Is there any food you can't, or shouldn't, feed a chicken? I want to make sure I don't hurt or kill my girls and the Colonel. :) Thanks for your help!
Glenda ~:>
Is there any food you can't, or shouldn't, feed a chicken?
I feed my girls everything except, meat, and onions.
Yes, Glenda_Michigan there is this pine tree called hemlock ( I think that's how you spell it.) , it's really poisionous to chicken if eaten. The branches of this tree have small needles, they look almost like a pine. Some people use just PINE to keep the chicken busy in the cage, when left there.
Good luck
This message was edited Dec 20, 2006 6:34 PM
I think you can give your girls meat too. I gave mine old shrimp & they
enjoyed it quite a bit. My friend says her's love beef & beef fat.
Tam
I've given mine meat on several occasions. It dosen't seem to hurt them. Probably a lot like the protein they get from eating worms.
Seems like I read something a while back about apricots or apricot pits ? not being good for them. Wish I could remember..................anyone else know ?
I heard that potato peels aren't good for the ladies.
PINE is GREAT for keeping gals busy in the winter.
I heard from one of the local chicken farmers that before heavy equipment, when a horse died, they would sometime drag it out into the chicken yard and within a month or less it would be picked down to bones. I think chickens eat basically anything and they will probably know enough to stay away from anything that isn't good for them. ( within reason of course)
I've fed my girls moldy macaroni salad, which they loved, and lots of carbs, fruits and veggies. They love grapes and mashed potatoes. They love apples. They aren't crazy about carrots and broccoli, unfortuanately! I was going to slip them my veggies so the DH wouldn't notice I still am like a little kid when it comes to veggies! haha.
They are omnivores, obviously. The thing about peach pits is they contain cyanide. Probably don't want to feed them that.
I know of one breeder who feeds his birds
"Gaines burger"
The dog food
and I know mine have eatten canned dog food and canned cat food too.....I didn't give it to them but
who am I to tell them NO
hasn't hurt them
I think in the wild they ate meat
my parrots do.......
Yeah, I think they'll eat anything, including each other if given an opportunity. Once I had a couple of baby chicks in a pen with some older hens. They were babies that one of the hens had hatched out. She protected them, so none of the others bothered them. They weren't picked on like they would have been if just put into the pen.
Anyway, I say all that to say this... lol. ......... One of them died somehow and I needed to get him out of the pen. My DD ran out of gas and I had to leave and take her some gas so I figured I'd do it when I got back. Surprise.......... when I got back , they had eaten it all up. I guess it was a tender little chicken nugget.
Ever feed your chickens left over spagetti noodles? It's hysterical! They love it. I give my chickens lots of table scraps, but mostly I give the meat and eggs left over to the dog. I've been told feeding the chickens meat will make them aggressive. Whenever we go out to eat I bring home all the leftovers in a to go box and give it to the chickens. Whenever I clean out the refrigerator the chickens eat very well.
During the summer when I have lots of tomatoes in the garden, I give the chickens all the tomatoes that have bug holes or get overripe on the ground. I've noticed that my chickens seem to lay more eggs when they eat tomatoes!
my chickens love their spaghetti also! but i wash most of the sauce into the compost
because my sauce is heavy on garlic and spices and i dont want my eggs smelling
or tasting of garlic. ewww
bugs are meat? worms are meat? so my chickens eat meat. ewwwwww
I don't go out of my way to feed them meat, mostly the dogs get it, and the
bones and gristle gets burned, not even composted.
That note about the chickens picking a dead horse clean is too much info.
I know my girls get excited about a piece of banana, but, an entire horse??
I guess buzzards do their thing, so why not chickens?
Be careful of mouldy foods, you don't want to spread ergot around. Lots of
medicines have ergot in them, but some people cannot tolerate it and will
have allergies to it I have heard. I do think that ergot is incubated on chickens
eggs,injected into the egg and let to grow before its extracted somehow.
I think vaccines are done like this too. Its all a great mystery to me.
Take care!
sheri
We had a cheesecake left over from the holidays that I just found in the back of the fridge yesterday. It was too old for us to eat (although it still looked pretty good) so I gave it to the hens. That was a hoot. I just put the whole thing down on the ground and watched to see what would happen. They had cheesecake all over their beaks, stuck everywhere ! And just kept on gobbling it up ! Soooo funny ! Not a care in the world, except how much they were enjoying their New Year's treat. Hmph ! Wish ' I ' could eat cheesecake like that ! Now I know where the nursery rhyme......... 9 - 10, big fat hen .......came from. LOL
Peggie, you inspired me! My gals LOVED the old cheesecake we still had in the fridge!
I've also given them some slightly funky shrimp cocktail. The girls are so refined as they run around the yard squawking with shrimp in thier mouths! haha!
Thanks everyone for your help! You've given me some great ideas, and the info I need so that I won't hurt or kill my chickens. I will watch out for the hemlock, garlic, onions, etc. Reading all your stories makes me want to cook a bunch of spaghetti and a cheesecake!! ...Maybe I'll save that for when the grandkids are here. They'd get a kick out of watching the girls and Colonel eat spaghetti!! Last month, one of my frizzles died. She was always the small, weak one and from the time I got her I figured she wasn't long for this world. Well, the morning that I found her dead, she was "intact" but they had picked EVERY feather off of her on both sides of her body! ...I'm guessing for entertainment????
Well, thanks again! You all are the best!!!
Glenda
No not for entertainment sometimes for the protein content.
also, young ones will peck each other, but get over it if you
keep them busy with other stuff and enough room.
tonight its below zero here, chickens in the roost all
squished up and warm. my ducks and geese brave it
out though. they won't go in the chicken coop.
sheri
Yeah, it's the same here. The girls want no part of going outside. The only direct exposure my coop has to the outside temps are its two doors - they have heavy wire mesh like a screen door. The coop is under a massive lean to so no rain can get to them but the temps can. So, I covered the doors with a 'doubled up" blanket, and I have a heat lamp inside the coop with them. The heat lamp does a good job of taking the edge off the freezing temps. The coops' window even has frost on the glass. On days and night like these, I take them things to keep them entertained. They seem happy!
Oh, I always keep oyster for them to eat for extra protein, besides what they get in their laying feed. Would they still peck at a dead chicken for protein if they already have unlimited protein available?
I'm not an expert, but I think they would. They are canabals by nature, and usually are curious about anything in their pens. They seem to pick and peck at anything, just for the sake of pecking I think. Then if it happens to taste good, yum. I had some chickens completely eat up a baby chick that died in the pen, bones and all. These are some fat-n-sassy old hens that get way more to eat than they need. Some of the things my chickens do, never cease to amaze me. They're funny animals. I guess that's why I like them, never a dull moment.