My hens won't eat anything other than regular feed

[bmurphy349]

I'm a backyard chicken newbie. I have two hens around 7 and 10 weeks old. I have them on the grower feed. I've read that chickens love watermelon on hot days, so I put a slice of watermelon in there, and they didn't even touch it. I also read that they like tomatoes and I threw some in there as well. The hens also completely ignored those.

Any thoughts?

I feed mine mealworms, pears, apples, tomatoes, grapes, dog food (special treat), leftovers, watermelon - took 2 tries before they liked it, avocado. My girls will eat almost anything. I just make sure it’s in moderation.

 

[thepick4uchicks]

You should be grateful they love their feed! So many people have issues with chickens rejecting feed. Remember, foods other than regular feed dilute the nutrition needed for growth and egg production, so preferring feed is a good thing.

I agree. I believe it is so smart to have your birds focused on eating their feed ration more than anything and then their greens to follow. My girls get treats that are any kind of garden vegetable or bug protein or herb. That’s it. I don’t feed table scraps or anything that is moldy or spoiled that I wouldn’t eat myself. The things that my pullets only like are also things that they have seen me eat first as well. They are funny too. They treat me sort of like a mother hen. If they have seen the mother hen eat it then it’s cool. They will eat it but if not they won’t touch it. That’s probably how they looked at you and the issue with the watermelon and the tomato. They just wanted to see you verify that it was okay by eating it before it’s okay for them to eat it.
My chicks were raised in the house from the time they were two days old until they went outside to their main coop at twelve weeks. Naturally by then I had introduced them to many treats and they were used to me quite a bit. It was during the heat of the summer in MS and a bad one this year and that is why they didn’t go to the coop before twelve weeks is because of excessive heat, we had a lumbar shortage because of the COVID-19 pandemic , a metal roofing supply delay- due to the fourth of the July holiday delivery was delayed- then we had another shortage due to the pandemic of hardware cloth and everyone getting chickens to raise. It’s crazy. It