The Chicken Diet - not what you think

Most of you know that I have chickens on my hobby farm.  I've had the same set for about 6 years and love watching them do their chicken things.  They roost in the barn at night but during the day, they have the freedom to get into whatever chickens get into.  Usually, that is eating grass or dandelions, snapping up bugs, scratching to bring up bugs from the ground and searching the grounds for the best morsel of food.  I observe their behavior for three reasons: #1) I love birds #2) I eat their eggs so want to know what they're eating (since I'll sort of be eating it later) and 3) They are funny.

A couple of years ago we had a bad mouse problem in our little barn.  Over the winter months it kept getting worse and worse due to the prolific breeding habits of these little rodents.  I have several animals in the barn, dogs that frequent it and I just don't think their is ever a reason to poison any living creature.  We did lots of fun things to try and rid the barn of the mice and while we did, we'd see the occasional chicken snap up a little mouse and eat it whole.  Yes, slurp! I talked to other chicken owners and they say their chickens to the same thing. They even eat small snakes if they are fast enough.  They are omnivores so that makes sense, just icky.  After all these observations, I learned a lot about what a chicken would eat and kind of thought they'd eat anything.

That was, until I tried feeding them something that I was eating.

The chickens that I've seen eat rocks, grass, worms, fruit, mice, etc. would not eat what I was eating!  So, just what was I eating that a crazy chicken wouldn't touch or even give a second glace at?  Well, I'll tell ya.

We had tacos one night.  Nice organic free-range beef, fresh tomatoes, salsa, lettuce - you know, yum!  I was in a rush at the store and couldn't find an "organic" taco shell so I bought the most common named brand. It is just me and my husband and we couldn't eat all 10 taco shells so I thought, hey, they're mostly corn, so I'll crumble them up for the chickens.  I'm always giving them stale bread, crackers and stuff like that.  Hmmm, much to my surprise, they wouldn't eat them.  The chickens who fight over an earthworm, wouldn't eat the taco shells that I had happily consumed the night before.  EEEK!  They investigated them, pecked at the pieces a little bit, but did not in any way consider them food.

So it got me thinking about what was in them.  Yellow Corn, Whole Grain Corn Flour, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Water, Salt, Dehydrated Lime.  Sounds relatively OK to me (except the PHSO). I'm not going to go on a tirade about what the mass production of corn has done to our country and food system, but this really put things in to perspective about what food I put in my body.  I mean, if my chicken won't eat it, or at least peck at it, it probably isn't real food. So my "chicken diet" is to think like my chicken.  Well, not to eat a live mouse, but to consider how fresh my food is and how simple it can be and how it will be better for my body to eat this way. 

Lastly, I really do know why the chicken crossed the road. Honestly, to get to the other side.  My chickens do this all the time in the drive way and it always gets me giggling.