Can I feed my chickens leftover high quality dog food as a treat?
Image by Obie Fernandez
feeding the chickens at the spanish village
Question by Cris O: Can I feed my chickens leftover high quality dog food as a treat?
It’s either that or throw the dog food out. I’m not sure if there is anything in there that would harm them, and they’d still have their regular laying feed.
Can you help? Leave your own answer in the comments!
10 Responses to Can I feed my chickens leftover high quality dog food as a treat?
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well its kind called dog food hahahaha
Nate
May 22, 2012 at 5:18 am
yea
Crystal-Tyler
May 22, 2012 at 5:50 am
Give the dog food to a dog friend as it has ingredients that are not for chickens. Chickens will like a handful of chicken scratch feed and wild bird seed mix thrown on the ground, fruit and veggie scraps and if confined off grass some grass clippings every day. Layers also need oyster shell to replace the calcium used in the eggs shell.
Charles D. M.
May 22, 2012 at 6:28 am
You certainly can.
prwagner3
May 22, 2012 at 6:51 am
Yes you can. You can also feed them cat food and any leftovers you have. The only things I’ve seen chickens not eat are citrus fruits and big slugs.
murigenii
May 22, 2012 at 7:10 am
Chickens have very little in the way of taste buds. So they do not know a treat the way a human might, when presented with something especially tasty.
Chickens are omnivores. There is absolutely nothing in dog food that would be harmful to chickens. They can eat it just fine, and will enjoy pecking at it.
However if you may not want to teach your chickens that dog food is good to eat, if your chickens are free range, and might ever be near a dog food bowl. It’s annoying when the hens come running, when you’re trying to feed your dog. You end up having to stand there and defend the dog from chickens!
~Garnet
Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years
P.S. Pet food (even open bags) can always be donated to your local animal shelter. Most shelters are having serious financial trouble this year.
Bohemian_Garnet_Permaculturalist
May 22, 2012 at 7:18 am
ok, i see you have a few mixed answers already! haha well, we have hundreds of chickens and we do feed them a little bit of dog food. dogfood is high in protein and you chooks will love it. they may like it wet and slushy better than in the big bulky biscuits so we soak it in water. just be sure you don’t give them too much as it may go mouldy in their pens and mould will kill them.
hope this helps
Caley
May 22, 2012 at 8:10 am
it won’t hurt them ,they might like it. don’t feed too often if you plan on eating them ,too much protein will make the meat stringy .
the rooster
May 22, 2012 at 8:50 am
A very good treat indeed but not for every day the birds will love any foods you toss out as well some things they don’t eat such as bananas potato skins celery,some fruits eat most every thing humans do and ddo like bugs all kinds and plenty of scratch feeds and laying pellets wild bird seeds sunflower seeds also wet cat foods or dry I give mine some of both 1 every 3 weeks as a change and allow to run around the yard 1 a week to get the bugs they love.
COUNTRY--GIRL
May 22, 2012 at 9:48 am
yeah, we feed ours all of the leftovers (except meat!)
Emily
May 22, 2012 at 10:45 am