What treats can I give my chickens daily? Should I even give my chickens daily treats? These are all great questions that relate to your flock’s homestead diet! Chickens are natural scavengers, and they will at least try just about any food you give them. It can also be fun to spoil our homestead flocks with special treats every day when we see them scurrying to great us with the treat bowl! However, a chicken still needs a balanced and nutrient dense diet in order to stay healthy and productive. Whatever a chicken eats will impact its health. Learning about what foods to consider a treat for your flock and what foods can be a safe daily snack for your flock is important for feeding them a balanced and nutritious homestead diet.
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Chicken Treats vs Snacks for Chickens
Let’s start off by doing a quick review of a homestead diet for chickens. This is fundamental for explaining why treats and snacks can still be a valuable part of your flock’s diet but also emphasizes why they should be a controlled part of your flock’s diet. Here are the basics of a homestead flock’s diet:
- Base Ration– your flock’s daily, nutritionally balanced feed provided free-choice all day long, ideally a mash or whole grain feed
- Snacks– foods that add nutrition to a flock’s diet and are a natural part of a chicken’s diet
- Scraps– a form of treats that are often fed on an as-available basis, usually reflects your diet in the form of table and kitchen scraps
- Treats– foods fed on occasion that are not essential to a chicken’s diet
- Supplements– foods added to your flock’s diet to achieve or maintain a specific health condition
- Forage– natural foods that your flock free-ranges for themselves
As you can see, your flock should have access to a nutritionally complete base ration at all times. This will ensure that they have access to all the dietary elements, vitamins, and minerals they need on a daily basis to stay active and healthy. Any other foods either add nutrition to the diet or compromise the diet (for the better or for the worse depending on the food).
To learn more about choosing the right feed for your flock, check out Picking Out a Homestead Chicken Feed. To learn more about natural supplements or the benefits of free-ranging, check out How to Use Chicken Feed Supplements and 8 Reasons Why Chickens Should Free-Range.
For now, we will focus on what foods to consider treats and what foods to consider snacks for the homestead flock:
Snacks-
Snack foods promote overall good health and add nutrition to the diet. They also help add variety to a chicken’s diet and won’t take away from the daily nutrition provided by the base ration. Snack foods are usually considered foods that would be a natural part of a chicken’s diet. They supply nutrients that are different from the daily feed ration but still essential for a chicken’s health. Snack foods can be fed in moderate amounts on a daily basis.
Treats-
Treats are foods that also should provide nutrition, however, they are not balanced nutritionally and are usually high in a single dietary element. Many treat foods contain dietary elements that are already provided by the base ration. Treat foods are best fed on as-available basis or a seasonal basis. Some examples of types of foods that would be considered treats are:
- snacks– yes, snacks are still considered treats, however, they are the healthiest form of treats you can give your flock on a daily basis
- table & kitchen scraps– only offer these treats on an as-available basis and they usually reflect your diet as well
- garden scraps– these treats are similar to forage, you can give your chickens access to the garden or pick garden scraps yourself to feed to your flock
- store bought treats– these are foods that you buy at the farm store that are specifically made and sold as poultry treats
What are Snacks for Chickens?
So if snacks are the healthiest form of treats for chickens, what makes them so special and why can they be offered more regularly than other treats?
Snacks for chickens are healthy foods that mimic a chicken’s natural diet. Think of them as your flock’s late-morning, mid-afternoon, or evening snack that provides both nutrition and energy to their diet. Your flock’s base ration should provide them with all the nutrition and energy they need on a daily basis. However, you can use healthy snacks as a fun way to spoil your flock without ruining their diet.
Healthy snacks for chickens provide supplemental nutrition to a chicken’s daily diet and compliment the diet rather than detracting from the overall nutrition a chicken should consume. They can add essential nutrients to the diet to keep your flock healthy. You can also think of healthy snacks as daily natural supplements that promote overall good health in the flock.
What sets healthy snacks apart from other treats is the fact that they can be fed on nearly a daily basis without causing a dietary imbalance (when fed in moderation). They are foods that supply essential daily nutrition to compliment your flock’s feed. Healthy snack foods should also reflect a chicken’s natural diet that it would forage for in the wild.
How Often Can I Feed Healthy Snacks to my Flock?
What treats can I give my chickens daily? The answer to that question is healthy snack treats! Healthy snacks are foods that you can give your flock on a regular basis but still in moderation. You don’t want the snack to fill your flock up, the snack should simply provide additional nutrition and energy to a flock’s diet.
In general, a few handfuls of a healthy snack on a daily basis is safe for your flock. If you want to be more specific, follow the guidelines of 1-2 tablespoons of a healthy snack per chicken in the flock. You should provide healthy snacks free-choice so your flock can choose if they want to eat the food or not.
Moderation is the key to feeding your flock healthy foods daily!
