What do you use to entertain your chickens in your run?

[Monk]

Scratch feed and cabbage on a string, kinda like teather ball.

 

[AkTomboy]

Quote:
*** Can you provide the directions on how you make the homemade suet block and flock blocks? Please!!!! ****

I've seen Peck-A-Blocks on the web, but can only get them in the UK. They cost about $7 - $9 but to get them shipped brings the $$ up way to high to make them an option.

Sorry I have not checked back in on this thread in a long time

I hope I can help yall out I dont measure so much as just add and dump from what I have. As you know they will eat just about anything. Here are a few recipes that I started with from what my mom did while growing up. I then just wing it from there. I use a crockpot on low to melt my googies but you can use a pot with the burner on low/med. I also use the fat off of my moose, caribou or dall sheep for my suet if you dont have access to animal fat you can use any crisco vegi type for your suet.

Suet blocks

Add 2 cup crunchy/creamy peanut butter, 2 cups of fat/crisco into a crockpot and let sit until its a liquid

In a large bowl I mix my dry parts I use wild bird seed, cracked corn, dry fruit, sunflower seeds, instant oats, and anything else in the house I think they would like for this batch.

Then I grease any sort of pan 9x13, 8 in round anything you wish to use. I then pour or laddle in my liquid and the dry mix, mixing them well untill the pan is full and the dry mix is now covered in the melted suet packing it tight.

I then let them sit to harden or put in the freezer.

Once hard I will take them out and put into freezer bags and freeze what I dont use. The parts I do use I will put into the large suet baskets or place them on the ground in the coop. They are always gone in a flash!!

Flock blocks

Again not so much a recipe just whatever is around.

I use wild bird seed, rice, sunflower seeds, oatmeal, peanut butter, kitchen scraps, even meat, nuts, scratch just about anything I mix in a handful of eggs to help bind the dry mix. Or even old bread and water instead of eggs to bind.

Then place in the same greased pan set up as for the suet blocks. Only I then put it into an oven set at 350 for around an hr. I pull them out when they are nice and hard and smell super good.

Some times I use cob in them just for an added treat.

After they are cool I treat the same as my seut bolocks. Although I also will put drill a hole or use a small bunt pan to make it easy to have a hole in the middle to hang them in odd places making the girls chase them while they peck at it.

I hope that was understandable.

 

[Centralflafred]

Well I just came back in from the coop and found out something. My girls will leave the 16% crumbles in the dirt for cracked corn.

I guess we now have a new game.

 

[RioLindoAz]

I have my chickens in a small/ish run, so boredom catches on quick.

To keep my chickens entertained I

Keep a large dust tub in a sunny area for them to socialize while having fun.
I have a tall pot with long bermuda grass they're still working down.
The perches are real tree branches, not dowels. The branches are rigid and un-straight, so its a challenge for them to settle down and finally sleep. (dowels can cause blisters wich are unsightly to judges)

 

[jerseygirl1]

On a prior page, I saw marhsmallows - Is it OK to give them marshmallows?

 

[bigoakhunter]

Glad I posted this thread as, I have gotten many good ideas and way more responses than I expected. BYC Rocks! My chicks will only benefit from all your good information.


Keep them coming!