Despite of its widespread distribution most people aren’t aware as to what do chickens eat? The chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) is a domesticated fowl that feeds on almost anything. These omnivores birds are the opportunistic feeders and they are not choosy about their diet. They are believed to be one of the most common birds with the total population of about 24 billion in 2003. Chickens are extensively available from Southeast Asia, America, Europe to the Middle East, Syria, and Africa. They also exist in Thailand, Russia, Indian Sub-continent, and Sub-Sahara Africa. Now is the time to argue over what do chickens like to eat. Let’s come to the chickens menu now!
What do Chickens Eat?
Since chickens are not picky about their diet, they’ll ingest almost every kind of food. These birds primarily feed on small insects, lizards, and seeds. These insects often include worms, cockroaches, bees, bugs or flies. These birds also rely on grains, corns, barley, wheat, or sorghum for their daily feed. Chickens also ingest protein-rich nutrients such as
- Peanut
- Sunflower
- Safflower
- Cottonseed meal
- Sesame
- Oilseed
- Soybean meal
- Dried whey
- Grain legumes
- Filed peas
Grains play a pivotal role in the digestion process of these chickens. As for the soybeans, you must feed boiled or steamed soybeans to chickens. Full-fat soybeans can also be fed to chickens for it still includes oil that provides a lot of energy to these birds. For the reason that these birds will take in anything therefore, you must ensure that they get all the required nutrients.
What Do Chickens Eat Naturally?
These birds naturally supplement their diet through grains, weeds, green vegetables (spinach especially), fruits shell (especially apple), earthworms, bees and flies. These birds do not eat hard stuff like carrots.
Read More: Do chickens need to eat grass?
What Do Chickens Eat in Captivity?
First and the foremost thing is that chickens require plenty of water coupled with proteins, carbohydrates, calcium, minerals and vitamins. Therefore, you must feed them what they need rather than what you want them to eat! Under captivity, these birds mainly prefer to eat sunflower seeds, rice, vegetables, mealworms, fruits, berries, melons, sunflower seeds, crickets, and other invertebrates.
Now you know what do chickens eat?
What Do Chickens Eat – Videos
