Earthworms for treats?

[darkbyrd]

I want to give my peeps treats from outside. I hear alot about mealworms, but I'm interested in buying as little as necessary for them. They have grit now free choice. When are they ready for worms, bugs, grass (if I can find any right now), bread crusts, salad greens, fruit, and anything else I can scrounge up? And how much should I give them?

 

[lotzahenz]

I give mine what they will eat right away and not leave to spoil. They love to play chase with a worm.

ETA: you can grow your own meal worms very easily, there are lots of links on here, so so easy but takes time.

 

[Ema]

mine eat earthworms and quite happily I might add. in the spring, summer and fall when it rains the worms come out and my girls are just eagerly waiting to spot one. then they chase each other around trying to get a nibble of that one fat worm...meal worms are good too, I still haven't ordered my first batch so I keep on breeding them but I will by late spring when its warm enough for them to be shipped up from down south.


I gave mine meal worms at 2 weeks old, they pecked at them a bit. but I was a bit paranoid about their young age about giving them anything that could harm them at a young age so I gave them a bit of oatmeal mixed with grit and some grapes cut up. by 6 weeks though they were eating practically everything, and with all the weeds and tall grass around here they had a field day ranging, I got lots of wild alfalfa. On the days I couldn't allow them out because of predators, they stayed in their run and I would fill buckets of wild greens and toss them in the run, it was gone before I could blink...lol...

I would be careful about bread, they can have it, but its not very nutritional for them and breads usually have a lot of sugar. I avoid sugary foods and anything with salt.

Every Sunday I feed them a couple dozen cooked eggs, and I crush the egg shells and feed those back to them too.

here is a good treat chart which is found under the learning center here on BYC

https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=2593-Treats_Chart