Veggies

Hi everyone! I was just curious does anyone give their chickens veggies everyday? Or just a couple times per week ?
Ours free range, so in the spring, summer, and fall months, they eat a lot of grass, weeds, and Kale from the garden.

In the winter, we'll buy a bunch of Kale about once a month, as they love that and it's extremely healthy. We tried freezing ours, and they didn't like that as well, so we'll buy it for them, rinse it, then hang it in the coops so they can reach up and snag pieces off of it.
 
Ours free range, so in the spring, summer, and fall months, they eat a lot of grass, weeds, and Kale from the garden.

In the winter, we'll buy a bunch of Kale about once a month, as they love that and it's extremely healthy. We tried freezing ours, and they didn't like that as well, so we'll buy it for them, rinse it, then hang it in the coops so they can reach up and snag pieces off of it.
Mine generally ignore veggies in favor of fruit, but one thing I read that I have found is true, at least with mine:

Chickens often don’t quite know what to do with loose green veggies, like bundles of kale lying on the ground. It needs to be anchored in some manner for them to tug on in order to tear off pieces of leaves.

This can happen two ways: they eat living plants rooted in the ground, or you pin down the long stalks and leaves with a brick or cinder block weighting down the root end.

Before I started doing this, mine would grab a leaf, run around the yard pursued by the others, and then drop it because she couldn’t get any purchase on it. 🤷🏼‍♀️
 
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Hi everyone! I was just curious does anyone give their chickens veggies everyday? Or just a couple times per week ?
We are in the desert and the ground is just empty dirt so there's nothing for them to forage. In addition to their feed pellets we give them fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables nearly every day: spinach, kale, broccoli, wheat grass, corn, peas, blueberries, cantaloupe, etc. Keeping chickens in the desert is expensive!

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We are in the desert and the ground is just empty dirt so there's nothing for them to forage. In addition to their feed pellets we give them fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables nearly every day: spinach, kale, broccoli, wheat grass, corn, peas, blueberries, cantaloupe, etc. Keeping chickens in the desert is expensive!

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Do you have time and can part some of your effort into keeping a vege garden? Even at where we are, we have to irrigate the vege patch if it does not rain for more than a day. Chicken manure is one of the best organic fertilizers.

That is, of course, if you have any rain water in a dam or water tank(s) to spare.
 
Do you have time and can part some of your effort into keeping a vege garden? Even at where we are, we have to irrigate the vege patch if it does not rain for more than a day. Chicken manure is one of the best organic fertilizers.

That is, of course, if you have any rain water in a dam or water tank(s) to spare.
Wheat grass is the only thing I've been able to grow reliably and that is in containers. We don't have any topsoil so we have to buy all the soil for a garden, that is also expensive but I would definitely like to grow more! I've tried moringas twice but they wouldn't take. I'm going to try again next year because we'd really like them for the chickens and ourselves.
 
Wheat grass is the only thing I've been able to grow reliably and that is in containers. We don't have any topsoil so we have to buy all the soil for a garden, that is also expensive but I would definitely like to grow more! I've tried moringas twice but they wouldn't take. I'm going to try again next year because we'd really like them for the chickens and ourselves.

Have you tried sweet potato? It doesn't need to be watered often once the root is established and it does not have high requirement for the soil.

Our roosters eat sweet potato leaves and vines because that's our main crop on the hobby farm.

Besides, you get to harvest sweet potato once a year.

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Wheat grass is the only thing I've been able to grow reliably and that is in containers. We don't have any topsoil so we have to buy all the soil for a garden, that is also expensive but I would definitely like to grow more! I've tried moringas twice but they wouldn't take. I'm going to try again next year because we'd really like them for the chickens and ourselves.
One thing to maybe plan for is to create some of your own soil, with the assistance of your ever-helpful chicken poopers. Soil (in terms of gardening) is a combination of inorganic materials from your underlying rock profile plus organic material from plants and animals, including dead leaves, grass clippings, food scraps and, yes, chicken poop 💩.

