What treats do you give your chickens?

[Devyn Nagy]

Almost any left-over food scraps that we eat, overripe or slightly stale food. We also give them chicken scratch regularly. Not much food scraps go in the garbage anymore!

 

[Iheartbirds]

My 2 girls are free to forage all day in a very rich, weedy yard, so they find their own treats. I don't give them a lot of any treat at one time. Very rarely table scraps, but they love berries, grapes, plain yogurt, mung bean and lentil sprouts, raw pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, cracked corn. They get a little of some of that a couple of times a day. I've noticed that when they forage, they strip seeds from some plants and eat the greenery from others, so I only cut my yard once a summer for them and for pollinators and my leaves stay where they fall. Every few weeks I go to the bait shop and buy crickets. I throw a few on the ground and they have a ball chasing them.

 

[micstrachan]

My flock got fat on pasture seed, so they get few treats. Currently, they are getting fermented feed and either alfalfa sprouts or wheat sprouts. During molt they get beef liver. In the summer they get watermelon. I also recently discovered one LOVES fresh blueberries, so I’ll need to add them to the list! If I really need a good bribe, sunflower seeds or live meal worms do the trick, but those are quite rare. I had a starving hen (from molt) recently and tried all kinds of things. She ended up liking (unsalted) canned corn among other things (like live crickets!)

 

[BlackMountainMan]

My old flock went absolutely crazy over chopped ham. I'm dead serious. I had all sorts of chicken treats from the store, mealworms included, but they would literally fight and steal pieces of ham from each other's beaks. They could sense when I had some for them because they'd run and crowd my legs, sometimes jumping up at me, until I dropped it on the ground for them to go in a frenzy over. I couldn't just give them a whole piece either. Ended up having to chop them into small squares as one would try to steal and gobble the whole thing down before the others could get a piece of it.

Once I establish my new flock though I'm not going to bother with any treats. Whatever they find in the grass and on the ground will be their treat.

 

[NicevilleJenn]

And all the big farm stands give massive price cuts on pumpkins after Halloween, so you can score a large squash for pennies on the dollar.

What a fantastic idea to buy leftover pumpkin from the patches! I keep reading of people giving their chickens pumpkin, but we don't really eat fresh pumpkin so I thought my girls were just going to miss out. Thank you for the tip!

Newbie here so please forgive the question, but I've seen several references to "BOSS." What is that?

 

[NicevilleJenn]

During molt they get beef liver.

What a wonderful idea! It drives me crazy when our hunting party throws away the deer liver; all that nutrient-rich meat going to waste. They all love my eggs, so there's going to be some give back going on now, by cracker crumb!

 

[Brooks_]

I've seen several references to "BOSS." What is that?

Depending on context, it could be black oil sunflower seed or the "boss" chicken.

 

[NicevilleJenn]

Depending on context, it could be black oil sunflower seed or the "boss" chicken.

Black Oil Sunflower Seed, then. I feel the big "Duh" coming on.

 

[Iheartbirds]

What a fantastic idea to buy leftover pumpkin from the patches! I keep reading of people giving their chickens pumpkin, but we don't really eat fresh pumpkin so I thought my girls were just going to miss out. Thank you for the tip!

Newbie here so please forgive the question, but I've seen several references to "BOSS." What is that?

Pumpkin seeds are beneficial in more ways than one, not the least of which is that it's an anti-parasite food.

 

[micstrachan]

What a wonderful idea! It drives me crazy when our hunting party throws away the deer liver; all that nutrient-rich meat going to waste. They all love my eggs, so there's going to be some give back going on now, by cracker crumb!

That sounds like a great plan!