Table scraps.

[Darwin.]

Will I be able to feed my chickens any table scraps along with their normal feed and what ever they find for themselves around the garden? If so, what kind of stuff could, I give them?

[lottie dolly]

Wwhat a good question,i have gogled,but it is always better to have it from the experiances on here,as it's tried and tested ,i to will watch this space,

[Guest]

You can feed chickens pretty much anything apart from meat. However you should only give it as a treat or you are likely to end up with fat, lazy, unhealthy chickens

[veggiechicken]

Depends what you mean by "table scraps"!

I give mine vegetable peelings. The dogs eat any other leftovers.
Layers pellets are balanced food for chooks. If you feed them people food, they may fill up on it and not get the nutrition they need to stay healthy and lay eggs.

[Nicos]

Well...officially you are not supposed to give them cooked kitchen waste.
Here in France () We tend to cook potato peelings and mash in crushed,roasted eggshells.
I do tend to chuck them the bone from a leg of lamb once I've made stock from it....they pick it clean!
Yogourt pots to peck clean,dried ends of salami....fat off boiled ham/bacon( bit too salty really)...left over rice/pasta if it's not been used within 24 hrs...that sort of thing.
Scrapings off the soaked porridge/scrambled egg pan.
Burnt bits of toast!left over pastry or bread crusts.
But officially, you are not supposed to...espesh if you are giving them to anyone else.
Best to ask

[Nicos]

As VC says....
The layers pellets should be enough with the odd treat.
Too many treats and they get fat and stop laying!

[lottie dolly]

Thanks for that info girls,i also had on mind,things i had read about winter warm treats,

Not to worry darwin,we will learn together

[Guest]

Some people cook stuff for their chickens over the winter, but being fat and lazy is a bit more excusable in those months. If I was chicken I wouldn't think about laying in winter I would be more fussed about saving my energy to stay warm

And Nicos.....how often do your girls lay with all that

[polc1410]

Well...officially you are not supposed to give them cooked kitchen waste.
Here in France () We tend to cook potato peelings and mash in crushed,roasted eggshells.
I do tend to chuck them the bone from a leg of lamb once I've made stock from it....they pick it clean!
Yogourt pots to peck clean,dried ends of salami....fat off boiled ham/bacon( bit too salty really)...left over rice/pasta if it's not been used within 24 hrs...that sort of thing.
Scrapings off the soaked porridge/scrambled egg pan.
Burnt bits of toast!left over pastry or bread crusts.
But officially, you are not supposed to...espesh if you are giving them to anyone else.
Best to ask

This is how we ended up with BSE in cows (feeding sheeps brains infected with Scrape to the cows that shouldn't be eating meat) and I think there was a suggestion the Foot and Mouth outbreak in the early 2000's may have been because of waste fed to pigs. Not sure if that was ever proven.

So I'm really not sure chickens should be pecking clean lamb bones, salami and ham fat. Its probably perfectly safe. But I certainly wouldn't want to be somehow responsible for a chicken getting some disease that might perhaps be shared into eggs and then onto others. Infinitely small risk - but an unnecessary one.

It would also mean the chicken poo becomes carnivorous poo, and the recommendation seems to be to only compost manure from vegetarians.

[Darwin.]

I was mainly thinking about cooked potato skins, heels or crusts of bread. I thought the way chickens eat mice, bugs, frogs etc. that fat or scraps of meat would be ok for them in very small amounts too.

It's over 20 years ago since I lived on a farm with chickens so I forget pretty much everything and I'm sure things have changed a little in that time too.

[Nicos]

My chooks free range over a large area, so they are omnivorous ...mice, voles, crickets, flies, toads, butterflies....as well as grass, green veg leaves, peelings....and of course pellets.
they only eat the pellets first thing in the morning for brekkie and just before they go to bed. They are rarely seen eating them during the day as they prefer to free range.

Most of my gals are too old to lay now( 7-8 yrs) but the 3 youngsters lay daily and the older ones drop an egg from time to time .

But remember- I hardly ever have left overs it gets incorporated into the next meal or frozen...it's something I pride myself on....even used lemons for juice gets grated and frozen
So they don't get many of these 'treats'

As for BSE....yup...cows are veggies and shouldn't be fed sheep.
Nor should horses eat fish , but they are routinely given cod liver oil !!!

Tis a funny old world eh??

[lottie dolly]

I was under the impression,that days gone by,the fowel were fed all scraps,corn and rummaged around,and only modern days the pellets were develpoped,so whats going on,i can see that all pellets is balanced food for their health,so how DID a fowel cope before modern methods,just my head is waking up from hibernation,and is starting to think.

[Snadger]

I was under the impression,that days gone by,the fowel were fed all scraps,corn and rummaged around,and only modern days the pellets were develpoped,so whats going on,i can see that all pellets is balanced food for their health,so how DID a fowel cope before modern methods,just my head is waking up from hibernation,and is starting to think.

You are perfectly right in your assumption LD. Chickens are omnivors just like us and will eat anything we eat.
They were kept during the last war, purely on kitchen scraps because wheat used in pellets/mash was used for bread making instead.

They love tattie peelings boiled up and mixed with mash and mixed corn. Mine also like leftover corned beef hash!
If anyone has ever seen what a chicken does to a worm, a mouse or a frog or any small creature for that matter, it woukld give Veggie Chicken a fit!

Having said that, because I'm a bit of a lazy git, mine get layers pellets, mixed corn, brassicas,dandylion leaves for worming purposes and porridge on a cold night!

[Darwin.]

My daughter is 5 so she thinks we're buying her a half a dozen little friends to play with. My Wife isn't convinced that it's a good idea at all. I think they'll be a pleasant distraction and a source of yummy eggs. If I can convince her it'll cut down slightly on the amount of stuff we put in the bins, she might be more on side with it.

[Snadger]

My daughter is 5 so she thinks we're buying her a half a dozen little friends to play with. My Wife isn't convinced that it's a good idea at all. I think they'll be a pleasant distraction and a source of yummy eggs. If I can convince her it'll cut down slightly on the amount of stuff we put in the bins, she might be more on side with it.

Its good for kids to know where eggs come from. (Chook keeping is theraputic for grown ups too!)