Winter Treats for my Chickies

Hi all, Well I have decided to pen up the Chickies for the winter. I let them run loose for most of the summer. They behaved pretty well didn't do much damage to either the Veggie Garden or the Flower Bed, stayed on our property and away from the road. But now with the colder weather I'm not outside all day like I was this summer. In the summer months they had access to lots of bugs, worms and vegetables now their diet is limited to mostly layer crumbles. I would like to give them some treats that would replace what they are no longer getting. Do any of you provide winter treats for your birds?

I do. I bought some bales of second and third cut of alfalfa. I put one bale in their covered outdoor run and they tore right into it. I broke open some fall pumpkins and they went nuts. We eat a lot of salads so I keep all the trimmings and peelings for them to eat. I bought a bag of black oiler sunflower seeds and give them some of that along with some leftover pond fish food pellets. We give them cracked corn along with their layer mash and throw in a little bit of oyster shell. We have a lot of apple trees and picked a few bushels of them in the fall. We keep them in cold storage and throw some of those in their run every day. I also bought a big bag of carrots that was sold for deer food for $4 and we put some of those in there. We switch around and whatever we have extra we give to the chickens. This morning they got two pieces of raisin toast that didn't get eaten. Sometimes the fruit market will have things like spinach greens marked down cheap and I'll buy that for them or a cheap head of cabbage. I enjoy giving them treats. They are still laying good. I have 12 hens and get 10-12 eggs daily.

Thanks Loon, I only have the 3, more like pets but 2 of them are laying. They loved the pumpkin I gave them but they were still being turned loose everyday at that time. I have some brussels sprouts that never got harvested still growing in the garden and I pulled several of those today and tossed in. I hadn't really thought of kitchen scraps, ours usually goes in the compost but that is an idea. I was wondering about a suet cake?

You could pull the whole plant out and they'll eat everything but the stalk. I did that with my broccoli plants and even the asparagus ferns when we cut them down in the fall. I don't know about the suet cake. I hadn't thought of that. They do need extra calories to keep warm when it's very cold out. Just don't over feed them so they get too fat or they'll quit laying eggs for you. Mine love cabbage and anything in the cabbage family. They loved the squash I put in there this summer from the garden. I finally have someone to take all the excess zuchinni. :) The treats should be treats though and their main food should be their laying mash since it has all their calcium and vitamins they need to be healthy. I've thought of starting a worm farm in the basement in winter so I could give them extra worms when the ground is frozen. I've never grown worms though so I need to research that. :)

Brenda

I went to a Bird Watchers lecture a couple of years ago and they talked about growing your own meal worms. They grew them for Blue Birds. I thought it was an interesting idea and not too messy but never did follow thru with it.

Some winters we are able to grow collards fall through the spring. The big leaves that I don't eat (the rest of my family doesn't like "greens" the way I do) get rolled up like a cigar, then I make thin slices across the roll that turn out looking a little like worms. The chickens gobble these up. It is a free, nutritious, easy to grow treat/food for them when most other plants are not growing. Sometimes the weather is so cold it completely kills the collards to the ground. In those years the chickens get winter grass and chick weed to supplement their feed/pellets.

Meal worms are so easy.

Get a tall kitchen trash can and some meal worms from a pet store, if you can. A 'can' of oatmeal, and an occasional(one every two weeks) apple, halved. Let some of the worms(larvae, actually) turn into beetles, for more babies. A new 'can' of oatmeal every two or three weeks.

I had this set up for two years, lots of mealworms, and clean

That is great to know, Molamola! I have always wanted to raise mealworms...

And I grow Swiss Chard all winter here in Northern California for the chickens...and myself.

