The Coop Scoop: Chicken food

We've discovered our chickens LOVE, love, love melon. Cantaloupe, watermelon, they can't get enough. They will destroy a watermelon rind in seconds, only the thin, green skin left, limp on the ground. Peaches apparently they have a taste for too. Cucumbers, and the seeds from melons and cukes. Corn on the cob leftovers? Not anymore. Again, seconds is all it takes. Corn being their favorite of anything I think, that is the first grain/feed they choose to eat.

I've done a random mix up of feeds and grains for them. I am no expert. I started with the chick starter but wouldn't keep doing it once I found out it had antibiotics AND animal byproducts in it. Can we say ew? And YES, that is what every chicken breast or thigh you eat from the store is fed with, on a daily basis. Ugh. So, I got some organic feed. Once that ran out I decided to just get some oats and cracked corn for now. They're semi-free range. They go in my big garden during the day,l eating bugs and worms and greens and leftovers. I give them a small amount of grain in the morning and evening. This seems to satisfy them. I am not going for prize size or layers here anyway. Also, they fertilize my garden and they help keep the weeds down.

They're faster and learning how to escape fences and pens a lot more now. They are sneaky, well they think they are. In the tall grasses on the edges of the gardens, they burrow in and hide. Except I know they're there. The white ones (golden comets) are still the least friendly, bite the hardest (when hand-feeding); and the plymouths are still the friendliest, most willing to be held and eat from your hands. I don't see a "leader" yet, as I've read about, but there are 2 who are aloof and kind of almost "duh!" of the group. They run the opposite way, are the last in and out, get stuck in open spaces. No issues with them pecking each other or being bossy, etc.


And that my friends is your neighborhood chicken backyard coop scoop ;)