What is your Chicken's Favourite Food? (List 3 only)

[thailand]

Hi all,

My Brahma girls & rooster have their favourites too:

1. Grapes
2. Lamyaay (Thai fruit)
3. Black soldier fly larvae

 

[PtitePouleRouge]

Thanks for the warm welcome, Gold Coaster! I think I've finally found my peeps! (teehee)

I've never noticed a problem with weight gain, although you guessed right they are very much free range. They go for long journeys through the forest all day. Though my personal philosophy is that eating fat does not cause weight gain, instead the culprit is usually too much carbohydrate--breads and sweets and such. For chickens as for dogs and people too. But that is another conversation altogether!

I did forget to include the dislikes. They are more difficult to catalog, because how does one separate the degrees of dislike beyond the point where they simply don't eat it? Anyway, here goes.

Potato peels. I know, they are supposed to be bad because of solanine, which is probably why they don't eat them. I just throw all food waste out in the compost heap and they go through and take what they want. Which is almost everything.

Onion skins. Again, something I don't actually feed to them, but something I've noticed they ignore, and no surprise there.

Dryopteris ferns. They pick at most other ferns they find in the forest, but they leave the Dryopteris (wood fern). They seem to have good enough instincts about what to eat and what not to.

 

[edible_chicken]

Hello everyone,

I really hope this thread is not a repeat of a topic that may have been posted up in the past. However, I would really like to know what your chicken's favourite foods are. By favourites I mean something that sends them wild even if you offered it up to them daily!

I am pretty sure that once a few members have submitted their lists we will discover certain foods which form a majority consensus between chicken flocks, while other lists might provide an insight into new foods that we have yet to try and offer to our chickens!

Please list only 3 all-time favourite chicken treats, with 1 being the highest and so on. I hope this will prove to be an interesting and fun topic.

Here is my list to share:

1. Bugs including meal worms!
2. Sweet Corn (cobs or kernels)
3. Grated Cheese

Cheers,
Gold Coaster

my chickens do not like corn (kernels or cob). the only treats we give are bird seed or suet and scraps. they love sunflower seeds the most!

 

[BAROCCA]

My chooks favourites:

1. Bugs, Mince meat (somedays I think they would eat me if I stood still for too long)
2. Corn on the cob
3. Leftover Pasta

 

[lclough1998]

Just a note on the seafood, I have heard that too much can make their eggs taste fishy, shrimp included.

scrambled eggs
black oil sunflower seeds (BOSS)
noodles

Welcome to BYC to all the newbies!

on the raw meats, one of the stores here sells the chicken trimmings for making chicken stock, lots of fat, keep thinking I should buy it but think that if I cooked it up, there wouldnt be alot of meat, seems kinda yucky to feed them uncooked themselves, is that a no no?

 

[chikenzrok]

1. pepperoni
2. stale bread
3. blueberries

 

[Gold Coaster]

Hello everyone,

Hope this list helps all those wanting to treat their chickens, ducks or any other fowl! Please keep the lists coming.

Here is the tally thus far:

FAVOURITE TREATS:
Meal Worms (Fresh or Dried) = 8
Bugs = 8 (These include: Ants, Black Soldier Fly Larvae, Cockroaches, Junebugs, Mayflies, Moths, Stinkbugs & Worms)
Eggs (Boiled or Scrambled) = 7
Bread (Fresh or Stale) = 5
Corn (Kernels or Cob) = 4
Meat = 4
Grapes = 4
Grass = 3
Watermelon = 3
Sunflower Seeds = 3
Suet (Raw Animal Fat) = 3
Oats (Raw or Oatmeal) = 2
Yoghurt = 2
Noodles = 2
Azolla (Aquatic Fern) = 1
Clover = 1
Cheese = 1
Cottage Cheese = 1
Lettuce = 1
Cabbage = 1
Mushrooms = 1
Broccoli Leaves = 1
Gophers = 1
Fish = 1
Hamburger = 1
Popcorn = 1
Strawberries = 1
Tomatoes = 1
Corn Tortillas = 1
Butterfingers = 1
Cheeze Its = 1
Goat Milk = 1
Lamyaay (Thai Fruit) = 1
Bird Seed = 1
Pasta = 1
Blueberries = 1
Pepperoni = 1
Human Toes! (Stormy Autumn's Ducks) = 1

LEAST FAVOURITES
Thawed Frozen Berries = 2
Oats (Raw) = 2
Cabbage = 1
Lettuce = 1
Pumpkin Seeds = 1
Citrus Fruits = 1
Dairy Cow Pellets = 1
Potato Peels = 1
Onion Skins = 1
Dryopteris Ferns = 1
Corn (Kernels or Cob) = 1

Cheers,
Gold Coaster

 

[petitbleu88]

Cultured dairy products are a perennial favorite in my flock--yogurt, kefir, buttermilk, clabbered milk...they go crazy. Then, bugs and chickweed. I always bring my hens lots of chickweed in the spring when it grows everywhere, and I'm starting to wonder if it acquired the name "chickweed" because chickens seem to like it so much.

 

[Gold Coaster]

Thanks for the warm welcome, Gold Coaster! I think I've finally found my peeps! (teehee)

I've never noticed a problem with weight gain, although you guessed right they are very much free range. They go for long journeys through the forest all day. Though my personal philosophy is that eating fat does not cause weight gain, instead the culprit is usually too much carbohydrate--breads and sweets and such. For chickens as for dogs and people too. But that is another conversation altogether!

I did forget to include the dislikes. They are more difficult to catalog, because how does one separate the degrees of dislike beyond the point where they simply don't eat it? Anyway, here goes.

Potato peels. I know, they are supposed to be bad because of solanine, which is probably why they don't eat them. I just throw all food waste out in the compost heap and they go through and take what they want. Which is almost everything.

Onion skins. Again, something I don't actually feed to them, but something I've noticed they ignore, and no surprise there.

Dryopteris ferns. They pick at most other ferns they find in the forest, but they leave the Dryopteris (wood fern). They seem to have good enough instincts about what to eat and what not to.

Hello Little Red Hen (PtitePouleRouge)

I agree with you wholeheartedly about carbs being the worst offenders when it comes to weight gain in animals and humans. My chickens are also free-ranging so they run off their carbs, mainly sweet corn kernels and cobs and also grapes.

Your chickens must be very lucky indeed to have a forest to explore. Do you have your property fenced off? I'm just wondering how you deal with predators.

I live in the Queensland Hinterland (Australia), which is a mountainous area wrapping around the coastline. Our major predators are feral cats, wandering dogs, snakes and foxes. Needless to say, I fenced off our 3/4 of an acre backyard with a 1.8 metre high picket fence with the smallest of gaps in between each picket. It gives me a peace of mind, not to mention the chickens.

Cheers,
Gold Coaster

 

[Gold Coaster]

Cultured dairy products are a perennial favorite in my flock--yogurt, kefir, buttermilk, clabbered milk...they go crazy. Then, bugs and chickweed. I always bring my hens lots of chickweed in the spring when it grows everywhere, and I'm starting to wonder if it acquired the name "chickweed" because chickens seem to like it so much.

Hello Little Blue (petitbleu88)

I guess your chickens have a very healthy tummy flora! Probably better than some people.

You just reminded me to go hunting for some chickweed. I recall my grandmother used to feed it to her chickens. Chickweed is a very good mineral boost - a chicken multivitamin of sorts.

Cheers,
Gold Coaster