how often can you feed treats?

[fairladi_chick]

i posted this onna other link but didnt think it would get read,, so i made new topic

hey YALL, i was wantin to know how often you can feed any of the food on the "treat chart" to chickens,, my husband & dad in law says only as a treat once inna while,, i bought a pumpkin last week,, halfed it last saturday,, gave them half,, & gave them the other half yesterday. yesterday when i was cuttin up the other half,, all the chickens were at the fence, just waitin,, they knew they were gonna get some lol.

 

[tvtaber]

Well, everyone will give a different answer, but do your children consider veggies a "treat" or something they eat because they taste OK and are good for them? I think healthy food, particularly green food, veggies, whole grains, and plain meat, is part of a good diet as much as the feed is. If it is healthy, I feed them as much as they want and try to give something interesting every day (clover, dandilions, lettuce, pumpkin, old biscuits (OK that is not healthy but someone has to eat them!)).

If you let them free range, which most folks will agree is healthier than being penned if it can be made safe, they would eat their fill of stuff we consider "treats", right?

 

[digitS']

Welcome to BYC!

You can think of it this way: a Leghorn hen eats about 1/4 pound of food each day.

A cup of cooked sweet potatoes (sorry, couldn't find pumpkin online

) is 1/2 pound so it provides ALL the food that a hen can eat over the next 48 hours!!

Pumpkin is NOT cheese cake but if you like cheese cake - I mean you really, really like cheese cake - would you think it is a good idea if that is ALL you eat over the next 48 hours?

Life moves more quickly for a chicken. I'd imagine that we can really wreck their health if we fed them lots of treats over, say, a month or 2.

I don't know how much pumpkin you were thinking of giving them. I'm just guessing, but maybe reasonably healthy treats (no cheesecake !) at a rate of about 15% should be okay. So daily, that would be a more than a tablespoon or a cup of treats for about 10 hens. (Maybe a little more since pumpkin is probably more than just "reasonably healthy" and it's good that they really like it

.

Steve

 

[al6517]

Yes be very careful with the treats and do not over do it. We feed treats but only once in a while when we have some left over table goodies they like. if you are leary about treats, just give them some scratch every now and then that will not hurt at all. the important thing to remember is they do need their feed to grow and maintain properly.