wild bird food as a treat?

[mika4me]

I know it wouldn't substitute for chicken feed, but can chickens eat wild bird food as a treat? It seems like it would be nutritious, with all those different seeds and grains...

 

[banks]

Mine love it. I always throw a handful into the run when I am filling my bird feeder. They know the sound when I take the lid off the bird seed container and come charging to the fence. Silly girls

 

[lvesdg1]

i have been mixing the chicken feed with wild bird seed since i got mine they love it.... kinda makes me feel bad for them to eat the same stuff everyday.

 

[BarnGoddess01]

My chickens run directly to the wild bird feeder every morning when I let them out of the coop. They love cleaning up everything the wild birds drop including the nijer seed I feed to the finches.

 

[featherbaby]

I feed wild bird seed for a treat. I keep it in an old fish food cylinder made of plastic. When I pick it up and shake it even a tiny bit, ALL my silkies (7) line up at the opening and look up expectantly. It almost looks like a line of preschoolers just before storytime. TOOOOOO FUNNY! Then when I sprinkle it on the floor, there's a feeding frenzy that would scare a shark to death! I just love watching them!

 

[The Tinman]

Every morning mine use to run strait to the bird feeder. Unfortunatly the bird feeder was in my neighbors yard so now I have to keep them penned up

 

[BarnGoddess01]

Quote:

 

[mika4me]

Okay, great! I'm looking forward to trying it. It is so much fun to watch them run after treats.

 

[GardenerGal]

I use it as scratch. When I clean the barn in the morning, I throw a scoop of birdseed mixed with feed pellets out into their run. They dash out of the barn to get it, which leaves me with a chicken-free barn that I can clean without chickens getting in the way.

Since I have lots of bantams, I get birdseed that has either really tiny sunflower seeds or hulled regular size ones, since bantams have a hard time with the big seeds and tough shells. My local supermarket sells a cheap but nutritious blended seed with tiny sunflower seeds, wheat, milo, corn and millet. It even has pulverized calcium carbonate (good for laying hens).

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

It seems like it would be nutritious, with all those different seeds and grains

It's only about 8% protein.
It's big advantage is it's cheap most of the time, but it's nothing special nutritionally​