Kale, the poultry opiate

(I can't believe I'm going to say this...)

I wish I had potato bugs! Heck, I was actually hoping for tomato worms, but no luck. All my tomatos grew worm-free. How unlucky can you get?

But, I can get kale, and I will. I love good chicken tv.
 
It's a riot to watch the chicks with tomato worms! They go nuts over lizards too. They'll chase each other around forever until someone finally gulps the whole thing...poor lizard.

As for kale and other brassicas...
A couple winter ago (our first winter with chickens), I asked hubby to go get broccoli from the garden (I was cooking dinner and I was planning some broccoli based dish or something). DH comes back empty handed. Our chickens ate the ENTIRE batch of broccoli! The heads, most of the stocks and every last bit of leaf they could get their beak on! The only thing that was left was stock near the ground and the leaf hearts sticking up all bare bones.
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Needless to say we didn't have broccoli that night...and we learned to lock the chickens out of active gardens (they clean up bugs in between seasons now).

I gave them the rest of a cabbage head the other day. They loved it and were of course fighting over it. One hen couldn't get it whatsoever. So, my big alpha roo sticks his head in and gets a chunk of cabbage and holds it in his mouth for her to eat.
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What a sweetie pie!
 
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On top of that, I do wildlife rehabilitation, too, so sometimes I'll have up to twenty wild birds in my house!
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I live with my parents right now (I'm in college, hoping to be an avian or wildlife vet), and if I didn't I don't even want to know how many animals I'd have. Even with the parents helping control the animal intake, I might take in some foster kittens for a week or two starting tomorrow! And I'm buying an incubator tonight, and my broody hen is going to hatch eggs soon. Haha, it's a chaotic but very happy life!

Anyway, back on topic... The other thing my chickens love is mushy old tomatoes. It's hilarious watching them dig their beak into the tomato and run around with it like a huge clown nose.
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Rape and turnip greens are the same way. I raise a patch of each specificly for the chickens. They get a 5 gallon bucket full everyday.

Compared to cracked corn?

I have found if I give the cracked corn and greens at the same time they will leave the corn for the greens.
 
Every year I use a cheap annual wildlife mix on any bare ground around our 100 acres. Great stuff - full of millet, turnip, rape, and kale. My family and the chickens got exactly 2 pickings of delicious fall greens before the deer levelled everything. This is the year I'm buying electric fencing!

Maybe it is because there was still green clover in the yard up until this big freeze, but my birds didn't really go nuts. They ate it though.
 
Swiss chard is another great green that my chickens love. And it grows here even in cold weather, as long as it doesn't get frosted on. I had fresh greens all the way up till the first of December. I just covered the plants up at night or when it was supposed to get below 30 degrees.
 
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Oh yeah. Lots more fun to tear it up. I planted a two rows of kale in my garden last spring. It came up and I was looking forward to fresh baby kale. Then the chickens found it. They demolished it in half a day; we called it the spring chicken riot!
 
My birds love kale too! They didn't rob my garden of it this summer or fall, but since there is no grass now they go nuts for it. I've been harvesting kale for months and there are still lots of greens under the snow. I cut the whole plant at the stem and throw it in the run. I find it to be one of the more entertaining treats, too. They tear into it and steal pieces from each other's beaks.
 

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