Chickens HATE Black Oil Sunflower Seeds!!!!

[FlipFlopFarmer]

After reading numerous posts here on the BYC about the benefits of black oil sunflower seeds, and how everyone's birds loved them as treats, I went out and paid 18.00 for a 50 pound bag thinking my pet goose, jersey giants, dutch bantams, quail, and chukars would be quite please with me, well lemme say, not one sunflower seed was eaten. Am i supposed to do anything special to these seeds before i give them to my birds?

 

[Beekissed]

I don't know.....maybe you just have too many other good things to eat? My birds like them best if you throw them on the ground or in the bedding.....must think they are bugs because they go wild even if they have just eaten.

 

[Illia]

Yeah I always throw them out like treats. Now, my girls and boys actually have had problems swallowing them right when they are still shelled, though, so I buy them in "chip" form.

 

[Imp]

Sometimes they are just afraid of new things. Keep trying, maybe they'll change their little minds. Or try mixing it with scratch.
Mine won't touch them if they are mixed in with their pellets, but will eat them if I throw them on the ground.

Imp

 

[Mac in Wisco]

They just need to get used to them. After they figure out they are tasty you won't be able to keep them away.

 

[Jeeper1540]

mine didnt touch them for almost a week, now they go crazy for them. give it a little time.

 

[FlipFlopFarmer]

well, they are gonna keep seeing them until that 50# bag is gone thats for sure. I feed a mix of laying pellets, game bird crumbles, scratch ( which has corn chops,milo,and wheat), and I give them oyster shell in a seperate bowl. I will also be putting some DE if it EVER gets down here to the boonies from the DE gods! AND they get cooked rice with red wine vinegar in it ( cuz thats how i like to eat it) about once a week because i dont like to eat leftover rice. Thanks for the encouragment.

 

[dahlia333]

Mine don't like BOSS either. I've been giving it to them for months, but they still don't like it. Luckily, I only bought a 5 pound bag! Guess my chickens are just weird

 

[tammyd57]

Are you sure those are real chickens? Not some kinda alien body snatcher or something? Cuz I've never seen a chicken that wouldn't peck my hand off if I didn't get it outta the way of the BOSS in time! I have to stand outside the run and toss handfuls over the fence for them so I don't lose any important parts.

 

[Dora'smom]

My birds treated it like all new foods initially----big stink-eyes all around, and trying to get as far away from it as possible. That changed, and they love it now. I throw it out as treats, and they all run for it, some of them jump up and peck at the bucket I am hand-tossing it from. (I guess I don't move fast enough for some of them!)

This morning I threw a bunch of it out in the new coop, and saw my broody, Petunia, leap out of the nest box, and dive headfirst into the shavings after BOSS. Normally I go over and drop a handful of it in her nest box, directly in front of her, so that she doesn't have to get up and scratch. Guess I wasn't fast enough then, either.