Live Treats
Soon after we got our first batch of baby chicks we were looking on the internet to see what types of insects we could feed them. We were spending all out time watching these little girls grow up and wanted to see how each of their unique personalities responded to bait! It is so much fun seeing their instinctive hunting skills come out. If you are worried about having unfriendly chickens - feed them live treats!
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| Brown Leghorn snacking on a cricket |
Benefits
Protein! An ideal chicken diet consists of roughly 17% protein. For a healthy, egg laying, happy hen, you want to provide a great source of protein. In the wild, chickens will get most of their protein from insects. This is an easy, cost effects way to supplement your chickens diet. While they cannot survive on insects alone, they provide a healthy variety. If you are raising free range chickens that do not eat store bought chicken feed, insects are easier to come by then growing your own protein rich plants and are a more appropriate source of protein than throwing your chicken left overs from the butcher, or even worse- road kill. Insects also provide and fun and safe interaction with your chickens. It helps them learn to follow their instincts, hunt and trust your hands. There is no quicker way to get a life long friendship with your chicks than to offer them some meal worms!
No Earth Worms For Chicks
When you move your chickens outside to free range they will come into contact with all kinds of worms, slugs, snails and bugs! I strongly believe in letting my hens get at all those creepy crawlies. When they are eating "wild" grubs though, they are being exposed to internal parasites that can cause serious health concerns or even death in your chickens. When they are free ranging you will want to take precautions and periodically worm your chickens. Their are many different ways to do this, and opinions on the right ways to go about it but either way - you should be worming your flock. Young chicks are particularly susceptible to the adverse effects of internal parasites. Adult chickens have good bacteria in their tummies and better natural defenses against natural health concerns. Leave those worries for when your chickens are older, more prepared and being wormed regularly. I recommend chickens under 8 weeks old eat only store bought live treats. They are pretty affordable if you buy them in large numbers. If you raise worms or other insects in your home and can monitor what they eat and guarantee they are not infected with parasites then that is also a safe option for your young chicks.
Types of Live Treats
Chicks Under 8 Weeks:
- Store bought meal worms, crickets or wax worms.
- Home raised earthworms that do not have access to chicken droppings
Chickens 8 Weeks and Up:
- worms - wax, meal and earthworms
- crickets, grasshoppers
- roaches
- slugs
- fly larvae, maggots
- Basically anything they catch - ants, spiders, lice, mites, fleas, butterflies... the list goes on!
Hand Feeding
Within the first week we began hand feeding our chicks. They quickly turned a from frightened flock that would run to the corner and hide to curious individuals always inspecting your hands for food. By three weeks old we were giving them live treats but hand. This made them fall in love with us! Since our first batch we have gotten two more sets of chicks. These we did not spend as much time hand feeding and the difference is evident. While they are friendly and docile while being held, they do not ever approach us or eat from our hands. I strongly recommend feeding live treats, such as meal worms to your young chicks!
Grit
All birds have a gizzard which is a muscular stomach that is used to grind up food. Since our chickens don't have teeth, they swallow small stones to help grind up the food. The stones, sometimes called "gizzard stones" pass down into the gizzard to grind up their meal. Then the food can be passed back into the "true stomach". When the stones get too smooth to grind up food, they are pooped out. When you switch your chicks off starter feed or supplement their diet with treats - especially live treats - add grit to their diet. Grit can be bought at the feed store and it is just tiny little stone for your chicks to swallow. This will keep them from getting plugged up with "poopy butt". If your chicks were being raised all natural they would eat stones while foraging and would eat their mamma hen's poop to strengthen the good bacteria in their stomach.
Please share your thoughts and photos/videos of your chickens eating live treats!
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