My young hens don't eat their vegetables

[mholm]

I'm used to our old hens that loved veggie kitchen scraps like beet greens and carrot peelings. Our 20 weeks old "Teenagers" will eat fresh grass but won't eat the kitchen scraps and old fruit I bring them. Will this change once they start laying eggs?

 

[Back2MyRoots]

I have never had one not be an adventurous foodie, but we start offering treats at just a few weeks of age! My birds are absolute garbage disposals!

 

[Michelelyl]

My teens won't eat scraps either. However, they will do tricks to try and jump the fence to get to the Swiss chard growing in the garden. We planted a little red wagon full of chard and they ate it down to the ground in 2 days! They also only like greens that are growing, like lettuce or mesclun.

We called this the 'sin wagon'.
They do free range all day in the fenced backyard, so maybe they are eating plenty of bugs and grass and can afford to turn up their beaks at scraps of vegetables. Maybe in the winter when there's 4 feet of snow on the ground, they won't be so particular.

 

[sumi]

I have yet to meet a chicken who can resist Swiss chard! Mine wiped out my entire bed in less than a week. I let the 2 new moms and their 11 chicks in there. What was I thinking?

 

[Michelelyl]

We are just going to plant in stages next year the 'chicken chard garden'. They keep away from everything else, so I don't mind sharing the chard if they eat the earwigs!

 

[mholm]

I think you are right! They are getting all the fresh greens they need but winter will be different.

 

[sumi]

You can grow kale for them in winter. It doesn't mind the cold and chickens like it too.

 

[7L Farm]

I agree with Sumi grow some kale, collard greens, mustard greens. Sometimes you have to give the chickens something new more than once before they will start to eat it. Eventually, one will try it & the others will follow.

 

[mickey328]

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that they're all different. Most say their girls get dizzy at even the thought of strawberries and mine won't touch them. I also watched as one of them grabbed an earwig and tossed it aside instead of eating it! Go figure None of them will touch a carrot, either raw or cooked, and they don't like potato peels either.

Now, I just toss all sorts of things in there and take note of what they will and won't eat. They love, love love dandelion leaves, and I've discovered they'll chew all the leaves off the rotten bindweed we can't eradicate no matter what; yogurt and any sort of cheese send them into cackles of delight. They had their first taste of chard and spinach yesterday and made that vanish almost immediately. They like kale as well, but not quite as well as the other stuff...it gets eaten, but last

We really like to make sure they have fresh greens available and in the summer, that's no problem. We're putting in a cold frame so we can grow some of the cold hardy veggies for them: spinach, chard, kale...through the winter. We'll also be doing sprouts...those will be easy over the winter as well.

 

[ruby m w]

Or chicks got into the veggie garden and destoryed most of the seedlings.Sctratched it all up and so on!Lol