Many first-time chicken keepers ask a common question: “Can I feed my chickens table scraps/leftovers”? We have recently had several people email and ask us this, so today, we are going to delve down and take a look.
Believe it or not... waaaay back .. when people were more self sufficient and kept a couple chickens in the yard for eggs/meat, there was NO commercial feed, you threw them some oats, some corn and if you had any scraps from a meal they got them too...
Circa 1924: By the ordinance,people owning chickens may dispose of their garbage by feeding it to them. But non-owners of chickens are supposed to pay their 75 cents per month for garbage collection. The garbage collector Jack Keck complained that people who had no chickens fed their garbage to the neighbors chickens.
I recall reading somewhere this person who kept chickens noticed they tasted off when they were fed rodents directly (I think it was possums, it was odd enough that I recall that) so she started letting the dead rodents decompose and feeding her chickens the maggots instead, which led to better tasting chickens.
My chickens caught a mouse in the coop one time and ate him....pretty much alive, so table scraps are like dessert
ReplyDeleteI take the mice I've trapped in my sheds and throw them to the chickens. They swallow them whole after they finish fighting over them.
DeleteBelieve it or not... waaaay back .. when people were more self sufficient and kept a couple chickens in the yard for eggs/meat, there was NO commercial feed, you threw them some oats, some corn and if you had any scraps from a meal they got them too...
ReplyDeleteMine prefer worms and bugs and scraps to chicken feed anyway.
DeleteCirca 1924: By the ordinance,people owning chickens may dispose of their garbage by feeding it to them. But non-owners of chickens are supposed to pay their 75 cents per month for garbage collection. The garbage collector Jack Keck complained that people who had no chickens fed their garbage to the neighbors chickens.
ReplyDeleteGotta love what once was small town America.
I recall reading somewhere this person who kept chickens noticed they tasted off when they were fed rodents directly (I think it was possums, it was odd enough that I recall that) so she started letting the dead rodents decompose and feeding her chickens the maggots instead, which led to better tasting chickens.
ReplyDelete