Things That Chicken Eat That Surprised You

[SteveBaz]

Wow and I thought a feather was weird!!!

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Watching a hen swallow a ten inch live snake. Whole.

 

[shanshan51]

We have an old apple and fig tree. The hens LOVE LOVE LOVE the fruit off of both trees. They are not good for people to eat as they have not been maintained but the chickens follow me everywhere not to get some fruit!

 

[Hinotori]

Mine eat anything that can't out run them. They will even take food from my gsd's mouth. (The other dog is on to them and takes his treats far away).

The things that surprised me, though. That was 4 maple tree seedlings and my 3 young blueberry plants, green berries, leaves and roots.

 

[JerseyFresh]

We had one jump up and knock my young son's ice cream cone out of his hand. The 3 second rule does NOT apply to the floor of a chicken coop.

 

[Uniontown Poultry]

1) was working in the flower bed, moved a crate full of rocks and disturbed a 16" ringneck snake. We used to play with these snakes when I was a kid, but as I reached for it, it bolted out the hole in the side of the crate and headed for safety... right up through the chicken yard. The girls were out, and the snake almost made it to the stone wall... almost. The girls were pecking him and throwing him in the air when I went inside, and all I found later was the skin, turned inside out, in the dirt of the chicken yard. Poor snake.

2) was letting the dog out when I saw my mottled Java hen, Alice, acting odd. She was walking real slow, with her head down to the ground, on the back hillside about 25 feet away. I turned to let the dog in & heard an eerie clicking squeal, and turned in time to see Alice's beak emerge from underground, with a half-grown shrew dangling in her beak. Half the flock chased Alice as she ran in triumph, the shrew chick-shrieking the whole time as it swung back-and-forth in her beak. The other half of the chickens ran to where Alice had harvested it from the ground, perhaps to see if there were any left. A few seconds later, Alice's running and the shrieking stopped, and she worked the shrew down whole, then found a place in the sun to lay down.

3) I expected my broody Pekin's ducklings would hatch the next day or so, but learned otherwise when my big EE mutt (named Freeloader) and another hen were discovered fighting over a dead baby duckling. They had already eaten some of it, but the rest had no injuries or issues that would lead me to any conclusion besides that they had killed it to eat it. The rest of the ducklings were saved, but those hungry hens came a little too close for comfort a few times and we had to relocate the duck & her brood.

And the kicker in all of this is that the world's fattest, laziest mouse lives in the chicken coop.

The little SOB comes out when I fill the feeder, watching me, and I can just hear him laughing at me. And the chickens never bother him, even though he is RIGHT THERE! He's like their friend or something!

 

[Uniontown Poultry]

Oh, one more icky thing I've seen chickens eat (not MY chickens): A roadkill deer!

My uncle lived up in the mountains and a state road bisected his farm. When someone hit a young buck on a frosty morning on that road by his farm, he dragged it into the chicken pen. He skinned the carcass and left it for them, and they went to town! By the time I saw it it was a skeleton. I was pretty grossed out. One of his fat EE hens was just standing on the empty rib cage, looking at me like, "Hey, what's your problem?"

And part of me says, hey, it's free protein with no chemicals, stops you from having a stinky deer carcass rotting by your driveway, everybody wins ... and the other part of me is like Ew! put it on a 4-wheeler and dump it in the woods! And another part of me is thinking, that would be an interesting twist in a murder mystery novel...

 

[7L Farm]

I was reading a thread where someone was processing some chickens to eat & found a bolt inside the chicken.I love watching chickens testing something before eating it. Pick it up set it back down repeat & then swallow.

 

[SteveBaz]

Quote:
Thee are chickens not Turkey Buzzards!!! LOL OMG!!

 

[genevieve]

Mine like pizza, leftover spaghetti (major look of surprise when they realized it wasn't a big pile of worms), ham, roast beef, fish carcasses, rotten peaches, rice and beans- just about anything that sits too long in the fridge they get.