Things I don't feed my chickens😊

[Farmgirl283420]

Things I dont feed my chickens? More like things my chickens refuse to eat, and thats a short list.

Lettuce (really?)
Beans
Worms that I personally found and harvested for them (apparently worms are only acceptable if THEY find them)

Thats pretty much it. They get ALL the kitchen scraps and leftovers. They also rummage through the compost pile and help themselves to the garden. They seem to know whats good and whats not.

My chickens will spit lettuce out! Guess it’s not just kids that don’t like their leafy greens!

 

[LaurenRitz]

I used to as a kid... I'd try anything at least one time! I'll have to remember this now as I have been known to snack on them after they're soaked...

My understanding is that most of the toxins come out in the soaking water.

 

[Cinnajava]

My understanding is that most of the toxins come out in the soaking water.

thanks

 

[LaurenRitz]

Things I dont feed my chickens? More like things my chickens refuse to eat, and thats a short list.

Lettuce (really?)
Beans
Worms that I personally found and harvested for them (apparently worms are only acceptable if THEY find them)

Thats pretty much it. They get ALL the kitchen scraps and leftovers. They also rummage through the compost pile and help themselves to the garden. They seem to know whats good and whats not.

I find chickens remarkably intelligent about what's not good for them.

Mine won't touch dry beans, mushrooms, raw potato or avocado. Other than that it's game on. They will dig onions out of the ground to eat them, and they eat garlic tops.

 

[BantyChooks]

At the bottom is a response telling why... https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...-the-best-treats-for-backyard-chickens.47738/

Yeah, seems far fetched. As all treats - moderation.

 

[LaurenRitz]

"Force feeding methionine to excess..."

Really? Like anyone is going to force feed a chick straight methionine, other than for research purposes, of course. For heaven's sake, a bird can die from being held under water too, so obviously water is bad for birds...

 

[talkinboutchickens]

Rather than calling out the logical fallacy in the above, I'll illustrate.

Bread has limited benefit, and to the extent it displaces other things in the diet, it is a net negative.

Imagine if, you will, that you have a pocket full of quarters. That pocket full of quarters represents a full chicken, its nutritional needs met for the day. There's good value in it.

Now imagine that you start replacing quarters with pennies, your bread. Suddenly that pocket full of money isn't worth as much. Their nutritional needs no longer met.

Worse, just as you can't put pennies in the local vending machine (unlike quarters, in at least a few places still), the few beneficial things in bread (mostly carbs - energy, and a limited number of vitamins they easily obtain from other sources) can't be used to make better or other things critical to their development.

To the extent that the bread adds to the existing diet, their energy intake exceeds their energy spend - resulting in deposited fat. Unlike humans, chickens don't deposit intramuscular fat well. Instead it collects primarily in the organ cavity where it can cause pressure on the heart and lungs where it restricts blood flow and oxygenation as well as causing the liver to become increasingly friable until it ruptures in a condition called fatty liver hemorrhagic syndrome. Which is generally first noted by sudden chicken death.

When you look at a bag of chicken feed, they generally don't tell you the carb count. CHickens will try and eat till their energy needs are met. What they do tell you is Crude Protein, and a tiny bit about the amino acid profile of that protein. Also, Fat, Fiber, and a few key vitamins & minerals.

For adult laying hens, whose nutritional needs are the lowest of any typical chicken "category" (i.e. pullets, Meat birds, dual purpose adolescents, etc) the general minimal dietary recommends are 16% crude protein*, 3.5% fat +/- 3,5% fiber +/- , 1% calcium +/-, .5% phosphorus (to slightly more), 0.25% sodium with key amninos Methionine 0.3%+ and Lysine (about) 0.7%.

How does bread compare?

9% crude protein
2.5% fat
5% fiber (fiber is NOT beneficial to chickens in the way its beneficial to humans - too much of a good thing is not a good thing)
0.8% calcium
0.1% phos
too much sodium
negligible Met, Lys

In short, its a net negative on every single metric.

and at least in waterfowl, high bread intake is associated with developmental abnormalities in ducks, geese, and the like, primarily in the form of "angel wing".

I hope that helps your understanding. Sources available at request.

* you can get by with lower total crude protein if you adjust the amino acid profile, primarily by addition of DL-Methionine and L-Lysine. The EU is on the cutting edge of such research and does reasonably well around 14% CP for adult layers with such adjustments. The US, largely, still gets by with an excess of low quality protein to meet minimal Met and Lys targets.

Yes so basically you are filling your chickens up on unhealthy stuff instead of nutritious stuff. Bread will fill them up very quickly. I had a duck who had angelwing, she was a wild duck that we found as a duckling that was all alone. We fed her chicken food mixed with water, but since that wouldn't be her normal diet in the wild that's how she got angel wing. That's one reason why some signs at parks might say "don't feed the wildlife". #1 bread can make the ducks more domesticated and relying on humans for food and following them around, and #2 it is very unhealthy/bad for them. #2 goes for chickens as well.

 

[RoyalChick]

My chickens will spit lettuce out! Guess it’s not just kids that don’t like their leafy greens!

Mine are not fans of lettuce. They get so excited when I come out with my treat bowl, but when it contains lettuce they give me the ‘you can do better’ look.

 

[Farmgirl283420]

Mine are not fans of lettuce. They get so excited when I come out with my treat bowl, but when it contains lettuce they give me the ‘you can do better’ look.

yeah they get all excited and then stare at me and walk away!!!

 

[AGeese]

yeah they get all excited and then stare at me and walk away!!!

Mine will rush up and attack the lettuce, but then the geese end up running them off.