Ok, I can get behind the idea that chickens in the wild eat all kinds of stuff, and I'm reassured by all the folks here who say they feed scraps and it hasn't hurt their hens or the hens' laying at all. But I have to ask: Does this also pertain to when they are chicks...just starting out? Do you "scraps are fine" folks stick with just the formulated chick-starter food at that point, and add scraps when they are bigger? Or do you go with a tiny amount of different food stuffs from the beginning....because I've seen so much of "don't feed them anything but chick-starter when they are babies...it will impede their development".
Technically, there hasn't been a "wild" chicken in hundreds, potentially thousands, of years....humans have been selectively breeding livestock for a long time.
That being said, a chicken can get the proper nutrients it needs from non-pelleted food, just like a person can (although on some busy days, I wish I could just have some "human pellets" for a quick, balanced meal).
I give small treats fairly early to chicks, certainly by the time they're let out. Turns out, they figure out pretty quickly that they are chickens, and act like chickens.