Eat with chickens

[micstrachan]

Great thread! I’m reading through all the comments, but love the concept!

 

[micstrachan]

Actually the Native Americans used fish heads. Since I’ve never bought a fish w the head, I decided to try shrimp shells. I’m sure fish bones and other thin seafood parts would work as well. Although I throw my clam shells in the deep woods compost pile, I think they would be too thick for garden breakdown for that season.

I took a tomato masters class here last year and they also suggest fish heads IF you are planting in the ground. I mostly plant in containers and use fish meal. My chickens are CRAZY for homegrown tomatoes!

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

But wouldn’t the gizzard grind it up?

Apple seeds actually don’t contain cyanide, but a chemical precursor to cyanide that requires oxygen to become cyanide.

So, unless you grind a large quantity of apple seeds, then feed them…you’re fine.

 

[My Very First 6 Chickens]

The chickens reduce our food waste by quite a bit. Though I am picky with what I give them. My main breed is prone to obesity, so they don't get any bread, grains, fat, or other carb-heavy or calorically dense scraps. Just produce trimmings, the bird carcass after Thanksgiving and Christmas, and the occasional meat leftovers. We do generate a lot in produce waste though, in the form of skins, rinds, seeds, etc. so the chickens do get that. And whatever comes back from the kids' lunch boxes that's not too calorically dense

When giving a Turkey carcass, are we concerned at all about little bones? I give mine some meat from the leftovers, but always nervous about the bones. Thank you!

 

[Novice Chicken Mum]

I cooked most of the time two to three meals every day, so we always have very sufficient kitchen scraps. I loved to save kitchen scraps for adding into the chicken feed.

Our hens have their commercial feed, and on top of that, I add fermented grains and whatever originally belonged to the compost bins.

Now I am "addicted" to save scraps for them, and it's also a kind of reducing waste. For example, the apples we had this morning - the peels, head and end belong to the chicken; and the cores (apple seeds are slightly toxic) go to the compost.
*However, in this photo, the small bucket in the right side is a temporary residence of black solider fly larvae that just arrived yesterday.
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Homegrown flower sprouts - besides the larger leaves, the hens also got some fair share of the sprouts.
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I used smaller containers or glass jars to collect and store the ingredients.
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So, their breakfasts are always colorful.
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They are healthy and laying very well. Besides the kitchen scraps, they also have quite often meat/organs/eggs in their diet in the winter, when the annual molting and the bad weather come together.
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Only our compost bins are starving - hens become their strongest competitors in the winter time. However, I love such food preparation process.

**potato peels went to the compost, unless when I have time to fry them for a speical treat.
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So did you blend up the vegetable scraps for their feed?

 

[3KillerBs]

When giving a Turkey carcass, are we concerned at all about little bones? I give mine some meat from the leftovers, but always nervous about the bones. Thank you!

I am not at all concerned.

Chickens are capable of amazing precision with their beaks, picking up even the tiniest bugs from the soil. They are likewise capable of picking bones clean of even the smallest scraps of soft material. IF they were to swallow a bone it's because they intended to.

Additionally, they are well known to be able to swallow mice and small snakes whole and cope with the results.

 

[Phaedra Geiermann]

I took a tomato masters class here last year and they also suggest fish heads IF you are planting in the ground. I mostly plant in containers and use fish meal. My chickens are CRAZY for homegrown tomatoes!

I would like to ask for everyone's advice:

Are raw pepper and tomatoes safe for chickens? I read different comments in the past, and some mentioned the nightshade family will be harmful to chickens if we feed them raw. However, it also seems quite often that people give raw tomatoes as treats.

Potatoes have to be cooked, I believe, but how about other crops in the nightshade family?

Thanks a lot in advance.

 

[Phaedra Geiermann]

So did you blend up the vegetable scraps for their feed?

Yes, I use a food processor to chop and blend extra kitchen scraps and sometimes leftovers, then add into their feed.

 

[3KillerBs]

I would like to ask for everyone's advice:

Are raw pepper and tomatoes safe for chickens? I read different comments in the past, and some mentioned the nightshade family will be harmful to chickens if we feed them raw. However, it also seems quite often that people give raw tomatoes as treats.

Potatoes have to be cooked, I believe, but how about other crops in the nightshade family?

Thanks a lot in advance.

Mine are given all the bird-pecked, cracked, and otherwise defective tomatoes (I just lob them into the run -- yelling "Food Bomb" as I do so), and all the defective peppers and pepper seeds/trimmings.

I've never come across anything to suggest that the fruits of tomatoes and peppers are harmful to anything. The plants, yes (which didn't keep my birds from eating a couple tomato plants to which they had accidental access without suffering any ill effects). But not the fruits.

 

[micstrachan]

Mine are given all the bird-pecked, cracked, and otherwise defective tomatoes (I just lob them into the run -- yelling "Food Bomb" as I do so), and all the defective peppers and pepper seeds/trimmings.

I've never come across anything to suggest that the fruits of tomatoes and peppers are harmful to anything. The plants, yes (which didn't keep my birds from eating a couple tomato plants to which they had accidental access without suffering any ill effects). But not the fruits.

I agree with this. Fruits are fine, plants not so much. Though mine have also pecked the odd leaf now and then with no issue. I think thry’d have to consume a lot for it to be a problem.