What snacks DON'T or chickens like???

[Ducclelover10]

BOSS and any kind of birdseed.

 

[Sandstorm495]

I find that mine love watermelon and broccoli the best. They'll go crazy over it!

 

[trochefarm]

Mine will eat very nearly anything. They love all greens, all melons, all berries and (safe) fruit. They go NUTS over oatmeal, cooked eggs, and meat. They do start getting snooty with tomatoes and grapes sometimes. Maybe because I give them those pretty often. My girls are very spoiled. (I never give them avacado, citrus, raw potatoes, or raw beans.)

 

[swga]

they enjoy rice bread,chow mein,fried rice,shrimp peels,worms,dont feed them their eggs or that will be added to your chickens favor of food,or grass

Just don't feed them their eggs raw or with recognizable shells. I crush up their eggshells really fine and give those as calcium. I scramble their eggs and cook them for them when I have one that is really dirty or cracked. They won't correlate their eggs with the cooked scrambled eggs in a bowl you give them- it looks and tastes different.

 

[swga]

My chickens LOVE carrots, but they have to be shredded. They don't like them sliced as much. They also like tomatoes, but I have to cut them open first, they don't like picking through the skin. I usually just quarter them and toss them out. Now small tomatoes, like cherubs or cherry tomatoes, they will eat without being cut.

I saw a mention of coffee grounds and a plunger. Not exactly sure about the correlation to chickens and that. Can you clue me in? Also tea bags is another hmmmm item. My grounds and bags go in the trash, should I feed them to the chickens?

Don't toss your coffee grounds and tea bags! They make FANTASTIC compost, especially if you have roses!

 

[The Howards]

SWGA is right they do make great compost...Great for flowers and gardens. I am starting to save some of my tea bags now for my garden. There was a whole other thread on here one time about tea bags and coffee grounds. Some people said that they did toss them in the run/coops but the chickens wouldn't touch them. They just basically scratched it around and composted it. Some people were worried about residual caffeine and it harming their birds. No one that I saw had found any conclusive proof of whether it is good or bad for poultry.

Here is a question (kinda off topic of food) tea and coffee makes the soil around your plants more acidic (right?), well I read that people are using pine boughs in their deep litter method for their acidic quality to counterbalance the basic properties of the poop and urine.... wonder if tea bags and coffee would work the same for it? I mean that is a lot of grounds but some people do drink a lot of the stuff!

 

[swga]

Pine boughs would take a long long time to decompose compared to pine needles. You could add pine needles to your compost pile, they really add acidity to it. There are mixed reviews on actually using them in the litter. Some people worry about the sharp ends of the needles. I grew up where there were a lot of Ponderosa pines, and walked barefoot all the time as a girl, and I never got hurt, so I think the chickens, with their tough little feet, would be just fine. However, I didn't have chickens when I lived there, so it's just an opinion.

Another note on roses... the best compost for roses are coffee grounds and eggshells (if you have more than your girls will eat). You can just put the coffee grounds and eggshells right under the roses, they don't need to be composted first elsewhere.

However, never put pecan hulls around your roses! I learned the hard way! It might make the rose beds look nice, but something in those hulls seeps into the roots and kills the roses. I saved a few, but lots didn't bounce back.

 

[MarcoPollo]

Wow that's funny my chickens will only eat broccoli an carrot leaves!! ( is that bad sence no one else's chickens r eating that or r mine just different)

My chickens eat lettuce, cabbage, and broccoli leaves in my garden, so I think there's no problem with letting them have the leaves. They love to peck those plants down to nubs!

 

[Ducclelover10]

My chickens eat lettuce, cabbage, and broccoli leaves in my garden, so I think there's no problem with letting them have the leaves. They love to peck those plants down to nubs!

Just don't give them tomato leaves, those are toxic to chickens.

 

[hennotrooster]

Mine will eat very nearly anything. They love all greens, all melons, all berries and (safe) fruit. They go NUTS over oatmeal, cooked eggs, and meat. They do start getting snooty with tomatoes and grapes sometimes. Maybe because I give them those pretty often. My girls are very spoiled. (I never give them avacado, citrus, raw potatoes, or raw beans.)

Mine are a bit snooty as well I have a foody that comes to check out what is in the bowl and if there is not enough green in there she stomps off complaining. What is the issue with avocado? I read somewhere here that their birds will eat citrus mine won't touch it. This is what their bowl looks like most mornings and they will turn their beaks if something is missing or added. This is what they got this morning and I did not cook oatmeal for them but it is in there dry and my foody clucked up a storm. I remind her she could have been laying in a factory and not having any comforts. What is your take on adding ground flax seed I do add that about 2-3 times a week?