We had a pretty big snow storm the last two days. Big for our area, I know it won't sound like much to those of you in more northern areas. Between16-18 inches at our house. My winter pen worked out pretty well. I had covered 2/3 of the pen hoping to provide a dry area and I had put down straw for them to pick thru and keep them out of the mud. I was given a straw bale so I am using that. I was thinking that if I get a bale of hay it will have more seed heads and give them something more to pick at. It's a small pen but there are only 3 of them. I went down yesterday and cleaned off the top. There was some slight drifting at the one corner so I piled the snow that came off the roof along that corner and kept it from drifting in anymore.
I had been picking the Brussels sprouts and the big leaves and tossing them in every couple of days and they have been cleaning them up. All the good suggestions you all have given me really helped. Sometimes I get baby carrots that get let too long in the fridge I was thinking if I ran them through the food processor that would shred them just about right for the Chickies.
Molamola, What all did you use your meal worms for? I had talked to a couple of birdwatchers last year that mentioned raising them in 5 gallon buckets to feed to bluebirds. That gave me the idea that I could raise some for the Chickies in the winter. I might give it a try after the holidays are over and things get back to normal.
Here is Sally and Henry,


This message was edited Dec 20, 2009 9:39 PM

The mealworms were just for one pet aquarium fish, an Oscar. Looks rather like a pretty bluegill/crappie/panfish. I had lots of extra worms.

With the oatmeal/apple. you could have, if you have un-freezing space, three 5gallon buckets, and shuffle the beetles and little worms to a new bucket, and give the chickens an old bucket occasionally, full of worms. It'd take a rather big operation to feed a flock of chickens, but a few, say up to five or six, could get a nice bit of fresh protein once a week, or so.

I have a pretty good size African Cichlid he would eat some and I could put some in suet if I made my own for the birdfeeders. As well as my 3 Chickies.

I enjoyed that fish, he recognized me, hid from other people, kept an eye on what was going on in the whole room, ate worms from my fingers, liked to have his back rubbed, and bit the cat's nose the ONE time the cat leaned over the aquarium looking in.

I did get a small tub of meal-worms. Ric said they cost about $3. My GS was here and we took them down and hand fed them to the Chickies. Who knew that hand feeding chickies could be such fun? LOL Sometime in the next couple of weeks I'm going to try and start raising meal-worms. My son has about 2 doz hens and I can give him the extra or use them in a suet mix for my bird feeders. I'm sure my fish would like them, too.
Funny it is so different when you have Chickens for pets. Many years ago I had a dozen hens just for eggs along with several other barn animals. They were well taken care of but in an entirely different way. I had friends over for our Christmas diner and they visited the Chickies while taking a smoke break. They raise animals like we use to and have a dozen or so chickens for laying. They got such a kick out of my pampered chickies with their straw covered yard and thick pine chip bedding. Not a feather out of place. LOL

OK, a plan: trash can, they can't climb. Two boxes of old fashioned oatmeal. Put in a bunch of mealworms, and half an apple, for a treat, cut side down.

Let this just set, it'll take a while for the mealies to turn into pupae, then little black beetles. Mealies aren't really worms, they're larvae.

Then the beetles do their thing, lay eggs, then the little mealies grow. They are a commercial 'crop' because all this doesn't take so very long, six weeks to a couple of months. I'm guessing. You'll see tiny little mealies, and watch them grow.

Once your 'farm' is going along, add a new box of oatmeal every??? three weeks? when the old turns more into powder. and a half an apple every so often. This never got stinky at all when I did it.

This system can last indefinitely.

Thank you Molamola. This should be fun.

Yes, I don't remember the beetles getting out all over the house... So that's not a problem

I remember last year when I first heard about raising them that they said they are very clean no smell and no mess.

Chickens need more grains in the Winter time. It is higher in carbs and helps keep them warm. I feed some grain all year long but as it gets colder, they are running to get their grains, they know what they need. Anytime their poop is runny, they need a little grain to balance out the protean. The best way to check an animal's health is to check their poop.

I've always watched the cows' poop where too solid means lack of protein, but I never knew that about chicken poop, thanks Kenboy.