Things That Chicken Eat That Surprised You

[kvmommy]

see...now I don't want chickens anymore. I didn't realize they were so gross and cannibalistic! You're telling me my sweet 3 chicks will eat other birds and snakes and mice????

 

[Fierlin1182]

I've known mine to peck at mice, yes.

Very gross, thankfully they don't do it very often.

They love to eat anything I eat. Cereal, potatoes, meat, veggies, selected fruit, rice, noodles, pasta, the list goes on.
They're a greedy bunch.

 

[kvmommy]

My silkies are almost 1 week old and I gave them some chick grit yesterday. When can I give them other things like cereal, rice, noodles, greens and mealworms? They are just sooo tiny. I'm gonna avoid the whole mice and snake thing!!! lol

 

[LoveMyFeatherBabies]

Mine eat everything I give them...including the scraps left from boiling the meat off of their rooster brothers we butchered. They peck the bones too...good source of calcium I reckon

 

[SteveBaz]

 

[jndorsey]

This has been one of the worst days of my thirteen years of employment at my day job -- deadlines looming, can't seem to get this thing I'm working on to work and someone else is waiting on it so they can do something with it -- the usual... -- and something told me to come over and check out this post to see what's been posted lately. *SO* glad I did. coworkers were coming over to see what was so funny! Mine will NOT eat ants but we did watch them pull a small garter snake in two one day and I once watched on leap into the air to catch a grasshopper. Newly-painted toenails will always garner a quick "just checkin' to see if it's a strawberry" kind of peck, and yes yogurt and oatmeal. Oatmeal is quite amusing, as they get so excited about it they fling it everywhere! (I give it to them warm in the winter, sometimes I dump vanilla yogurt or cottage cheese in with it.) But far and above my birds' two favorite people foods are cooked spaghetti noodles and SHRIMP PEELS. OMG. Shimp peels = three-hen circus. One grabs one and goes off to 'hide' it from the other two, then while she's running back to grab more, one of the other two goes and eats the one she just hid! Someone suggested this summer when we were all having such a heat wave to freeze cantaloupe and watermelon and let them peck at that, but mine sadly don't like either. Peaches? Different story. Mine also tore after the 'guts' of an acorn squash I'd cooked for dinner. It was a bit disturbing to watch them go voraciously after scrambled eggs and chicken nuggets when we first became 'ranchers' (farmers grow crops, ranchers grow stock. we are chicken ranchers!) but now that's no longer a big deal... Someone said to give them buttermilk -- I still need to check that out.

Thanks for the laughs. And 'They Killed Kenny' was also so funny I couldn't keep my laughter quiet. Can't wait to get home and show that one to my husband, he'll die laughing!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Frogs and legs of venison.