What Do Chickens Eat?

Well I think it is probably easier to tell you what chickens don’t eat. They should not have green potato peelings, banana skins, mouldy bread, citrus fruits, coffee filter waste or grass from the lawn mower. As you will see that means the list of what they do eat is quite extensive and believe me after 2 weeks of having chickens you will never look at left over food again in the same light.

At the end of every meal I now carefully divide the left-overs between the guinea pigs and the chickens. Left over cereal from breakfast, into the chicken food tupperware box, half eaten cookie that fell on the floor, into the chicken box, all vegetables, salad, bread, sauces, rice, cheese, fruit, cakes and their very favourite sweet corn ! I do not think twice now about getting on my hands and knees to pick up 3 grains of fallen sweet-corn from under the table instead of reaching for Mr Dyson the hoover as I see how much joy one single grain of corn can bring the chickens. When we go out to restaurants and cafes Keiana is never a big eater and now (much to the embarrassment of my husband I might add) I take a little bag with me and when she is full she declares’ the rest is for Maisy and her friends mummy’. When I look around at the left over food on other peoples’ plates I just pray that all restaurants have a flock of chickens outside as it breaks my heart to see so much food wasted.

As well as the fresh food they get access to grain each day, are allowed to eat the shrubs, insects, worms and grass in their run and also I give them the left over egg shells which they adore and are apparently are good to help them form harder shells on their own eggs. We place all this food on an extra large plate (actually the lid off our water collector) as it is best not to put it directly on the ground but believe me your children will not learn wonderful table manners by watching chickens eat.

They are straight away in there with there feet, clawing backwards and sifting through to find what they like best. We have since adopted another family of three chickens, this time white Chinese Silkies and little Snowy had a bright orange Mohican for 2 days after she dived right under my box when I was emptying some left over baked beans on to their plate– it did not seem to bother her, rather – good I’ll save that bit for later!
 
Author: Shelley O´Brien who lives in Belgium and has just joined our gardening forum for some great advice on chickens, pointer dogs and guinea pigs, she has kindly donated us some great content for the blog to help others with their wildlife :) Thanks Shelley, we appreciate your wonderful words of Chicken wisdom!