What Can Chickens Eat? Healthy Treat Ideas + Toxic Foods List

Come learn what chickens canf eat, and what they shouldn’t eat! This article will cover everything you need to know to keep your flock healthy and well-fed, including a list of healthy chicken treat ideas, boredom busters, toxic foods and plants to avoid, tips for young chicks, free range pastures, what to feed chickens during winter, summer, treats for molting chickens, and more.

Chicken are scrappy little foragers, with a wide and varied diet. As omnivores by nature, chickens will help keep your weed and insect populations in check, and happily help dispose of extra kitchen or garden scraps. Yet it’s important to understand exactly what chickens can (and cannot) eat, and resist the urge to treat them like your personal garbage disposals!

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RELATED: New to chickens? Don’t miss our beginner’s guide on raising backyard chickens or raising baby chicks, including easy DIY brooder box ideas or how to tell when do chickens start laying eggs. I also created a list of over 500 of the best cute and funny chicken name ideas!

Chicken Feed

• Age-appropriate chicken feed should make up the bulk of a chickens diet (such as chick or “starter” feed, grower feed, or layer feed) which is nutritionally balanced with the right mix of protein, vitamins, and minerals needed to support them at that age.
  
  
• Chicken feed can come as pellets, crumbles, or whole grain-based.
  
  
• Some chicken keepers mix their own feed, though we prefer to leave that up to the professionals. Scratch and Peck organic layer mash (a whole grain feed) is our flock’s favorite. We often used it to make fermented chicken feed, which makes it even more nutritious and cost-effective! The chickens gobble it up.
  
  
• Dining on insects and plant matter, free-ranging chickens will consume far less chicken feed than those confined to a smaller run. However, chicken feed should still be made available to them at all times.

Free Ranging and Chicken Pastures

Foraging free range chickens will eat insects, grasses, and a wide variety of other plants. If you’re seeding an area yourself, an ideal chicken pasture should be rich with naturally low-growing, nutrient-dense legumes and forbs to forage on such as clover, alfalfa, peas, flax, vetch and buckwheat. Regular grass does not provide valuable nutrients for chickens. Find the best chicken pasture seed blend for your area here.

As much as possible, your chicken run or free range space should be free of any plants that are toxic to them (see list below). It’s also advisable to avoid letting chickens free range around extra long grasses and weeds, more than 5 to 6 inches tall. Or, do so with caution and keep a watchful eye afterwards. Consuming long tough strands of plant material can easily lead to impacted crop.

The good news is, chickens are pretty savvy and often naturally avoid things they should not eat (but not always). For instance, there is a large elderberry bush in our chicken yard. Elderberry leaves, stems, and unripe berries are toxic to chickens, as well as other animals and humans. Yet the bush also provides valuable cover in their area, so after a lot of feedback from internet friends, we opted to prune up the understory instead of completely removing the bush. As it grew back in, they totally ignore it!

RELATED: No pasture to forage on? Or, can’t free range due to predator concerns? Learn how to make an easy DIY chicken grazing box inside their run!

How to Give Chickens Treats

Offering special snacks by hand is a great way to deepen your bond with your flock, and a good way to entice them back into their run when needed!

Do not mix treats into chicken feed; offer them in separate dish. You can also scatter chicken scratch or treats directly on the ground, though I only recommend doing so in fairly clean locations – not where there is a lot of poo!

Treat stations inside the coop or run also make great “boredom busters”, such as hanging a cabbage by a string, load up a hanging chicken skewer with treats, or fill a wire basket with leafy greens for them to slowly peck at. You can also set out or hang specialized chicken treat blocks.

Healthy and Safe Chicken Treat List

Here is a list of healthy treats that are safe for chickens to eat. We all love a good snack! But remember, even the best treats should only be offered in moderation.

• Dried mealworms, grubs, black oil sunflower seeds (aka BOSS), and chicken scratch are all perfect high-protein chicken treats.
  
  
• Chickens can eat almost all fruit and vegetables, with the exception of things on the “no” list below. Some favorite chicken treats include watermelon, strawberries, blueberries, cucumber, grapes, and ripe tomatoes*.
  
  
• Leafy greens such as lettuce, kale, cabbage, Swiss chard, mustard greens, bok choy, carrot tops, or similar edible greens are always a big hit with our flock.
  
  
• Specialized chicken treat blocks are great boredom busters, especially in a hanging net. When we had fewer chickens, we often got these smaller suet-sized treat blocks to hang in this basket, especially if we were away on vacation for a few days. Now we make our own with this DIY flock block recipe!
  
  
• Scrambled eggs or hard boiled eggs. Raw eggs are also safe for chickens to eat, though it could lead to chickens eating eggs… which is a hard habit to break! Eggs are a perfect high-protein snack for molting chickens to eat, or when a member of the flock is feeling under the weather and needs a little extra nutrient boost or encouragement to eat.
  
  
• Pumpkin and butternut squash are another excellent chicken treat, and are loaded with healthy antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Pumpkin seeds are also a natural dewormer. Let your flock “carve” a pumpkin as a fun and festive fall activity!
  

List continued below…

Safe Chicken Treat List continued

• Sprouted seeds such as sprouted barley, sunflower seeds, clover, alfalfa, or wheatgrass are full of easy-to-digest essential nutrients. Our girls love them! Learn how to make sprouted seeds for chickens in this guide.
  
  
• You can also sprout whole trays of fodder, such as a flat of wheatgrass or clover.
  
  
• Chickens enjoy eating many common “weeds” like dandelion, clover, nasturtiums, and chickweed.
  
  
• Plain yogurt (cultured with probiotics) is okay for chickens, but only in small amounts. Do not feed chickens flavored or sweetened yogurt. Avoid other dairy products since chickens cannot readily digest lactose, explained more below.
  
