Food Scraps?

[OScarlet]

I feed all leftovers from my table--that the dogs don't get--EXCEPT leftover chicken or eggs. There was a recent Mother Earth article that said feeding your chickens sunflower seeds can cause chickens to get cancer, but you have to buy bags of that.

I'm surprised there hasn't been a delegation of chickens with placards storming the Mother Earth office.

 

[Barnas Barnyrd]

Scraps are fine to feed to your chickens. My chickens eat anything, but radishes and celery. They love any type of meat especially tuna or sardines.

 

[eggorthechicken]

I feed mine everything except the toxic things like potato peels, apple seeds etc...they eat our leftovers...meat along with their feed. They get lots of fresh stuff from the garden too. Give them a little spaghetti noodles and watch them go CRAZY. Mine also love unsalted peanuts...it's like crack to them. :0) they love yogurt and sour cream sprinkled with sunflower seeds or millet. Just have fun with them! I know by their shells and production if I need to change their food or just mix it up a bit.

 

[amiraclemom]

We feed out chickens scraps all the time, we are a 4-H family, and have produced the grand champion and reserved champion egg layers for two years in a row in our county fair. We stick with not giving the foods on the toxic list, and out chickens look forward to when we come with scraps. we also give them old bread from the bread store, they go crazy for it!

 

[abiondi]

We give our chickens loads of scraps. They love it. No citrus. We are very careful not to give them anything with mold on it, and no potatoes with the "eyes" on them.

 

[TheSpiceGirls]

Oh I do. When I'm making dinner, I pull out three plates, one for me, one for hubby and one for the hens. They get the tomato tops, end of lettuce or spinach, etc.

I don't feed them meat products. And my hens don't care for carbs so no bread for them cuz it just sits.

My only caution is not to over treat. I only have three hens and they will eat EVERYTHING I bring to them. I've had some issues w/ soft shelled eggs in the past and so I do try to limit their treats to a sensible amount. What is sensible, well, that's going to be different for everyone on this list.

 

[Wolf1988]

Most of our produces scraps go into a compost along with yard waste. We will sprinkle some of the compost in the run every few days so they get to pick for goodies. However our young flock doesn't seem too interested in scraps or treats we try to give them. Except worms! But even those it was like they had to practice eating them. They mostly want their feed...especially the dried corn feed. But we have a new flock that is young and was raised on feed...will they slowly start to be more adventurous with what they eat??

 

[Shimmana]

I should add to my comment that I do not give my chickens any processed foods. I try to give them only organic vegetables, pasta, rice, bread, cooked beans. Their favorite is watermelon in hot weather. I know some people will be totally against this, but they also love it when I hard boil some of their eggs for them. They have their regular feed, corn and scratch as well.

 

[fleetwood7]

I feed my chickens all kinds of vegetable table scraps, no meat because it draws even more flies than normal. They get their protein from the bugs they dig up in the yard. I never feed any chocolate or avocado to my birds either. I breed parrots and all the advice is stay away from avocados. I use scratch to train the chickens. If I want to target someplace they have to be, like back in the cage after a romp in the yard, I grab a handful of scratch and call them,,, they come and I throw the scratch into their pen and they go right in.

 

[Themehmeh]

I definitely do!
Pancakes, bread, fruit, salad, veggies, chicken, eggs, etc.

With the exception of anything like candy or spicy seasoned

Spicy food should be fine. Peppers are prohibitively spicy because they want only birds to eat them. Salty food is one thing, but excessive herbs and spices are usually fine.