My chickens don't eat fresh vegetables

[cesargtapia]

I've tried to give a lot of different fresh vegetables to my chickens (lettuce, cabbage, peppers, apples, tomatoes...). They peck it out of curiosity, but then they ignore it completely.

I'm not worried at all, because they have good quality chicken feed, which they love, and they spend their day foraging my garden eating grass and bugs, but I'm very curious why they are not interested at all in anything else.

 

[Perris]

vegetables are not a part of their natural diet. Try them with some meat, fish or dairy products instead.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'm very curious why they are not interested at all in anything else.

Because they are living animals and you don't get guarantees with living animals.

I offer mine all the stuff you mentioned and more from my garden and orchard. Some they devour immediately, some they ignore, at least for a while. Each year can be different when the garden produce is available. If I continue to offer it they often learn to eat it. If I offer broccoli and cabbage leaves at the same time one year they may eat the broccoli and ignore the cabbage. The next year they may eat the cabbage first.

I'll tell a story. One year while processing corn from the garden for harvest I collected a plastic yogurt cup full or corn ear worms. I dumped those near a group of 10-week-old chicks. Those chicks very cautiously started moving toward that pile. Step by step, inch by inch, they got closer. Then a worm wiggled!!! Run Away! Run Away! But not too far. Soon they were cautiously making their way toward that pile. Step by step, inch by inch, they got closer. Then a worm wiggled!!! Run Away! Run Away! But not too far.

This went on four or five times before a bold young cockerel nabbed a worm. That entire pile was gone in 30 seconds. That's what it took for them to understand they liked them.

So just continue to offer that stuff. Either they will learn to eat it or they won't.

 

[cesargtapia]

Because they are living animals and you don't get guarantees with living animals.

I know, I know. As I said, I'm not worried or trying to force them to eat, they're very well fed. I'm just curious about it.

Today I offered them a slice of cheese, as @Perris suggested. This time they were a little bit more interested, and even ate a couple of small bits. But apparently they prefer my boot laces and my arm hair, and after a couple of minutes of gently pecking me instead of the cheese, they said "booook!" and went back to happily investigate under the dry leaves.

 

[K0k0shka]

How old are they? They tend to be very picky when young.

 

[HollowOfWisps]

I do not feed mine vegetables. Chickens when foraging prefer protein based foods. I feed mine meat, fish and eggs if I am feeding treats. They also do like fresh milk or some yoghurt.

 

[ChaosMom]

Mine are meh about vegetables as well. They're on a fermented whole-grain feed (Kalmbach chickhouse reserve), and I suspect they don't need whatever is going on with vegetables.

However, they do adore freshly-pulled weeds from the yard! So far the favorite is Carolina geranium/ Carolina cranesbill/ true geranium (Geranium carolinianum), henbit (Lamium amplexicaule), common vetch (Vicia sativa), and cleavers (Galium aparine) (this last isn't their favorite, but they'll peck at it for 2-3 days.)

The cleavers, aka bedstraw, I'd like for them to eat until gone, as they are a PITA in the garden.

Oh, and they like pecans.

 

[ChaosMom]

I know, I know. As I said, I'm not worried or trying to force them to eat, they're very well fed. I'm just curious about it.

Maybe this "feed them all your kitchen scraps, including vegetables!" is a combination of how barnyard fowl used to be fed pre-commercial feed + a few too many YT/IG/TikTok videos leaning on the cute and pretty and warm-fuzzy angle of just about everything these days?

I work with beginning gardeners a lot and it's amazing what they've "learned" online. Things become common knowledge (read: common beliefs) in no time at all. I know that I thought we'd be sending our vegetable waste to the chicken run too, before we got pullets and they noped right on out.

- and yes, I do know that many chickens enjoy vegetables as well as boot laces and styrofoam. I don't know that it's anywhere near universal though.

 

[fowltemptress]

The first batch of chicks I brooded were hesitant to try new foods when I offered it to them because they didn't have a hen showing them what was safe to eat, and I hadn't bothered to take the time to mimic a hen in order to show them. When they grew up, my rooster, Rumps, was bottom of the totem pole, and when he wanted to grab food without being chased off he would come to me to eat treats, so he learned to trust whatever I was throwing out was food. When Rumps killed the top rooster and took his place as flock master he taught the hens via tidbitting that everything I offered them was food. Most of my chicks now are raised by their moms, who teach them immediately that the things the tall featherless bipedal scatters are edible. Any I brood myself soon learn as soon as they're out with my roosters.

 

[K0k0shka]

a few too many YT/IG/TikTok videos leaning on the cute and pretty and warm-fuzzy angle of just about everything these days?

I work with beginning gardeners a lot and it's amazing what they've "learned" online. Things become common knowledge (read: common beliefs) in no time at all. I know that I thought we'd be sending our vegetable waste to the chicken run too, before we got pullets and they noped right on out.

This is so true. A lot of "experts" out there who are in their first year or two of chickens, but already give advice based on what they read online (from others with similar "experience"). It's okay to be new and to look for information, but acting like you have it without being able to back that up is another thing. Pigs were the main recyclers of kitchen waste back in the day, actually, not chickens. Chickens were turned loose to forage.