Can my chickens eat...

[baby ruth]

hi all,
Quick question, can my chickens eat honeydew melons and strawberries? What about banana and avocado? I gotta say, sometimes it's really hard for a noob like myself to find consistent answers to these questions lol. I wont even dare ask chatgpt lolol

 

[Icemaiden]

hi all,
Quick question, can my chickens eat honeydew melons and strawberries? What about banana and avocado? I gotta say, sometimes it's really hard for a noob like myself to find consistent answers to these questions lol. I wont even dare ask chatgpt lolol

They'll enjoy melon or strawberries in the summer, but should only be given a small amount. Fruit is high in sugars & fat hens won't lay eggs. My hens won't eat melon in cold weather. They haven't had banana or avocado.

 

[Icemaiden]

At least 95% of their diet each day must be good quality layers' pellets, with unlimited fresh drinking water. Only feed them treats later in the day, never first thing in the morning. Otherwise they'll fill up on less nutritious treats rather than their balanced diet of layers' pellets.

 

[JoshB]

I feed my hens melon rinds and strawberry tops without issues. There's banana peels and avocado peels in the compost but I never see them eating that stuff really. As was already said, it's most important to provide a good quality diet and offer the nutritional stuff first. Most of your table and kitchen scraps will be ok for your hens.

 

[baby ruth]

thanks for the feedback everyone!
What about mushrooms and and carrots? Raw or cooked? Does it even matter?

 

[Icemaiden]

My current pullets like a few carrot peelings, but none of my girls have ever eaten chunks of carrot, nor mushrooms. If it's veg, offer them a little on several consecutive days & see whether they eat it; if not, you need to be prepared to pick it up & throw it away.

They tend to be suspicious of anything the first time that you offer it to them, but if they're still not interested on the third occasion that you offer it, I'd take it as a "no thanks ".

 

[Asimov I]

I've tossed out both raw and cooked carrots and been fine. My hens tend to leave behind the stuff they don't care for. Usually onions or sour citrus like lemons or limes.

Anyone have experience feeding rice and bread? It really isn't much and never uncooked rice but we do occasionally have toast scraps or crust from bread in our compost/kitchen waste.

Maybe we need a thread of things NOT to feed lolol. There really is so much more that's safe than not

 

[JoshB]

I've not had any issues with small amount of bread and cooked rice.
Also my hens love pineapple rind and strawberry tops in small quantities.

 

[Cab]

hi all,
Quick question, can my chickens eat honeydew melons and strawberries? What about banana and avocado? I gotta say, sometimes it's really hard for a noob like myself to find consistent answers to these questions lol. I wont even dare ask chatgpt lolol

Melon and strawberry will be fine, as will banana, including the skins (just pop the banana open so they can see it). Avocado flesh is fine, the seed and skin of the avocado not so much, they contain a toxin called persin. So scoop out the flesh.

As for how much... Its a good idea to give hens something fresh to keep them busy and interested but don't go mad.

We pick up a box of scraps from our greengrocer every weekend, we're good customers there so they put aside stuff that's past selling. So our hens get access to all sorts of stuff. Its quite a good idea to give them constant access to greens to supplement their pellets, so cabbage, cauliflower greens, broccoli, spinach, all of thats good. Then if there are apples, bananas, pears, soft fruit, our rule of thumb is an apple or two for the 6 of them, a few handfulls of berries, quarter of a big melon or half a little one (seeds in, they love them), that's about right as a treat for the day.

When there are carrots in the box they'll eat them if they're cooked, and you oughtn't give them raw potatoes. Anything hard that they won't like, bung it in a bowl, cover it over, cook it it he microwave, let it cool, mash it, mix some up with layers pellets and they'll go mad for it. Again, be sparing with treats and think about how to use them to keep the chooks coming back to what you want the to eat.

 

[Cab]

As an aside, there's a really old home wine making trick where you boil carrots and parsnips in water, take the veg aside and mash it, add sugar to the water and ferment it to make wine, and take the mash and make it into jam, mix it in with dough for bread, or even just eat it if you like over-cooked veg. When do this I usually give it to the hens mixed in with greens and/or layers pellets over about a week.

 

[Henrietta]

hi all,
Quick question, can my chickens eat honeydew melons and strawberries? What about banana and avocado? I gotta say, sometimes it's really hard for a noob like myself to find consistent answers to these questions lol. I wont even dare ask chatgpt lolol

Hello there,

I understand that avocados are not good for chickens. There are some weeds that they shouldn't eat also - but as someone has already pointed out - good layers pellets (I get the bantam size as all my girls can eat them) - are crucial as their main diet. I give them some scratching corn mix once a day and a few sunflower hearts. Greens such as cabbage, lettuce, dandelion etc. go down well and I skewer some cheap apples and push it into the ground - they disappear fast. Melons and squashes also liked but its a case of being proportionate. In the winter I will sometimes cook a potato and give it warm cut up and/or some cheap frozen sweetcorn that they love.
One of my girls, a Frizzle hybrind bantam is now 13 yrs plus and two others are pushing towards 8 yrs old. I clean the coop of poo every day and pick as much off their run as possible. Because it is a large permanent run I periodically spread a safe disinfectant powder on the ground as well. When they stop laying they become my garden pets! Hybrids alway seem to last longer than pure breds or those bred for laying.
Am lucky as an independant vets not too far away has a bit of of a chicken expert (worth seeing if you are bothered) as if they become sick - I do prefer to get them treated or humanely put to sleep.

 

[igor's hump]

Is there any harm in feeding my hens the eggshells from their eggs that we use in the kitchen??

 

[Shadrach]

Is there any harm in feeding my hens the eggshells from their eggs that we use in the kitchen??

I think many who feed eggshell back to their chickens bake the shells in an oven and then grind them into small pieces. Baking them should kill off E-coli for example/