Help! My wife is mad at me for feeding the chickens pizza!

[CreveChris]

So careful here, I grow chicken gardens and keep a list of chicken-safe foods. Any processed foods (besides chicken feeds) worry me too much. Just threw out a bag of funky-smelling starter feed because a $5 loss is better than a precious chick loss.

If chickens are part of a composting process, then the health of the chickens may be secondary to the primary sustainable ag function.

For me, chicken health is top priority, with a breeding program as the main function of the chickens and the compostable litter serving as a secondary benefit.

Pet chickens probably get more treats, but I even have to pre-tear kale and mustard leaves or Weesa will cram entire leaves into her mouth whole because she has to work so hard to get her share. If I were to feed kitchen scraps for some reason, they would be cut into tiny pieces. I'm overprotective

Here's Marge eating from her chicken garden:

 

[moriahjoyful]

Their health and productivity depend on their overall diet. A layer feed is a complete diet for them, and when you feed them extra junk food they eat less of their balanced food obviously.
Acceptable table scraps are the veggie scraps, lettuce, beet greens, peas, squash (my girls are crazy for spaghetti squash) you get the idea.

That said, a few pieces of pizza won’t kill anybody. They may get diarrhea. I have a pet rooster that is somewhere between 50-70% blind and he struggles to eat actual chicken food because it’s hard to see and his aim is shit. So I feed him no-no foods often like bread and cereal because it’s easy for me to hand feed to him quickly and his aim doesn’t have to be perfect to get ahold of it. But I realize that his life may be significantly shorter because of his diet.
I do not feed my hens the way I feed my Kyle.

His aim is shit had me dying over here!

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

Oh yeah there’s plenty of other stuff. Like you say the other chickens don’t touch the onions. She will eat a probably a quarter of a white onion in a sitting. I’ve even buried them a little so she wouldnt stink herself up. She still finds them. She may be after the sugar.

Chickens are individuals, so maybe she just likes onions. 1/4 of an onion now and then clearly isn’t killing her, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it.

Burying the onions deeper or composting them some place the chickens can’t get to are options too.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

If chickens are part of a composting process, then the health of the chickens may be secondary to the primary sustainable ag function.

For me, chicken health is top priority, with a breeding program as the main function of the chickens and the compostable litter serving as a secondary benefit.

I’m sure breeding stock or show birds are a different situation. I don’t think feeding compost affects their overall health, and access to it teaches them how to be chickens...to eat what they should and do it right.

My chickens jobs are to make eggs, work compost, and be chickens...nothing fancy.

That’s right...they’re just “layman”

 

[Mtnboomer]

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They’ll be fine. Mine get whatever food scraps our dogs don’t want all the time....including chicken. And don’t poo poo me on that. Remember that they are just small, feathery, dinosaurs with probably below average dino intelligence. And I’ve seen Jurassic Park, they are each other back in the day and if they were a little bit bigger they would definitely try and eat you.

When we roast a bird and have eaten all we can off the bones, i throw the carcass out for the chickens to get any remaining tidbits that their brother or sister may left on it. If an outsider happened by, I d love to see their reaction to all the bones laying in the run.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

When we roast a bird and have eaten all we can off the bones, i throw the carcass out for the chickens to get any remaining tidbits that their brother or sister may left on it. If an outsider happened by, I d love to see their reaction to all the bones laying in the run.

Sounds like a more extreme version of when I trim wing feathers in the run...The ONE time I forgot to tell my wife after I'd done it I got quite a lecture (well deserved) about warning the rest of family "there wasn't a mass murder in the chicken run, just trimming some feathers".

 

[casportpony]

I would feed pizza to mine.

 

[dct10]

There's not alot of salt in pizza. Some people are over-reacting.
I don't see this as a problem.

 

[Cluckminster Fuller]

I'd be interested in knowing how they were the next day. The bread and tomato are fine. I have never had any leftover pizza! ;-) and I'm gluten-free so I'm not even sure they should eat the "crust" that I do....Many of my country friends feed them any darn thing and seem to have no trouble.

 

[casportpony]

I'd be interested in knowing how they were the next day. The bread and tomato are fine. I have never had any leftover pizza! ;-) and I'm gluten-free so I'm not even sure they should eat the "crust" that I do....Many of my country friends feed them any darn thing and seem to have no trouble.

All of mine have been fine the next day after all kinds of treats that they probably shouldn't have.