What Kitchen Scraps Your Chickens Can And CANT Eat! Some Are Toxic For Chickens!

After having chickens for over 50 years, I can assure you that you can give them anything...if they aren't supposed to have it, they leave it on the ground and it turns to compost. I have had chickens die of old age, owl attacks, dog attacks but never from any food. They are not nearly as dumb as people think LOL!

that's not kitchen scraps.. that's a veggie/fruit platter 🤣

I can tell you something about apples. We had an orchard in our yard when I was a kid. Our chickens ate lots and lots of the fallen apples seeds and all. We never had an issue with them at all.

Intelligence is knowing tomatoes are, in fact, fruit. Wisdom is knowing they don't belong in a fruit salad.

Our chickens have their own garden. All the fun stuff, what really gets them excited is when I cut a head of broccoli and clip it to the fence so they can peck it to oblivion. Broccoli always gets the happy dance. They also love it when they get oatmeal with berries and meal worms.

Chickens are smart, and they know what to eat, and what not to eat. What they don't eat they scratch into the ground and it makes compost. Don't make this harder than it has to be.

You have not seen a free range chicken swallow a field mouse, if you worried about a grape 😊

Old wives tale that seemed to work was adding red pepper flakes in their feed helps them lay better. I used to put about a tablespoon in a feed bucket a couple of times a week and those hens laid like crazy. I got out of chickens a while back but now with the price of eggs, I just went and got a dozen pullets a few weeks ago and am enjoying the heck out of them so far. Much love from North Carolina.

TIP: In the summer when I have extra cucumbers, tomatoes, berries and melons. I freeze them and put in Wal-Mart bags or containers. In Sept and Oct when most veggies are gone. I give it to them on hot days.

When I don't have a garden, I buy a head of cabbage every week and hang it in their lot for them to peck at. They love it!

We live in the desert and in the summer we go on scorpion hunts with our chickens. Lifting wood piles, garden pots, etc, to find the bugs and scorpions underneath! We haven’t seen a scorpion in our house since getting chickens during the “lockdown”. 😉 we also feed them frozen watermelon during the summer to help keep them cool and they LOVE it!

As far as Peppers are concern, My birds do not care for them. But I add dried Pepper flakes as a dewormer.

I've had chickens for years. One tips that I give everybody is to skip the layer feed. Instead feed all of your chickens, grower feed. And have oyster shell available on the side. In a separate container. Chickens need a lot more protein than they get from layer feed. And they don't need the extra calcium in the layer feed when they are in molt or when they are too young and the roosters don't need it either. Increase protein makes their molts, less severe and quicker. Good drastically decreases the chance of feather picking and egg eating. I've been doing this for years and it works beautifully. I also feed kitchen scraps. They can eat darn near anything. Except sweets and oil. I don't give them any of that. But any fruit and vegetable and any meat they get.

My chickens had not started laying. A guy at a feed store told me to feed the Jalapenos. All I had were the sliced in juice. They loved them and started laying 2 days later, and no the eggs were not hot. lol Also when the quit laying thier first year (no molt). I gave them peppers and they havent stopped. They are now a year old. Out of 5 hens I get 4-5 eggs daily.

We had 1 rooster that was flogging me very harshly & then started blooding the dozen hens he had, because he was so rough mounting them, the coop had blood splatters everywhere. So, we processed him & yeah, i baked him & the hens ate it up! Revenge. Lol

I collect a few days worth of scrapes and put it all in a food processor. They love it and leave nothing behind. Its also a good way too feed their eggs shells back to them without them knowing about the shells.

re: peppers/chiles (which BTW are a true berry, so they are a fruit not a vegetable) I grow chiles as a hobby. Several years ago some of my hens got into the garden and devoured my Chocolate Habanero - chiles, leaves and many of the stems. My ladies love chiles, what they don't care for at all is celery.

Just turn them loose in your garden/orchard/flowerbeds and what is missing but by the next day is what they love.

If you're a home brewer, give them your spent grain after brew day. My chicks go freakin bonkers over that! I also give them the pulp from the juicer and they love that too!

You made my day, to know that some folk demonstrate excellent care of their chickens, not to mention their quality of life. Sadly, there are millions of birds, that are not so fortunate.