Treats for the chickens didn't pan out.

[JDGreene]

I decided to give my 6 week old white leghorns a treat so I threw some Pennington wild bird feed on the ground (minus the sunflower seeds) and they wouldn't eat it. Ok, a few days later I threw some salad lettuce mix on the ground and they wouldn't eat it either but they did run over real quick to inspect what I threw down and picked at it for a minute then walked away.

Is this normal? I thought they like to eat about anything.

 

[SueT]

Mine like both those things. And I give them sunflower seeds as well. Their scratch feed has sunflower seeds.....

 

[Coolbreeze89]

It took a while for my chickens to like treats. Now (6months old) they scarf down everything I give them (except Kale..go figure!).

 

[AnimalGeek23]

That is pretty normal, they just probably never seen it before and don’t know if it’s edible(someone correct me if I’m wrong), and just investigating it too see what it is. Some chickens can be picky eaters though.

 

[JDGreene]

They free range in my garden in the day time so I'm sure they are eating bugs and worms and such along with their medicated feed. The lettuce and seeds are still laying down there. They don't seem interested. They must be interested in finding a worm or bug more so. Now my neighbors chickens (big) eat table scraps and anything else I throw out.

 

[AnimalGeek23]

They free range in my garden in the day time so I'm sure they are eating bugs and worms and such along with their medicated feed. The lettuce and seeds are still laying down there. They don't seem interested. They must be interested in finding a worm or bug more so. Now my neighbors chickens (big) eat table scraps and anything else I throw out.

Have they tried it, at least?

 

[jonezjollyfarm]

Mine seem to be able to tell the difference in food I grew myself and food I bought at the grocery store.... they prefer the store bought. Little heifers. Lol they are also quite good at stealing food. I was sitting outside in a lawn chair enjoying a muffin one afternoon and one of those little turd pecked me right in the bottom startling me and causing me to throw my muffin which was gone in seconds.

 

[MissChick@dee]

Sometimes you need to introduce a new food a couple of times.

 

[JedJackson]

At 6 weeks they are more interested in high protein foods like insects and worms, rather than greens and grains, because they need lots of protein to grow. I bet they'd eat meal worms if you put them out. Later on their diet will even out and grains/greens should be a hit.

 

[cmom]

They are still quite young. They are probably more interested in their crumbles. Maybe try meal worms. I give a scratch grain mix with BOSS and rolled oats. At first they inspected and ignored it but then one would start pecking at it then another would. Eventually they figured out that this was good stuff. I did put some chick grit in their feeder with their feed so they have access to some grit. They are not to keen on the greens. My older birds love the greens.