What Do Backyard Chickens Eat
As an experienced chicken owner i can proudly say that healthy productive and happy chickens are as a result of what they feed on.
What do backyard chickens eat. Raw potatoes can be poisonous to chickens. Member buff hooligans put together a wonderful treat chart with a list of safe treats for chickens such as food scraps vegetables and the ever popular mealworms in his handy chicken treat chart. In warm weather or cold the primary food for backyard chickens should be layer feed.
Feeding weeds to your chickens is a great way to feed chickens for free but to find even more check our our post. A great guide to keep the girls happy and prevent some chubby chicks in your backyard. What do chickens eat depends significantly on the types of chickens you are feeding and whether you are raising chickens for eggs or growing chickens for meat.
Layer hens are omnivores so can eat a wide variety of different foods. Feeding your hens or chickens a complete and balanced diet is essential to making sure they stay happy and healthy. This not only gets rid of weeds but feeds your chickens at the same time.
Here s a chart of treats that chickens love and a guide as to how often they should be fed. But when times are hard or at a point where you realise chickens cost more to feed than you thought it helps to know which other foods chickens can eat which are still nutritious. What do chickens eat everyday treats.
Ideally chickens should be fed on a mix of a balanced commercial feed with other food used as occasional treats. This can include anything besides beans garlic raw potatoes onions and citrus. You can feed them beans garlic and onions but the eggs might taste funky.
One of the most satisfying things to feed your chickens is the weeds that pop up in your yard and garden. Included on many lists as toxic for chickens we do feed cooked potatoes. Well wonder no longer.
So what do backyard chickens eat. A good quality commercial poultry feed should be the main component of your hens diet to make sure they get all the nutrients they need. In this case the microbes do the same thing for the chickens that they do for us.
As this table shows growing chicks have high protein requirements and those being grown commercially for meat need the most. Typically backyard and small farm chickens also eat food scraps from the farm household. We don t eat potatoes raw and neither should the birdies.
So what do chickens eat when it comes to occasional treats. So what do chickens eat. For your backyard chickens to stay healthy they need a diet that is complete and well balanced.
Chickens are omnivorous and can eat most of the same things we eat but certain things such as salty food and overly sugary snacks such as candy should be avoided.
