Give peas a chance!

[SimplyLivinthatFarmLife]

Sometimes it takes multiple attempts. Mine did not like anything when they were babies. Now that they're older, they like most treats. Lettuce is not a crowd pleaser but other than that, they love tomatoes, bananas, strawberries, pumpkin, sardines, peas, even slugs and snails.

They never like new stuff AT FIRST because they're afraid of it. But if I pick it up and offer it to them like it's a treat and then leave it in the run for a few hours to let them think about it, someone will taste it and then it's a free-for-all. Sometimes I have to show them there's good stuff and that they might like it. Like convincing little kids!

My girls hate slugs- too sticky/slimy for them...

 

[SimplyLivinthatFarmLife]

My girls enjoy bananas, rice, lettuce and believe it or not...they LOVE cabbage!!

 

[Callender Girl]

My free-rangers won't eat peas -- UNLESS the geese and ducks, who LOVE peas, want to eat them. Then, it is a free-for-all.

No one here likes hanging cabbage, and my hen queen just turned up her beak at teeny, tiny cauliflower florets, lovingly broken into chicken-sized pieces.

 

[IamRainey]

You all know the recommendation to hang cabbage in the run for the flock to peck can be a boredom buster?

I've never yet had a chicken that liked cabbage. Guess they'd rather be bored

I've never hung a cabbage for mine but I feed them a bag of Trader Joe's shredded cabbage (cheap and convenient) almost every day. They're all over it! But when I took them whole Brussels sprouts and thought they'd have the fun of pecking at mini cabbages, they just left them in the dirt.

Once upon a time they were all over pumpkin but the last few I took out there got a few pecks and then languished on the floor of the run.

But I wouldn't describe them as picky. Most days they get whatever vegetable or fruit scraps and peelings I have from the previous days meal prep. Whatever it is, it disappears.

 

[Northern Flights]

Our feathered masters love and hate peas, as they love and hate cooked rice, canned corn, meal-worms, BOSS, scratch, my fingers etc etc. Early on in our journey I suggested my lovely wife and former sweetheart stop trying to psychoanalyze chickens. So why do I? I must be nuts. BTW, they also love and hate nuts. The only thing they consistently really like is whatever I am eating.

 

[IamRainey]

...and true.

 

[rosemarythyme]

they don't like cauliflower stalks

Mine go nuts for the base of a cauliflower, which is great since that's something that normally gets tossed. They eat the leaves first and then over a day or two pick at the stem portion until there's nothing left but a ring of fibrous stem peel.

 

[GrannyHeeney]

Having said that though, I have a house chicken who is so spoiled he won't even eat bread unless it is buttered. Thinks he is a royal rooster or something. But what he doesn't realise is that this means I don't give him any of my sandwiches at all anymore. The dry corners of crusts were the only bit I was willing to share.

My house rooster acts like a pointer if you come into the living room with a sandwich or a plate LOL He begs like a puppy and I always wind up giving him some crust even though I holler at him for 5 minutes about how he can't have my sandwich. Spoiled little brat!

 

[GrannyHeeney]

Our feathered masters love and hate peas, as they love and hate cooked rice, canned corn, meal-worms, BOSS, scratch, my fingers etc etc. Early on in our journey I suggested my lovely wife and former sweetheart stop trying to psychoanalyze chickens. So why do I? I must be nuts. BTW, they also love and hate nuts. The only thing they consistently really like is whatever I am eating.

Yup, even after they just ate, the "What YOU got?" face goes on and here they come ROFL

 

[IamRainey]

I just discovered that my chickens aren't interested in celery. I gave them most of a whole head of it. I cut off 3" sections of stems and then quartered the bulb. Most if it -- including, surprisingly, a lot of the tender leaves -- is still on the floor of the run 3 days later.