Contrary to what you might have read out there, potato skins and eggplant leaves aren’t going to cause any harm. There’s only one item that I know of that is lethal to chickens and that is avocados. Not all of the foods tossed in the compost pile are ideal for chickens, but if your hens are getting most of their food intake from laying hen pellets, then it’s unlikely that they will overeat any one item in the scrap pile. Mine don’t like raisins, and yet it’s a favorite treat for a friend’s flock. Some things they won’t eat, and sometimes it’s a matter of personal preference. They’ll eat most anything, from coffee grinds to stale toast to soggy green beans. However, for those of us who live where there are severe winters, or who keep hens on small lots, or have too many predators to allow free-ranging, you have to provide a varied diet in other ways.Ĭhickens appreciate table scraps. If you can let your hens free-range, they’ll find plenty to eat. Greens and dirt to scratch in are key components to keeping your flock healthy. However, it remains essential for our backyard hens to have a varied diet beyond the pelleted ration. A standard-sized hen will eat between 1/4 and 1/3 pound of pellets a day, if it’s the only food offered. Vegetables, Table Scraps and Free-RangingĪs good as it is, commercial feed should not be the only thing that your hens eat.
#Chicken chase full crack pc free
Like oyster shell, grit should be offered free choice. Without grit, digestion is slowed and the hens are less efficient at extracting nutrients from feed. Chickens also need grit – tiny rocks- that the hens need so that their gizzards can grind up food. Coarsely broken up oyster shell is the most easily absorbed form (even better than finely-ground.) I put it in a rabbit feed hopper, which keeps it tidy and prevents waste. So, let your hen eat what she wants from sunup to sundown.Įven though the commercial feed contains calcium, it is good to provide another source. If her digestive tract is empty she can’t make the egg. She gets the materials for making that egg from digesting food. During the night, as the hen is sleeping, she is still building that egg. They should go to bed with full crops (the crop is the pouch in their throat where the food is first stored after it is swallowed.) It takes over 25 hours to create one egg. Your chickens should have access to the pellets all day long.
These pellets should make up the bulk of your flock’s diet. The pellets have the right proportion of protein, minerals and energy for the chickens. With the increase in egg production came an increase in the nutritional requirements of the flock.Ĭommercial laying hen pellets (or crumbles which are the same thing but smaller) are designed for today’s productive hens. Instead of 90 eggs a year, a hen now might lay over 300. Chickens were bred to lay more and more eggs. But, flocks became larger and more confined. This haphazard diet was enough sustenance for them. The hens back then laid only a few eggs a week. Sometimes, in the winter, they’d be given a handful of grain. Chickens destined for the table were fattened on sour milk. The farm wife tossed stale bread and kitchen scraps to the hens. They hatched out under their mamas and were taught to look for grain in the horse stalls, and for bugs and greens in the garden. In the 19th century most chickens were barnyard scavengers. So, the question isn’t really what chickens eat, but what the right diet is for them. They scratch the ground and find bugs and specks of things that we can’t see. Chickens also eat less exciting foods, like vegetables, fruits, flowers and grass. I’ve seen a chicken snatch a toad by it’s leg and all of the other hens go in a raucous chase after it, only, at the end to discover that a toad is not good eating. That means they’ll snarf down just about anything, or at least try to! I’ve seen a hen catch and slurp down a snake like spaghetti.
What chickens eat and what chickens should eat are not always the same thing.