What snacks DON'T or chickens like???

[Critterwoman]

I know that potatoes are toxic to chickens, but I wondered about sweet potatoes? Are they bad too? And popped popcorn, is it OK?

Thanks for all the input. I love it! Don't want to feed my girls something bad for them. That would just break my heart if I lost any due to me trying to be nice to them.

 

[Critterwoman]

I gave up on feeding my girls pellets. I switched to grower and then layer crumble. Seriously, they starved themselves for three days on pellets! Silly girls...

I switched from crumbles to pellets because my girls were eating me out of house and home on the crumbles. They are cage free and have my whole back yard to meander in. I do give them treats occasionally. I can't do it everyday or they will run me over when I go outside for anything!!! BTW, gave them popcorn today and they loved it! Wanted to know when the movie started.

 

[Clucky Lucky]

I just took a pot of wild arugula outside, and the girls tore it up. I like to grow food inside in the winter, and had decided I did'nt much care for arugula, but the girls really enjoyed it.

 

[shadow rabbit10]

My four girls are just eight weeks old and I keep trying them on different things but so far they won't touch tomatoes or bananas or grower pellets!!  They go crazy over any meat scraps, yoghurt and crumble.  How can I get them to eat their pellets?  Is it just a time thing?

I always used crumbles, especially for young birds. Most if my birds are bantams, so I still use crumbles over pellets. My large Orpington is fine with the small size, maybe you birds will like it too? My birds never really loved tomatoes either, but they do eat bananas (still not their favorite). I never really feed my birds meat, with the exception of shellfish and fish.

 

[animallover505]

frozen artichoke hearts. They hate frozen artichokes.

 

[venus]

Thanks for that reply on crumble. I've found a supplier that does "grower crumble" and wondered if I should give it a try. He suggests to use it up to point of lay at 18 weeks whereas I was originally told eight weeks for the normal crumble. Maybe I don't need to panic just yet then!!!

 

[MetallicBlue]

Well not realizing that they weren't supposed to have potato skins, I gave them some, but they didn't like them.

There's a chart that I will be using as a guide on this site.

This morning's left overs are biscuits and gravy. So I took the girls a small plate. They seem to like it.

 

[Jipus5]

they really dont need too many treats when they are young. Once a week I would say. More as they get older. I tend to place Kale and the yogurt in a blender. Once grinded i stir in a bunch of raw oatmeal. cooked and ground up potatoes, and/or rice. Any table scraps, chopped up fine as well...so when I place it all on a toast pan and place it outside, they will get the nutrients from it all no matter what they chomp at.
Just remember rice alone has very little nutrients for them in it at all. Raw Kale, Broccoli, cabbage, etc have the good vitamins they need so try to include it as well. White potatoes are to be cooked before feeding it to them. But sweet can be given in any condition, i personally cook it for them cause I serve more of a mash blend of things.

 

[grinchis40]

My finicky chickens won't eat much in the way of scraps like I've been reading. Anything bread related they'll snatch out of your hands. The burned popcorn and unpopped kernals were gone. They won't touch raw cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes... Maybe cooked. I'll have to try with some leftovers. They haven't discovered the compost pile. Maybe they are just weird little moochers. Not looking forward to the spring and gardening season though. Guess that's where I'll use my extra chicken wire.

 

[katsdar]

My girls and boys won't eat worms, what chicken doesn't eat worms, now give them to the 4 week old chicks and they are toast, but the big red wrigglers are safe with the big birds. They just look at them like, yeah right you eat it.