Caring for chickens involves making sure they get the right nutrients. Chickens need plenty of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients daily to stay healthy. But did you know that chickens also love getting treats? Like any animal, they recognize that not all food is the same. While chickens can’t taste sweet or spicy flavors, they enjoy various treats such as fruits, vegetables, and other healthy options.
Giving your chickens treats can add variety to their diets, preventing boredom from eating the same food daily. Treats can also provide extra vitamins and nutrients and help keep your chickens entertained. Read on to discover what kind of treats your chickens will love and the benefits they provide.
Chicken Treats for Variety
Although not as sensitive as human taste buds, chickens can taste salty, bitter, and sour flavors. They can’t taste spicy or sweet, but they do appreciate variety in their diet. Aside from their usual grains, offering treats can make your chickens happier and healthier. However, research before giving kitchen scraps, as some foods can be toxic to chickens, including raw green potato skins, raw or dried beans, avocado peels and pits, uncooked rice, citrus fruits, and leaves of tomato, pepper, and potato plants.
Just as people dislike eating the same meal daily, chickens enjoy variety. Treat them to leafy greens like kale, spinach, lettuce, cabbage, and fruits such as watermelon, strawberries, and blueberries. Vegetables like beets, cucumbers, squash, and broccoli are also favorites. Since chickens can’t taste spicy food, sprinkling red pepper seeds or flakes around their scratch area can be beneficial. Red pepper contains capsaicin, which helps disrupt worm colonies and fights bacterial infections, while also boosting egg production and enhancing yolk color.
Chickens may prefer drier foods like bread, crackers, rice, and cereal, while avoiding softer, wetter options like mashed potatoes.
Treats for Extra Vitamins
Adding treats to your chickens’ diet can boost their vitamin and nutrient intake. Store-bought feed mainly consists of grains with some protein and calcium, but healthy treats in moderation can provide additional nutrients. Leafy greens such as kale, spinach, lettuce, chard, turnip greens, cabbage, and collards offer vitamin C, beta carotene, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and manganese.
Chickens will also enjoy late-season or bug-ridden cucumbers, tomatoes, strawberries, squash, and pumpkins. Allowing chickens to roam your garden can help control pests while providing nutritious treats.
Protein is vital for egg production, growth, and overall health. Increasing protein intake, especially in chicks and growing pullets, is important. As colder months approach, higher protein levels help produce thicker feathers and increase body mass for warmth. Feeding chickens boiled and mashed eggs (including the shell for added calcium) or live/dried mealworms can quickly boost protein intake. Chickens also love earthworms, crickets, lawn grubs, grasshoppers, beetles, and other insects.
In summer, frozen fruit puree or juice makes a refreshing and nutritious treat. Freeze puree or juice in zip-lock bags, then place them in bowls for your chickens to peck at, enjoying the cool treat while getting extra vitamins.
Treats to Keep Your Chickens Entertained
Bad weather can keep chickens cooped up, leading to boredom. Treats can help keep them entertained. Hanging a whole head of cabbage inside the coop can keep chickens busy pecking. This can be done with other vegetables and fruits as well.
Drilling holes in a plastic bottle and filling it with scratch grain or chicken feed can also entertain chickens. Placing the bottle outside the automatic coop door provides a surprise treat in the morning. Frozen corn or other vegetables can keep chickens cool and entertained in the summer heat.
Conclusion
Store-bought scratch grain and laying mash are common chicken foods, but chickens also need other vitamins, proteins, and nutrients to stay healthy. Offering treats like greens, vegetables, fruits, bread, grains, and kitchen scraps in moderation can make chickens happy and boost their overall nutrient intake.
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