sugar

[wanderbugs]

Hi,
We eat porridge (oatmeal) for breakfast every day and my kids often leave some. I'd like to give it to our chickens but wondering if I shouldn't because my kids tend to put either brown sugar or maple sugar flakes on it. I limit how much they put on so it isn't much but would it be bad for the chickens? And what about salty foods? I know some people give them all their dinner leftovers which must have all sorts of dodgy ingredients- Are there any foods on your 'definitely don't feed' list? Thanks,
Siobhan

 

[catterbug]

There is an approved treat list on here for chickens. I think the left overs would be just fine.

 

[NYREDS]

What would constitute a "dodgy" ingredient?

 

[Country Heart]

Salty food is something you want to avoid.

As far as sugar goes, my girls LOVE a sweet treat once in a while. Is it healthy? Probably not.
Do they enjoy it? Without a doubt!

 

[wanderbugs]

Thanks. I found the list afterwards. Still not sure about a few things but I guess I'll ask around and work it out.
"Dodgy" is a word we Brits use a lot to mean anything that's a bit questionable, maybe 'shady'? In terms of food ingredients, I meant basically all the crap you find in processed and packaged foods these days, but I suppose I really don't get a lot of processed food for my human family anyway, except the odd can of beans or a frozen pizza for a quick meal, so we shouldn't have much to worry about there.
I suppose my rule will be if I wouldn't feed it to my kids, the chickens won't get it either

 

[Judy]

Quote:
Sounds good, although I wouldn't feed the chickens leftover birthday cake, or something really salty like the bone of a roast ham. They do love to pick a carcass clean, though, if you don't use the bones from something like a roast chicken!

And yes I'd give them the leftover oatmeal.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

I don't give mine thick globs of cake icing or anything moldy or rotten. Pretty much anything outside of that is good to go. They may not eat it, but I'll toss it in. Oatmeal, even with a little sugar in it, is fine.

 

[Marcymom3]

Quote:
Sounds good, although I wouldn't feed the chickens leftover birthday cake, or something really salty like the bone of a roast ham. They do love to pick a carcass clean, though, if you don't use the bones from something like a roast chicken!

And yes I'd give them the leftover oatmeal.

Yeah, I would hate to make them into cannibals. Although mine love hardboiled eggs.

 

[NYREDS]

We routinely feed them the remains of roast chickens & turkeys. That won't "turn them into cannibals". Chickens lack the intellectual capacity to connect the carcas of a roast chicken with the bird standing next to them. We also have given them the remains of a roast ham from time to time. I wouldn't recommend it as an every day feed but as infrequently as we roast a ham it's not a problem.
Chickens, at least in my experience, aren't as easily harmed as some here would have you believe. Although I do have to admit that many of the people who post here seem to have a lot of health problems with their birds. Maybe it's because they don't feed them ham?

 

[chickenscott]

The oatmeal is fine - mine eat leftover - noodles (favorite), bread crusts, mellon rinds (another fav), vegie scraps, grits, eggs ( scrambled), yougurt, cottage cheese, milk/cereal, apples cores - they are not to picky and as long as it is not moldy, rotten etc. all should be fine. One thing I will not feed is potato skins/peals. I read that the green part of new potatos can be poison!

be sure to clean up all the left over cobs, scraps etc so you do not get a rodent problem.