Feeding chickens meat scraps

[roxanne]

Can chickens eat meat scraps from the kitchen table? I have a bunch of scraps from chicken tenders that I was going to throw away, but thought I might ask about feeding the scraps to my ladies. I don’t want to do something that isn’t healthy or correct ... so anyone who has an opinion or some research to assure my decision to proceed, please chime in.

 

[Mtnboomer]

I do. They love it! Cooked is best but i have given them tid bits of raw meat when butchering deer and other wild game. Its more difficult for them to pick off smsll enough pieces to swallow, but they eat it

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

Yes, and it's a nice protein boost for them to off-set low-protein treats such as grass, fruit and veggie scraps, etc.

I find if I have a gallon bucket of veggie scraps with a single nibble of meat in it, the flock will seek that out first and fight over it!

 

[roxanne]

I do. They love it! Cooked is best but i have given them tid bits of raw meat when butchering deer and other wild game. Its more difficult for them to pick off smsll enough pieces to swallow, but they eat it

We have been feeding them the 17 year cicadas that have begun to emerge from the ground here in Virginia. I have tried to feed them berries that I defrosted from my freezer, but they just looked at them. How do you get them to eat the veggie scraps? Do you just drop them in the ground?

 

[roxanne]

We have been feeding them the 17 year cicadas that have begun to emerge from the ground here in Virginia. I have tried to feed them berries that I defrosted from my freezer, but they just looked at them. How do you get them to eat the veggie scraps? Do you just drop them in the ground?

 

[Mtnboomer]

We have been feeding them the 17 year cicadas that have begun to emerge from the ground here in Virginia. I have tried to feed them berries that I defrosted from my freezer, but they just looked at them. How do you get them to eat the veggie scraps? Do you just drop them in the ground?

I literally open our dining room window after dinner and scrape the plate. Within min. Everything is gone.

 

[Mtnboomer]

We have been feeding them the 17 year cicadas that have begun to emerge from the ground here in Virginia. I have tried to feed them berries that I defrosted from my freezer, but they just looked at them. How do you get them to eat the veggie scraps? Do you just drop them in the ground?

I'm only about 1 hr away from you but I haven't been seeing many circadas yet. Hearing them though. But its just getting started.

 

[3KillerBs]

You don't want to overdo salt or fat, but chickens love table scraps. For the in-town flock I'd scrape everything, including bones with bits of meat stuck to them, onto a paper plate or into a foil pie plate and set it in the run.

One of the things they loved most was the picked bones and giblets from pots of chicken or turkey soup -- followed closely by the pork roast leavings.

I cleaned up the larger bones but let anything else they didn't eat become one with the deep litter as it composted.