Chickens health

[pepper1000]

I know of someone keeping chickens, they have never cleaned out the run, they put the dirty hay from the house into the run and just leave it, they feed them whole pizza and large amounts of mashed potatoes every day, the food is all rotten in a huge pile, they don't lay eggs anymore and the chickens never make any noise, I am getting quite worried about their well being , all they have is mud to walk on and now living with this huge pile of rotten food, this can't be healthy for them, is it ok to feed them mashed potato and pizza, i thought they would need proper chicken feed

[Ms-T]

No it's not ok to feed them mashed potato and pizza, and yes they do need proper chicken feed.

[burnie]

Sounds like some needs to be told how to keep them, maybe a call to the RSPCA would be a good place to begin.

[Nicos]

I agree about calling the RSPCA...it’s also illegal to feed chooks kitchen waste on top of what you are describing...Poor things.
It would be helpful to take photos.

Are others concerned? Might someone offer to rehome them?
Might someone be prepared to run through how to actually care for them properly?...They may just be unaware.

I suspect they may not be laying eggs because their diet is wrong...or they are just very old ....

[Grafitti]

Sadly from reading other posts on a chicken keepers fb group, you'll be lucky if the rspca show up and do anything.
I would hope that their treatment is just down to ignorance. How long have they stopped laying for, as they might have shut down for the winter.
It's definitely illegal to feed them that pizza and mashed potato if it's been cooked inside, but personally I think that law is wrong, as that same pizza left uncooked is legal to feed them.
A knee jerk over reaction to the mad cow disease spread by feeding undercooked/raw catering waste, blanket banning anything fed to chickens that has passed through a kitchen. I think it's fair it applies to commercial producers, but how can the same logic apply to someone with a couple chickens boiling up some veg peelings or pearl bakery, or giving them a head of lettuce.
A much better approach would be to inform and educate on what is suitable to feed them and proper preparation methods. Because as it stands, I can make food that is good enough to serve to my kids, but somehow is a danger to the chicken.

[Plot70]

On our allotment site some keepers grow veg to feed to there hens. They love cabbages.
They love to run around with a big bit of gristle out of a large beef stake or the fat from a pork chop.
The important thing is to make sure they have plenty of corn based food with a few layers pellets added.
There is no harm in a small amount of kitchen scraps mixed with wood chips for them to scratch in.
Changing the wood chips every so often creates a pre started compost material that is useful and obviously soaks up any mud in wet weather.

[pepper1000]

These chickens are now being fed meat and ready meals every day, food waste is lying in the pen, it is a local authority house , I contacted them as its their tenant, they said they investigated but found no food waste, it is full of tinned corned beef , battered fish, ham , tinned meat balls, and this is put in about 3 times a day. I also contacted environmental health and they said there is no law on what food waste can be fed to them, it smells terrible never cleaned out and is full of flies, but no one is going to do anything

[Snoop Puss]

There are links to useful information on backyard poultry in this document issued by DEFRA. You'll be able to quote chapter and verse when/if you get in touch with Environmental Health again: http://apha.defra.gov.uk/documents/s...y-guidance.pdf