  
• Oatmeal (raw or cooked). Plain cooked oatmeal is wonderful warm snack for chickens to eat on cold winter days. Add a sprinkle of mealworms, sunflower seeds, raisins or blueberries on top to really make them happy. NOTE: Because it’s high in fiber, too much oatmeal may cause diarrhea – so only feed on occasion and in moderation!
  
  
• Sourdough starter discard in small amounts. Like plain yogurt, fermented sourdough starter is full of gut-healthy probiotics! See other ways to use sourdough discard here.
  
  
• Our flock loves to pick at spent sunflower heads from our garden, especially once the seeds start to get full and mature.

What to Not Feed Chickens

The following things are toxic to chickens, or otherwise not good to give them:

• Moldy or rotten foods
• Apple seeds
• Underripe tomatoes or tomato plant leaves
• Raw potato or green potatoes, including potato leaves
• Onions
• Rhubarb leaves
• Dry beans (cooked beans are okay in moderation)
• Avocado skin and pits are toxic to chickens. The flesh is safe but we still avoid it.
• Junk food or processed foods
• Candy or chocolate
• Citrus fruit
• Long stringy tough grass or weeds (impacted crop risk)
• Coffee, tea, or anything caffeinated (including spent coffee grounds)
• Anything high in sugar, salt or fat
• Milk, buttermilk, ice cream, and other dairy products. Studies show that chickens cannot properly digest lactose, so feeding chickens dairy products can easily cause diarrhea, and can even lead to impaired growth and toe deformities in chicks. Plain yogurt and hard cheese (low in lactose) are two exceptions. Rich with probiotics to aid in digestion, small amounts of cultured plain yogurt is usually well tolerated by chickens.
• Some common plants that are toxic to chickens include nightshade leaves (tomato plants, potatoes, eggplant, peppers, etc), foxglove, hemlock, castor bean, rhododendron, elderberry leaves, lily of the valley, rhubarb leaves, tulips, daffodils, morning glory, azalea, ferns, tansy, amaryllis, and trumpet vine.

Treats and Young Chicks

As tempting and cute as it may seem, avoid feeding baby chicks treats early on. They need to focus on their specialized food, and growing big and strong. Once they’re at least one month old, you can introduce a few treats here and there (such finely chopped lettuce or leafy greens, watermelon, chopped strawberries or mealworms) but it should never be more than 10% of their diet. Extreme moderation is key. It’s also important to cut things up very small for them.

One exception is eggs. Scrambled eggs, raw egg yolk, or mashed hard boiled egg yolks are great nutrient-dense treats for young chicks in need, such as to help overcome shipping stress or when one seems to be sick or failing to thrive. Our babies love scrambled eggs mixed with their feed, which we blend together in a food processor with a splash of water to make it small and manageable for them. Be careful with raw egg yolk though! It’s super sticky and can make a real mess in their feathers.

When chicks eat anything besides their feed (such as fruits, veggies, or grass) they need the addition of grit to help them digest it, except very soft foods like scrambled eggs and watermelon. Grit is like coarse sand or tiny pebbles that helps break down food inside their crop. You can either purchase chick grit, use clean coarse sand, or simply wait until they are outside. There, they can nibble on bits of dirt that provide the grit needed to accompany treats.

Calcium for Laying Hens

Hens need a steady intake of free-choice calcium once they start laying eggs. Eggshells are made up of calcium, so if they don’t get enough in their diet, their eggs will not properly form. Insufficient calcium intake can easily lead to dangerous egg-laying issues such as soft-shell eggs, internal laying, or becoming egg bound.

• One of the best and most cost-effective ways to give chickens extra calcium is by crushing up their own eggshells to feed back to them. We prefer to bake the eggshells first; it helps to dry them out, kill any potential bacteria, make it easier to crush, and also change the flavor. Learn how we bake and feed chickens eggshells here.
  
  
• Crushed oyster shells is another popular option. Our flock will only eat these thin flaked oyster shells, not the other rock-like brands.
  
  
• The extra calcium should always be offered in a separate dish, not mixed with their food, and made available at all times. The hens will eat it as they need it!
  
  
• Important: Do not offer extra calcium too early! Excess calcium can cause permanent kidney damage in young chicks. Put out a dish of free choice calcium around the time you switch to layer feed: when young chickens start showing signs that they’ll lay eggs soon (or do start laying eggs) or around 20 weeks old – whatever comes first.

Treats for Special Occasions: Molting, Winter, and Summer

Chicken’s nutritional needs can change with the seasons or under times of stress.

In the hot summer months or during heat waves, offer chickens cooling treats such as frozen strawberries (chopped), peas, grapes, or blueberries to help lower their body temperature. You can also fill a pan, bowl, or bunt cake mold with healthy treats and water, freeze it, and create a special frozen treat block! Avoid feeding corn in the summer as it has an internal warming effect.

During cold winter weather, it’s ideal to give chickens higher-carb treats like oats, corn, or scratch with cracked corn – which increases their internal body temperature as they digest it. Warm oatmeal (or even warmed wet chicken feed) is another wonderful way to help them feel cozy during cold conditions.

While molting, chickens need extra protein. Feathers are made of almost pure protein, so they need a steady intake to help regrow new ones! Treats like mealworms, grubs, scrambled eggs, or sunflower seeds will give them the boost they need.

And that’s the low-down on what chickens can and can’t eat.

I hope this was helpful and informative! Please feel free to ask any questions in the comments below, and share this article if you found it useful. Now go have fun spoiling your flock with all the new healthy chicken treat ideas you learned today. Your chickens surely appreciate you reading this, as do we!

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