why won't my chicks eat scraps?

[VirtueChick]

My 7 week old chicks aren't eating any of the scraps I put out: papaya, banana, strawberries, lettuce, beet greens, warn oatmeal, radishes, etc. Are they too young for scraps? Should I be cutting them up into tiny pieces? Should i be adding some of the feed & mixing together? I don't want them to just east feed...What am I doing wrong?

 

[Judy]

Probably they are afraid of them, oddly enough. You could try either of the ideas you mention. I found that very small amounts sometimes helped, too. Be persistent; eventually they will figure out those are goodies!

 

[nellynelly]

give them less feed.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Treat scraps as dessert. The regular chicken feed gives them a balanced diet. A little other stuff won’t upset that balance but the chicken feed should be the major part of their diet. To eat that stuff, they need grit too.

I like this following story to show how they can be afraid of new things. A few years back I gathered a yogurt cup full of corn ear worms while harvesting my sweet corn. I dumped that cup of caterpillars in front of about 20 ten week old chicks that had been free ranging for a couple of weeks.

Those chicks stayed well back and looked sideways at that pile of worms. A few started inching very cautiously forward. A worm wiggled! Run away! Run away! In a bit a few started cautiously approaching that pile of worms. They crept a bit closer. A worm wiggled! Run away! Run away!

This kept on for several minutes until one finally got close enough to grab one of those worms. That’s all it took. That whole pile of worms was gone in just a few seconds.

Just be patient. They will eventually figure it out.

 

[VirtueChick]

Thank you. .. that helps. I want scraps & free ranging to be their primary diet (rather than feed) though I'm happy to give them SOME feed daily.

 

[VirtueChick]

One week later & now they're eating almost anything I put out: papaya, honeydew melon, apples, strawberries, cucumber, cooked turnips, leftover corn cobs, even a couple leftover steamed clams!

 

[KarenFoster]

Glad your chicks are eating their veggies and stuff. What kind of chicks are they?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Keep in mind chickens don't have hands or teeth so anything that isn't soft enough to bite chunks off of need to be cut up into bite size chunks. That would be quite small for 7 week olds. Things like broccoli, cabbage, radishes, etc. have to be chopped up or they'll ignore them.

Ridgerunner is right about the balanced diet. I understand wanting them to eat scraps and forage. It takes a very rare large pristine pasture in prime growing season to provide optimal nutrition for chickens. Nearly 100 years of exhaustive research has gone into poultry nutrition. I give grower feed free choice until they start laying and layer free choice after that. Mine do free range as soon as they want to venture outside but except for late spring and summer there isn't enough to sustain them. There's no protein in the field in winter.
Insufficient protein and they won't grow or lay well. Insufficient vitamins and minerals can cause a litany of problems like slipped tendon, roup, rickets, infectious anemia, fatty liver syndrome and prolapsed oviduct just to name a few.
Parasite load, infection and environmental stress like temperature extremes can make even the perfectly formulated rations insufficient.

Mine get all the scraps but with 40 to 80 birds, there's never enough to go around. I give a lot of meat and fish scraps too.