Scraps

[Featherlove23]

We eat a lot of greens in our house. Lettuce, watermelon, asparagus, etc. Sometimes it will start to go bad before we can finish it. When I was younger we got chickens for the first time we had no issues getting them to eat the scraps. (Always made sure it was safe for them to eat first) they would flock over and play keep away. But now I'm moved out and have my own flock and try to give them scraps they seem to have no interest in it. I know no bird is the same. What can I do to encourage them?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Throw it.
They are attracted to movement.

But if they aren't interested, they aren't interested. Don't force it upon them. Our little dinosaurs aren't stupid. Scratch that, they sort of are - but they aren't idiots. If better feed is available, they won't eat (or won't eat much) of a food that would harm them, or simply not benefit them. Fat being the exception - chickens will gobble up high fat foods the way we consume candy bars and chips by the family-sized bag. Not healthy for us - or the birds.

 

[My Bagurks]

My chickens are spoiled. They don’t bat an eyelash at greens and a lot of vegetables. If it doesn’t have flesh, like a tomato cut in half, oranges, they don’t care. Even onions if they’re sliced. I typically have to retrieve veggie scraps from the run after a day or two. A whole carrot, they gobble up. Sliced or shredded carrot like from a salad, they don’t care. I’ve heard of people putting scraps into a……..net ball kind of thing? Like the kind you’d imagine they use for curing hams. And their chickens love it. Makes it more entertaining for them. My kids will pick up leaves from the plants around the run and offer it to them and they’ll eat it. But that leaf same leaf was in their coop and not eaten.

Like the scene from Jurassic park where Dr. Grant says the Trex wants to hunt. He doesn’t just want a goat offered to it. Well, we are dealing with The great great………..great grandchildren of T-rexes. They want to “hunt”. Make it interesting for them.

 

[Featherlove23]

Throw it.
They are attracted to movement.

But if they aren't interested, they aren't interested. Don't force it upon them. Our little dinosaurs aren't stupid. Scratch that, they sort of are - but they aren't idiots. If better feed is available, they won't eat (or won't eat much) of a food that would harm them, or simply not benefit them. Fat being the exception - chickens will gobble up high fat foods the way we consume candy bars and chips by the family-sized bag. Not healthy for us - or the birds.

I love how easy you put things. Thank you! And I am now calling them my little dinosaurs.