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

[GOATLADY006]

Can someone please help me convince her that it's okay for the girls to have fun table scraps?

Everything in moderation right?!

EDIT: Our girls usually get much smaller quantities of veggie scraps, but this was a couple of weeks ago on New Years Day and all the girls were fine

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My chickens love pizza. They like all toppings. I don't feed them a lot of it but as a treat its just fine.

 

[CreveChris]

That’s right...they’re just “layman”

Haha

My flock has free range twice a day under supervision and they dig up the forest floor and eat clover and bugs, so that's their "chicken time" outside of their tractor. Their scratch is the greens I have finally taught them to eat from the grow bags in the video. Otherwise I cut and toss veggies to them. They eat Grubblies and sunflower seeds, too.

It's a balancing act between high predator pressure and natural chicken farm living, but they basically live the life of the pet chicken.

 

[Cluck-a-lot]

Hi, I think tiny wee pieces fed individually to each bird is my way of treating them. To prevent one getting more than others, I put the treat in my hand and just leave a little showing between my fingers facing the bird. My birds all know that they will all get a bit and there’s no fighting that way. I suppose it is a bit like a rooster feeding a tidbit. The feast in the photo I am afraid I would not feed them. My birds would get about 1/2” square at the most. Rooster beak size. Good topic though as I am sure you are not the only one who would feed their birds this amount.
Your birds look really healthy though which is great.

 

[dables1]

Our chickens get all our table scraps. Pizza, lettuce, vegetable trimmings, apple cores, watermelon rinds-you name it. They go crazy over them.Have had them for 2 years and no problems whatsoever. Are they getting the bet nutrition possible? Probably not but they are chickens. Does not seem to affect their egg laying any.

 

[achiekitty]

Can someone please help me convince her that it's okay for the girls to have fun table scraps?

Everything in moderation right?!

EDIT: Our girls usually get much smaller quantities of veggie scraps, but this was a couple of weeks ago on New Years Day and all the girls were fine

View attachment 2498991

It sounds shocking to feed them pizza. The reality is, they’re omnivores. They will eat anything they like to eat. Like you said, moderation.

Our almost 5 and 7 yr old chickens have access to the compost where we put every leftover food my mom passes on to us - meat, breads, cookies, noodles, etc. ( no pizza though, we never have leftover pizzas for the compost)

Next time, you may want to give them a smaller portion, mainly to keep peace in the home; and keep the rest in the fridge for next day‘s cold pizza breakfast.

Good luck with your wife.

 

[Lilchknmomma]

My chickens pick over anything that makes it to the compost pile. Dogs get first dibs, then chickens, then it ends composted. Mine haven't died from eating pizza. They don't get stuff like that often though.

This was almost exactly what my situation is. I agree 100%

 

[Hayden Goseek]

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:

We HAD a garden when we first got chickens. We thought they would eat the bugs. And they DID! Then they ate the vegetables. Then they ate the leaves. Then the stems---
After they pulled out the roots and ate them, they began digging up the ground for more bugs!

 

[Bonnieboo]

I understand wanting to recycle rather than rubbish food, but chickens kidneys aren't designed to digest much salt. Lets face it, that lovely spicy and sometimes hot salami that we love is really not good for your ladies. I'm sure you've had a time when you've woken up the day after a pizza binge and needed to drink a lot of water, well comparing the size of chicken kidneys to yours it's not hard to see how it would affect them. Remember they rely on you for their food choices and water so please be aware. Also, sorry to bang on about this, hot chips (or fries if you are in US) should never be given to chooks, the amount of salt can kill them.

 

[Padfoot22]

I’m confused by everyone saying that dairy, cheese, yogurt etc causes chickens to get diarrhea and they shouldn’t eat it. I just read on a list Backyard chickens acceptable food list that yogurt, cheese and milk were good for them. I’ve even read about yogurt being good for a healthy crop and digestive health overall in a chicken. Everything in moderation of course so I only give my hens one dairy product every 5 or so days (maybe more sometimes) and not much at once. They adore cheeses so I especially have to be careful with it or they will fight over it.

Here’s the link to the list I was referencing:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...—the-best-treats-for-backyard-chickens.47738/

 

[Finger Lickin Good]

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.

My brain misfired for a second and at first read that as “I throw the carcass out for the chickens to get any remaining tidbits off their brother or sister” and thought ‘well that’s certainly an honest answer.’