Table foods

[Shellystanley]

What table foods are ok for chickens and how much? Should I limit what they get? Do I have to do anything to it first, like chop it up for them, or do I just throw it out there? How do you keep ants from getting the food? Or will that just be extra protein for the girls? Sorry for the millions of questions. I just want to make sure I do this right.

 

[chickens r life]

Not to give them...
Avocado
Green potato skin
Raw beans
Not cooked rice
Anything acidic
Onions
I don't like to give them meat since chickens wouldn't hunt a wild animal but that's up to you.
I don't like to give them any sort of sauce.

I think table scraps should be like 10% of their diet.

 

[Den in Penn]

Chickens are omnivores, They will eat anything. So just about anything you eat they can. Anything that contains a toxic component would of course be bad. There is a list at the bottom of the treats chart at the top of this forum, that has some of foods to avoid. White rice isn't toxic, but it is mainly starch, so even cooked it won't harm them. If you stick around here long enough you will hear many tale of chickens hunting don small animals and eating them. Meat is definitely on their menu given a choice.

 

[Rainekitty]

Between my dogs, cats and chickens I have basically no food waste. The chickens get whatever the dogs and cats won't or can't eat (raw and cooked veggie scraps, pasta, bread, meat trimmings if not too fatty, left over corn cobs, yogurt). Much to my chagrin I have seen my chickens chase down and eat baby toads, voles, snakes and other animals. They are definitely omnivores.

The only food I throw in the compost pile is spoiled or moldy The only food product I don't know what to do with is fatty pieces off of roasts/steaks and big bones (my dogs are all seniors and can't eat them). I don't want to put them into compost in fear of attracting predators.

 

[yyz0yyz0]

Mine love table scraps. I have a compost corner in my run so most scraps get thrown in there. If its something really wet or juicy, I put it in a dog bowl for them.
I give mine meat and bones but I remove anything not eaten at the end of the day. It draws predators that try to dig under the fence, I have an apron but it was pretty scary the first time I walked around the back of the run and saw it all dug up. They couldn't get past the apron but that didnt' stop them from digging and scaring the !#@$% out of me when I first saw it.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

I clean out the frigde and give to chickens but not more than they can finish in a few hours. If a big bowl of horrible pasta salad or the like give half then back in fridge for next day to let them finish it off. When feeding chickens I don't think in terms of daily intake rather weekly. So if 90% of their diet one day a week is leftovers so be it. They don't get treats every day.

You may get warnings on salt for poultry but in reality they can't consume a leathal dose without injections of saline in the crop. Salt is very benefical for all animals, if force fed they need more water and again would never volentarily injest a leathal amount. I've heard the salt warning before so actually researchef and read the studies. Rather cruel most of them and all imposible to unintentionally replicate. Got half a sandwich stuffed with salty cold meat? Not a problem, feed it to them. Salty cheeses or lasagna left overs? They gobble it up. No worry.

 

[tamera brandin]

We feed ours all kinds of table scraps and they love them and seem to do OK with them