Another cool thing about chickens.

bpost

Con cobs, they eat them down to the size of a pencil.  Rinse of any salt off after you had corn on the cob and let them go at it.  Squash, Cantaloupe, bad corn ears, old cucumbers and any other clean unsalted produce is a feast for them.  I had a head of iceberg lettuce that was getting ratty.  The chickens got it at 7:00AM  by 4:00PM is was completely gone.  They turn garden scraps into organic eggs that are HUGE.  I even gave them raw turkey breast trimmings, the fight over those morsels was epic.  You should see them fight over a dead mouse.  They are almost hogs with feathers.  You just need to avoid salty foods, it will kill chickens.  Things like stale chips and french fries are a no-no.

Merlinnv12

Chickens not cool! They have no idea why they crossed the road!

Ricci.Wright

I like to eat them. Especially the shiny brown ones that go round and round at the grocery store.

jimdeere

The ones we had would eat a watermelon rind right down to the hard outer shell. I was splitting some locust firewood once that had * ants in it. I had to stop work until they cleaned up all the ants. When the June bugs emerged from the ground the chickens would go nuts trying to catch them.

4205raymond

bpost, brings back memories. Granny and Grandpa lived in a huge old farmhouse in Louisa County, Va. Walked in to right in kitchen off shotgun hallway and two buckets of cold water with a dipper on table and straight ahead a huge old wood burning kitchen stove. In the right hand corner straight ahead was a doorway leading  to open air real high off ground. Entrance use to go to other quarters in 1800's. Won't say what because some yahoo will think I am racist. Addition got torn down and my Great Uncle Jake pulled the chimney down with his John Deer.

Granny would go to that door in the corner with her apron loaded down with all the scraps from preparing the meals and any thing else she could cram in her apron. She would reach her hand in the apron, pull out a huge hand full of scraps and toss them high into the air. She would scream at the top of her voice "Here chic,chic come and get it about five times. My God, never knew they had so many chickens and roosters. Came from all over 360 degrees, some running and some flying. And then the fighting began until they realized Granny had lots more in her apron.

It was hard to collect payback with the eggs as many times the hens would lay their eggs under box woods surrounding the house instead of in the hen house. Grandpa would zero in on a hen if she cackled after laying a egg. Sometimes the hens were not willing to give up their eggs and would fight Grandpa under boxwoods. They wanted to turn those eggs into chicks.-----------------------Ray

redneckandy

Chickens are great! They make you breakfast and when they quit doing that, they make you dinner!

pickenup

Had a bug zapper hanging out in the bird pen 24/7. Bottom filled up so that when a new bug got zapped it would roll off onto the ground. When you heard the a new bug get zapped the birds would RACE over to get the new morsel. First time I saw it happen, I didn't know why ALL of the birds were moving so fast, all at once. Found out, they LOVED fried bugs.

jltrent

Good deal on the cobs taking them down a size and getting some of the roughage off.  They will work better that way.

Butchdog2

Oh my goodness no, if they are too smooth the will not work properly

Grunt2

Years back I went to a remote residence to serve papers...I was about to knock on the door and heard several kids yelling and screaming...having the time of their life! When they opened the door I saw and smelled they were covered in chicken poop... They had blocked the hallway off in the house and put several chickens in there...Then they took a container of water and wetted the hallway.......Now they had their own Slip and Slide!!!

NeoBlackdog

They can sing, too!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PENJxl-THS8

bpost

us55840 said:

The very UNcool thing about raising chickens is having the clean the chicken coop ... especially under the chicken roost in there!
Smells bad and the acidic aroma makes your eyes water. 
  

Yea that is a fact but let it sit a year in the weather and you have the best garden fertilizer you can get at any price.

gesshots

Merlinnv12 said:

Chickens not cool! They have no idea why they crossed the road!

Much like the CNN news staff !

hillbille

gesshots said:

Merlinnv12 said:

Chickens not cool! They have no idea why they crossed the road!

Much like the CNN news staff !

but they would take a half dozen polls, and hire a couple experts and figure it out............