How to Make the Most of Veggie Scraps for Your Hens

DIY Health Raw Recipes Urban Farming

You can easily turn your veggies scraps into something your chickens will actually eat!

When I first got chickens I assumed they would devour anything. I figured we'd buy a bit of supplemental feed for them, but that the bulk of their died would come from kitchen scraps. I was a little worried I would have nothing left to put in the worm bin... but it turned out chickens are a bit more picky than that. I guess we'll need to get pigs if I really want an animal that can eat any scraps.

I had heard of people chopping up greens for their hens, and that just seemed tedious to me. Greens are a huge part of a healthy chicken's diet. In fact, I believe they should be mostly eating greens & insects, with grains mostly for "scratch" in the winter. I'm sure there are almost as many opinions on the proper diet for a chicken as there are for the proper human diet, but I have heard that what makes a healthy egg yolk bright orange is lots of beta carotene, which the chickens get from having a diet high in fresh foods. Also, eggs from chickens eating more greens are higher in Omega 3 fatty acids. Let's face it, we all could use more greens in our diets.

My chickens ended up on a high-feed, high input diet for a while as it took me a few months to figure this trick out. Now, I quickly turn my fruit & veggie scraps into bite size nibbles that the chickens can easily eat.

Bag o' fruit & veggie scraps

First, every time I use fruits & vegetables, I save anything the chickens could eat if it were smaller in a gallon size ziplock bag. Things I don't save include: banana and orange peels, onion skins, hot pepper bits, basil, mint, or other aromatic herb scraps. They seem to shy away from strong smells, though every flock is different. For a long time my chickens wouldn't eat raspberries, until we introduced some new pullets and they tried them, and got all the other hens interested. Now they scramble when I toss them an overripe raspberry. It just takes one brave chicken...

This batch includes carrot greens, cantaloupe rinds, kale and chard stems, and part of a butternut squash

Once you have your bag of scraps, pulverize it in batches in a food processor until it is in pretty uniformly small pieces:

Et voila!

They will eat this as is, but I'll often mix it with some old popcorn or some store bought feed. I usually crunch up a few eggshells in there as well so they get the grit and calcium they need.

With a quick scrub and a rinse, the food processor is clean and you have veggies for a few days for your hens, at no extra cost.

Also, check out my articles here on sprouting grains for your chickens, and keeping natural chickens. 

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How to Make the Most of Veggie Scraps for Your Hens

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Oleh Mellow

Mellow December 23, 2011 38 Comment