What's YOUR chickens' favorite treat?

[treblesinger]

My chickens go bananas for bananas! I peel them, cut up in small bug size pieces, and put them in a pan of milk. They gobble them up! They also like strawberries, tomatoes, apples, and pasta. I know it is important that most of their food is layer rationto be sure they have the nutrition they need to make good eggs so I feed them from the table just as a treat. Those girls will sit on my LAP and eat banana out of my hand lol. My sister left some KK doughnuts at my house and my husband and I are diabetic so those doughnuts had to GO someplace other than our tummies...my very thoughtful chickens thoroughly enjoyed those too. They do not like cabbage or celery at all, but do like salad greens and grass. We are currently trying to grow our lawn (new house) so I can't let them out on it. I have been picking handfuls of wild grass for them and they enjoy that. When army worms destroyed our first attempt at seeding our lawn (I went from a green carpet of new grass to barren almost overnight), the chickens had lots of protein for a couple of days. Every time hubs or I found one of those %$#%$# worms, the chickens obliged us by taking care of them too! I have seen them eat all kinds of bugs of course. Their favorite treat from the store is dried meal worms. The go more nuts for that than the bananas. Having chickens (5 girls and 1 roo) has been a great experience for us so far and those eggs are SO GOOD....nothing like the pale, pitiful, basically flavorless eggs from the store. My girls and roo are happy chickens with plenty of room, a clean coop, fresh water, and good food and treats. They sure have paid the rent so far with those eggs and provided countless hours of entertainment with their antics and personalities.

 

[Heron's Nest Farm]

Tomatoes!
And melons.

We are a farm and my neighbor has an organic farm as well. He gives me all his leftovers from market that would go to the compost pile normally. This summer during the height of melon harvest it was not unusual for me to pick up 200lbs of cracked melons. My hens would gobble them down. They now recognize the totes I carry on the back of my golf cart trailer and begin talking as I drive up!

Right now I am scooping up the last of the 600 bed feet of Roma tomatoes every day for them. As the weather is changing I feel confident their little systems are charged with vitamin C and anthocianins!

 

[Santa Glenn]

Think I just invented the best Chicken sundae ever. At least my birds love it. Recipe: Some plain Greek Yogurt mix in a teaspoon of food grade DE and a Tablespoon of dried mealy worms. Serve like its an ice cream sundae and watch how your chickens will go crazy for it. The yogurt helps their digestive systems. The DE worms them naturally and the dried mealy worms even though healthy are the sprinkles !

 

[bigt447]

Better do some research on DE. Scientific studies I have read show that DE does not, can not, kill internal parasites. If they ate enough to kill worms by dehydration, it would kill the chicken by dehydration of their stomach & guts.

 

[Santa Glenn]

I have done a lot of research on DE but never seen the information you just shared. By far the contrary. Thank you for bringing this to my attention I will dig deeper in my research. So far my chickens , cats and dogs are extremely healthy and I am not using worming medicines only DE. BTW we take food grade DE for ourselves too.

 

[Pattycat]

My husband and I just fenced off some of our chicken's land to plant fodder seeds. we are going to do this all over our chicken grazing area so that we can keep these girls going for the whole summer, especially because we live in a dry area which keeps the natural vegetatian at bay. We are looking forward to watching these girls and boys take off towards the fodder as we change the yards for them. I don't know how this will work but we are only going to do this a 1/4 acre at a time, they will have the other 3/4 acre left to roam. Right now there are only 5 of them so this won't cause free range to be too impeded. I guess I am really worried about taking their freedoms away. Crazy me.

 

[SVTechChick]

We're new to this, only a month in, but the girls hated banana! Loved grapes, cut up broccoli stems, apples, sunflower seeds and peanuts, cooked Brown rice, melon. I've been cutting up fruit and veggies that are a bit past their prime or scraps each day, and with the exception of the banana, they've scarfed it all. But by FAR their favorite is sunflower. They run when they hear me shake the canister!

 

[Crankles]

Our girls' favorite treat is by far cucumbers. I'm planting quadruple the amount I need for canning this year, just so I can spoil the girls all summer long! The older girls didn't like meal worms, but we'll try them again with the chicks are a little older.

 

[SVTechChick]

Grapes! Grapes! Grapes!

Followed by beet greens (they eat EVERY last bit including the stems) and black sunflower seeds (premium bird seed)!

 

[csaylorchickens]

Grapes and blueberries. They hate cabbage or any other greens besides grass for some reason. Won't eat scratch or corn either lol