Possible to OVERFEED your chicks?

[ske1806]

My egg-layer chicks (aged around 14 weeks) are looking REALLY plumb -- is it possible to overfeed vegetable scraps etc leading to health issues for them? Or is plumb in chicken a fine way to be?

 

[woodmort]

This has been hashed out in a couple other threads but basically, no. If you have feed in front of your chicks 24/7 they will eat what they need. I suspect too that once your chicks start to lay they'll thin down too.

 

[elmo]

It is possible to feed them too many "treats" so that their diet becomes unbalanced and they're not getting the nutrition they need from their feed, but as long as what you're feeding is vegetables (and not Cheetos, or something like that), this is unlikely.

It's hard to go by the way a chicken looks because of their feathers. Some breeds are fluffier and look more rounded naturally.

 

[thechickenchick]

From what I have learned here over the years you can not over feed ( I agree with Elmo about Cheetos

). My MIL likes to bring her watermelon leftovers to my girls, but she is always worried that she may kill them?! The reason? Years ago they had a tenant in their old farm house who raised chickens. One day they were all gone.. The woman told my MIL that she fed them too much and they died. I can not get her to understand, no matter how many times I try, to understand that they won't eat and eat until they fall over dead, I might, but my chickens won't

 

[chicmom]

I agree with the others, and personally, I keep food available 24/7 for my egglayers. Also, just something I learned that I wanted to share with you, is that salty foods are a no-no...someone had mentioned snacks like cheetoes.....A friend of mine, when she was little, gave her hens alot of potato chips, and it killed them! So I also wanted to agree with the member who said fruits and veggies are OK. If you feed your chickens alot of table scraps and stuff, they can actually get fatty liver disease, and this can cause them to die much younger than normal--it really shortens their life span.

Good question! Thanks for posting it!

 

[elmo]

Quote:
Probably the high salt content. Birds don't process excess salt very well.

 

[cluckiemama]

I wonder if I'm giving too many treats, because they don't seem to be eating much of their chicken feed these days. I don't suppose they don't like the taste anymore. I'll try fewer treats and monitor the feed disappearing.

 

[woodmort]

No matter what age they are as soon as my chickens are allowed to free range their commercial food consumption drops. They much prefer natural food to a processed diet but that doesn't mean they are overeating.