Daily Snacks for Chickens:
When evaluating whether a food is a healthy snack for chickens or not, consider what nutrition is provided by the snack, the nutrition your flock is already receiving from their feed, and the natural nutrition a chicken would seek out on its own.
Here are some healthy snacks you can offer your flock on a daily or as-available basis:
- Black soldier fly grubs & other bugs
- Leafy greens (spinach, lettuce, bok choy, arugula, etc…)
- Sprouts & fodder
- Access to forage/pasture
- Vegetables
- Garden scraps
Even healthy snacks can be further divided down into the ‘healthiest’ healthy snacks! Natural foods like greens & bugs are foods that a chicken would naturally forage for. You can offer these snacks on a daily basis. Other healthy snacks, like vegetables or garden scraps, can be offered on an as-available basis since they are foods that a chicken may not always have access to naturally.
What are Treats for Chickens?
If healthy snacks are the healthiest form of treats for chickens, all other foods are then sub-par to healthy snacks in a flock’s diet. Other treat foods will not benefit the diet as much as healthy snack foods do.
Most other treat foods are not as nutritionally complete and are not a natural part of a chicken’s diet. They may also be high in dietary elements that are already present in the daily ration. Too many treats can cause dietary imbalances if they are fed too frequently or in too large of a quantity.
Treats that are high in nuts, seeds, grains and other carbs are similar to chicken feed. However, they are not nutritionally complete to meet a chicken’s daily nutritional requirements. That means those treats will take away from nutrients provided by the feed and can cause an imbalance.
Treats that are high in fat can lead to dietary issues such as obesity and or fatty liver syndrome. Many store-bought treats are high in fat since a form of fat is often used as a binder to hold the treats together.
Treats that are high in carbohydrates will fill a chicken up, which causes a chicken to reduce its feed intake and dilutes a chicken’s daily nutrition. High carb treats provide extra energy which, if it is not used, will be converted and stored as fat.
High protein treats are the only treats that can be supplied a little more freely since chickens naturally thrive on a high protein diet. However, you will still need to be aware of the other nutrients contained in high protein treats. Many high protein treats are also high in fat as well. With that being said, high protein treats that aren’t fed in moderation can lead to too much protein in the diet.
How Often Can I Feed Treats to my Flock?
Treats can still be a part of the homestead flock’s diet! Your flock can help you sustainably take care of those dinner leftovers or forgotten pantry foods. Most treats can be fed on an as-available basis. When you are feeding your flock treats, try to stick to the rough guideline of no more than 1 tablespoon of treat per chicken. Treats should be less than 10% of your flock’s daily feed intake.
Treats should not be fed on a daily basis and the same treat should not be fed too regularly. Try to keep the treats in your flock’s diet varied. If you have large quantities of treats (think Thanksgiving leftovers), portion the treats out over several days or freeze the treats for later. When you portion the treats out over several days, it prevents the treats from constituting a major part of your flock’s diet for the day.
You can also feed your flock treats on a seasonal basis. In the winter, when a chicken may need more energy to stay warm, high energy or high carb treats can actually be beneficial (when fed in moderation of course). In the summer, when your flock may get to free-range more, treats should be limited and high-energy treats aren’t needed.
Treats for Chickens:
Here are some foods that you should consider as treats for your flock. They can be fed on an as-available basis in moderation or on a seasonal basis. For a complete list of treats and scraps that are safe for chickens, check out Good and Bad Table Scraps for Chickens!
- leftover bread products/pasta/crackers/etc…– high in carbs
- fruit– high in natural sugars
- dairy products– hard for chickens to digest
- meat scraps– not a natural part of the diet, insect-protein is more natural for chickens to consume
- fish– not a natural protein source for chickens to consume
- seeds– usually already present in the diet
- grains (e.g. oats, barley, corn, wheat, etc…)– usually already present in the diet
- nuts– similar to seeds and grains, high in fat
- high fat foods– too much fat leads to obesity
- flock blocks– not nutritionally balanced
- suet cakes for chickens– high in fat
- scratch grain mixes– high in energy, not nutritionally balanced
It is important to note that the table scraps your homestead flock recieves will reflect your own diet. If you eat a healthy, seasonal diet, then your flock will too!
Treats vs Snacks for the Homestead Flock
Hopefully this guide to chicken treats versus snacks for chickens has given you a better understanding of what foods are good for your flock to have on a regular basis and which ones should be limited. Healthy snacks add nutrition to the diet and are foods chickens would naturally forage for. Treats are any foods offered in addition to a chicken’s main diet. In the case of table scraps, they can be offered in moderation on an as-available basis. Store-bought chicken treats should be limited. By following these basic guidelines, you can feed your flock a homestead diet that keeps them healthy and helps you live more sustainably!
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by Alexa
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