what can chickens eat

[SkylaSilkie]

My baby chick likes to eat it beding. Its also funny when my chicks thinks a stick is a worm!

 

[devinthesaint]

We feed our chickens all of our juicer waste and they've never had a problem. Citrus, apple, carrot etc.

 

[knightie]

I have read all over not to give citrus of an kind... Don't remeber the why just that it is a huge don't!

I feed mine everything else (g) the pack (they aren't a flock they are a pack of ravenous creatures) a hand full of plums. That was funny.

 

[hipmarye]

Love the link to the treat page!
We take watermelons from out garden that aren't very sweet, cut them up, and freeze the piece then we give them to the girls in the heat of the summer. They love the cool treat. Also, I heard that pumpkin seeds were a natural dewormer. I don't know if that true, but our girls love them.

 

[test01byc]

In their natural setting (like a wild bird) the number one food of a chicken is grass. Second will be bugs that eat grass or bugs that eat other bugs. Third will be anything else including mice and other small critters dead or alive. Everything is fair game for a chicken including grubs and worms. Overall a chicken will eat anything that is edible. Notice that the cured seeds of grasses (such as corn, wheat, rye, oats, etc.) are not a normal staple for chickens. That's because those "foods" are seasonal and only readily available in quantity if man raises them, harvests them, stores them, and then hands them out throughout the year. Man invented grain farming and grain as a food source. Consequently grain is an inappropriate food for all animal life

 

[test01byc]

In their natural setting (like a wild bird) the number one food of a chicken is grass. Second will be bugs that eat grass or bugs that eat other bugs. Third will be anything else including mice and other small critters dead or alive. Everything is fair game for a chicken including grubs and worms. Overall a chicken will eat anything that is edible. Notice that the cured seeds of grasses (such as corn, wheat, rye, oats, etc.) are not a normal staple for chickens.

 

[test01byc]

This is important as giving high calcium (i.e. layer) rations to other chickens, such as growing chicks, can cause kidney damage.

 

[test01byc]

Grit! Grit is needed by chickens to help grind seeds in their stomach, taking the place of teeth! It can be in the form of fine gravel or small, sharp granite chips.

 

[test01byc]

The formation of egg shells requires considerable amounts of calcium. Provide it free choice as either calcium grit, natural lime sand, or oyster shell.
You can also recycle egg shells back to your hens after first washing the albumen off them (to prevent bacterial growth), then drying and crushing them.

 

[test01byc]

Commercial rations can contain some unsavory industrial waste products such as sewerage, brew yeast or citrus sludges, as well as medicants such as antibiotics or coccidiostats.