I am guessing that your desert soil is highly alkaline and infertile? (I’m east of the Mississippi, so a totally different pedology.) Chicken poop is acidic and high in nitrogen, and this might partially balance out your alkaline soil. It’s possible that with time, patience, and some organic soil amendments from your chicken coop bedding and run litter, you could start building your own soil. Your county Extension Service could probably give you some advice here, especially Extension Master Gardeners, if you have a local program.

I have bought a ton of Fancy Dirt™ in my gardening time, and any time that I can build my own soil instead, I’d much rather do so. It’s not a quick process, but it’s really satisfying!
 
It was the corn, then, which is a grain and not a vegetable.
That really depends though - corn can be classified in different ways depending on who you ask or how you use it. Botanically speaking, it's actually a fruit. Culinarily, it's a vegetable if you eat the kernels while they are still soft (like sweet corn on the cob or in a can). It's considered a grain only when it's fully mature and dry, the kind you feed to livestock. So if corn scraps from what the humans ate were fed to the chickens, then yes that counts as vegetables, and can make the chickens fat since corn is high in carbs.


Really? What vegetables are you thinking of that could make a chicken "fat really fast" when fed in sensible amounts?

I'm familiar with the idea that chickens confined to a run might not self-regulate in the same way chickens allowed to range would, if they only have access to very limited food options, and that it might be best to limit the amounts of certain foods they're given since they maybe can't be trusted to do that themselves. This is the first time I've seen it suggested that too many vegetables are likely to make chickens fat, though.
As I explained above, corn is considered a vegetable in the way people eat it, so if it came from human food scraps, then it's a vegetable and can make chickens fat since it's high in carbs. Chickens are drawn to the sweetness and may not be able to regulate themselves. Other vegetables that are high in sugar/carbs and can make chickens fat include root vegetables (beets, carrots, sweet potato etc.), legumes (peas, beans, lentils), squashes etc. "Vegetables" is a large category that extends far beyond the leafy green low-calorie things we may first associate with the word, and a lot of them can overload the chickens' diet with unnecessary calories if fed frequently or in large amounts.
 
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I guess our chickens are weird or just spoiled - not sure which. We have kale growing in the garden which is open to them to come and go as they please but they have never eaten kale leaves in the garden. If I cut them up in manageable bite size pieces as part of their salad, then they scarf it. Same goes for spinach which grows like a weed down here and winters over.

The treats we provide are via shaker cup when we want to return them to the run during the hottest part of the day for water and rest and these are supposedly "organic". If we were to adhere to the consumed in 15-20 minute rule, they would be eating over a pound, way more than the recommended maximum of 10% daily allowance. I simply toss about a tablespoon size here and then over there so they split up and everyone gets some, theoretically. The Cinnamon Queen hoovers everything up so fast it's literally gone in about 45 seconds. Sheesh. They don't always get treats. Sometimes I spoof them and just shake the cup. I definitely hear about that as I'm walking away - 🤣
 
If we were to adhere to the consumed in 15-20 minute rule, they would be eating over a pound, way more than the recommended maximum of 10% daily allowance.
That's why I don't like that rule, and am not even sure it's a "rule", rather just something being tossed around, potentially borrowed from other animal species care (like pet fish - feed as much as they can clean up in X minutes, because there's no other good way to dose their food). The experienced keepers recommend the more precise guideline of 10% for treats for chickens, and that's a lot more realistic. The 15-20 minute rule is way too vague and depends on too many things - what kind of treats, how are they being delivered, how many chickens are eating them, how fast are the chickens eating, etc. - a WIDE margin of error, and a wide variance in the calories potentially consumed. High calorie treats like scratch grains can be inhaled in large amounts within seconds, vs. plucking at greens stuffed in a treats cage can take a lot longer for far fewer total calories consumed.
 

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