad bar I made with old screens.

 

[LDev]

Wow. That's fantastic. I'm sure they love you for that

The charity who does this all the time deserve all the credit, absolutely fantastic dedicated team of lovely women. They turn up at these places, find out slaughter dates and re home as many as they have room for. All for the love of it! Wing and a Prayer are awesome

 

[Chickmagnet36]

Mine love clover and dandelions etc, but... they go berzerk over broccoli! Give it a try some time.

 

[peartreehens]

mine had trouble with loose greens flipping and flying around. I got a $1.99 suet feeder from a hardware store (near all the hummingbird and outdoor bird feeders). I cram whatever's loose (strawberries, lettuce, dandelions, beet greens, broccoli etc etc) into the suet feeder, close the bottom, and hang it in the run. The girls play tetherball for hours, and love every victorious bite.

Each of my hens has a different favorite, but they never miss a chance to terrorize the lettuce patch of my garden if they can get in there. I noticed they'd rather eat dandelion greens while they're stuck in the ground as they can tear bites off the leaves easier. Once I put a whole pile of dug-up dandelions out for them and they had some trouble with it. They would try to tear off a piece of leaf and the whole plant would fly up in the air.

 

[clay]

The reason I dont fed meat to my birds is because I worry that some little scrap will get missed and picked up later. This makes me think of botulism. I dont want my birds to die of that, so i give them high protein foods like bean sprouts and baked beans. I bake the beans myself, canned stuff is loaded with sodium, and dried beans are cheaper. I feed it to them outside the run too to make sure nothing is picked up inside the coop later to make them sick.

Well, thank you - I wouldn't have thought of that - but you are right - meat gets old, fast, even when it's cooked. I don't routinely give them anything like that, just an occasional scrap that would normally go in the "garden pot"! They eat a little thing pretty quick, so I'm pretty sure there isn't anything left over from it.

Would they eat the bean, uncooked?

AFAIK, chickens are scavengers and like other carrion eaters, are pretty much immune to most of the stuff that would make us sick. Ever see them on the farm, merrily picking through cow and horse dung and compost heaps? Mine routinely eat mice, frogs, and even the little birds that fall from the nests in the trees in spring. They dig through the dog poo. We always give ours the old and moldy stuff from the fridge and its never hurt them a bit.

And don't worry about grapes; dogs and cats, like us are mammalia, yet have different food tolerances. Chickens are aves, a totally different class, a whole different animal, if you will.

And, I've never worried about some plant or mushroom being poisonous to them; they've been foraging fields and farms for millennia without people worrying that they might eat the wrong thing.

When can chicks eat this or that and what grit do they need and when? I let mama hen worry about it. She seems to think they are okay as soon as they're able to follow her around the yard. The chicks we've let a broody raise are always healthier and happier than the ones we raise in a brooder.

So, take it easy folks. These are, after all, the descendants of the dinosaurs that survived the great extinction, the toughest of the tough.

 

[LDev]

Mine love dandelions, also and green salad leaves, but mine definitely turn into chicken demons when they see I have red grapes lol!

 

[Hayduke27]

Haha, chicken demons! I know that evil glimmer they get in their eyes. When they see me coming with the mealworm cup, all alliances are off. It's every chicken and their screaming tummies for themselves!

 

[LDev]

Haha, chicken demons!  I know that evil glimmer they get in their eyes.  When they see me coming with the mealworm cup, all alliances are off.  It's every chicken and their screaming tummies for themselves!

I have only had mine a week, didn't take long for the glimmer to appear when they got their first taste of treats lol! Have to admit though it makes me smile....until last week they had never even seen sky in their 18months of life, never mind a big fat juicy grape