What do you feed your chickens?

[archeryrob]

Our chicken have layer feed and get to free range in the afternoon. They get food scraps from us and the neighbors. The neighbor has been processing peaches and brings buckets of peach skins, stones and scrap. plus cleaning out their freeze for get all the salmon they brought back from alaska. So dumping corn cobs, mixed veggies and anythign else and they eat most everything.

I dump it on the compost pile outside their run and they clear out and eat what they want.

 

[want2know]

Besides their later pellets (we actually just switched from crumbles to pellets), mine get pretty much everything. We have a bucket and all our edible scraps go in there.
Our chickens have their coop inside a huge fenced in yard. In the corner of their yard we have a compost pile. I dump everything on that pile. The chicken bucket goes on the pike, I clean out the coop it goes on the pile. Grass clippings go on the pile. Fall leaves go on the pile. Everything compostable goes on the pile and the chickens eat what they want if it and what they find eat becomes fertilizer

My chickens too, have run of my compost pile. They love it.

 

[HAPPYCHICKENLADY17]

I feed mine cracked corn, but they also really like kale, tomatoes, and strawberries.

mine love kale also, and collards and bananas..most berries and not a big fan of pineapple

 

[EdenHallow]

I’m thinking about getting pellets instead of crumbles. The crumble bag I last got had so much fine ground food in it seems like a waste. Do you think pellets are better? I’ve been buying crumbles bc in my mind I think that they can digest it better. Not sure if size matters here.

We got pellets because we were down south visiting my husbands family and we found it on sale at a local farm store. Pellets were way cheaper that crumbles ($8 a bag!!) so we grabbed a few of them.
The chickens like them just the same, and I feel there is less waste.

 

[Pekin747]

Fryed spuds my muscovys and rirs gi mental for them
And then brown bread when I move new arrivals into a flock for some reason they just seem to do it better if its during the day this way

 

[slejdad]

So far we've made some chickens real happy with meal worms, crickets, peaches and what seems so be their favorite summer treat, whole kernel corn in water frozen in muffin pans. They love pecking at the ice to get the little kernel of goodness out, and I think it really helps cool them down on a hot summer day. They had no use for the cucumber we tried feeding them though...

 

[want2know]

mine love kale also, and collards and bananas..most berries and not a big fan of pineapple

None of my chickens have ever liked bananas?

 

[Karen Glatz]

My girls get all flock food and oyster shell plus -

I get a mix of lentils, split peas, flax seed and rolled oats from the bulk grocery and mix it with sunflower seeds and freeze dried meal worms for scratch. I have blackberry vines and grape vines, they love both fruit and the leaves. Also blueberries and peaches. I have sunflowers and I thin the plants out as they are coming up, the hens love the leaves - I tie a few stalks to their fence and they pick them to the sticks. They also love watermelon and cucumbers and strawberries. Also, lettuces and swiss chard.

For protein and calcium I give them either cottage cheese or salmon carcasses that have been pressure cooked until the bones go soft (50 minutes). There is quite a bit of meat on the bones and when it's cooked I freeze it and give a little each day.

Looking at this, they eat better than I do. LOL

 

[Cshaw97216]

What kinds of fruits and veggies do you feed your chickens? So far we’ve found they love green beans, strawberries and zucchini. What are other good things to feed them?

My hens love grapes, watermelon and cracked corn. They also get their laying pellets

 

[Cshaw97216]

My girls love watermelon, grapes and cracked corn