After our failure with the cabbage but success with the cantalope we decided to give the girls some watermellon. You can see they really enjoy it. It was the type with smallish seeds.
Our ladies LOVE watermelon. We discovered this the first year we had chickens. We have a friend who has a truck farm and he has told us, please come get all the left over watermelons. I kid you not, the second year they went thru 2 pickup truck loads of watermelon. Every evening we would break 4 or 5 and the girls would pig-out. They would eat them right down to the thin green skin. Hopefully we will be able to get some this year also.
I should take another picture today. When I let the girls out of the run they immediately ran to what was left and started pecking some more. It is barely pink there is so little left but they are still working on it.
Maybe we just need to plant some in the garden. I wonder if the grocery stores ever dispose of fruit that is heading south and would give it away. I would never give the girls anything moldy or truly spoiled but I would hope stores get rid of produce long before it reachs that stage.
Based on this posting and the picture we bought a watermelon today and gave a big piece to our birds to try. They seemed to enjoy it alot, even picked it clean.