What do you have for us today, Human?
The girls get spoiled regularly. If you are reading this on the Saturday Morning when this post is set to publish, it is likely that what you see in this post photo wise is what is going on out in the chicken pen right now, although the treats might not be exactly the same..
Strawberries, 2 eggs cooked up, tuna
The Snoskred Chicken Treat Rules –
1. Must be something I would eat myself
– with two exceptions – bugs – Chickens LOVE bugs! and hot mash made from the chicken pellets.
While there is absolutely NO way I would eat eggs, tuna and strawberries at the same time let alone together in the same dish, I would eat every one of these things by themselves. These are the exact same foods I would eat.
The strawberries seen here were from a batch I had been putting in my mineral water that week.
The eggs were two I took out from the laying box that had just been laid, they were still warm. I took them inside, mixed them together, put them in my one decent non-stick frypan and cooked them without oils or fats.
The tuna is expensive tuna that I regularly buy for myself, it is given to the cats and chickens for an occasional treat. The chickens love tuna and will scoff that down before any of the other treats provided, no matter what else is given to them at the same time.
2. Must not involve empty calories.
Terry at Henblog wrote about empty calories here – Thin-shelled Eggs, Old Hens, and The Miracle Diet Cure
If there are leftovers which might be suitable for the girls, fantastic. That would mostly be things like greens in our house. They might get the bits of cauliflower I don’t use. There is a long list of things that chickens should not eat, for reasons. I always check the Chicken Treat Chart before giving them something new, though sometimes other sites give conflicting info on what foods chickens can and cannot eat..
The girls never get bread, or pasta, or pizza crusts. I no longer feed them mealworms because I found red mites in with the mealworms I was buying from local pet stores and those things are not fun for chickens. I do throw them bugs that I find when gardening, and some of the girls find more than their fair share of bugs daily just by scratching around.
The girls eating lactose free yogurt when they first arrived home
They do sometimes get lactose free yoghurt – it MUST be lactose free, this is important, chickens cannot digest lactose – and they LOVE that shit. Seriously. They love it more than mealworms. When I give them LF Yoghurt, the trumpeting and bagerking and happy chicken sounds that go on can be heard for miles.
There is one other important Snoskred chicken treat rule.
Food must be served in two dishes – preferably recycled plastic containers that have been rinsed out and saved for this purpose.
Why two dishes?
This should mean that the hens lower down in the flock will get a chance to grab some treats from one of the dishes when the other girls are busy feasting. It is a nice idea in theory and it occasionally does work out this way.
What usually happens is all the girls flock around one dish, then move to the other dish once they get bored with the first dish.
Rosie Rosecomb is the lowest girl in the pecking order – mainly because she still does not realise she is a chicken most of the time – and while she does get in and grab a few choice treats she usually waits for the others to move to the other dish so she can peck at the first dish without getting attitude from the other girls.
Here are some more pics from this Chicken Treat Moment.
My apologies – the sun was extremely bright that morning even though it was still winter!
HEY There’s tuna in here!
More on what to feed – and what not to feed – chickens here –
