Winter Treats for Chickens: 5 Fun Ideas and Recommendations

While most of us look forward to grandma’s famous roast, our chickens look forward to getting their holiday treats. Today, we are going to talk about some fun and easy presents that your feathered friends will love.
Why Treat Your Chickens this Winter?
Why should you treat your chickens this winter? Well, treating your chickens has the obvious benefit of making them happy and helping you bond, but it also has some benefits you might not expect. For example, it adds variety to their diet, which can benefit their health; allows intellectual engagement, which ensures that your chickens aren’t just strolling listlessly bored; promotes nutrition, some treats contain nutrients that can help keep them healthy; and positive reinforcement, which encourages them to come when called and can even help with training them to do tricks.
5 Best Treats for Chickens in Winter
Goody Garlands
Have you ever received canned popcorn on Christmas and been ecstatic to dive in? You’re not the only one; chickens adore popcorn, and it makes a fun holiday craft to sit down and string the popcorn into a garland and hang it in your coop or run. However, while hanging your popcorn make sure your string is secure and safe to avoid your bird getting injured or trapped after they eat the popcorn. Also, ensure it's in a place your birds can easily reach. If popcorn isn’t appealing, you can always use other festive foods for your garland, such as red and green apples. More chicken-safe options are available for you if you check out our article Safe Foods for Chickens.
Henhouse Reserve® and Organic Henhouse Reserve®
Are you looking for a holiday treat that will also benefit your flock? Well, look no further because Henhouse Reserve® and Organic Henhouse Reserve® have you covered. Unlike other feeds, Henhouse Reserve® won’t dilute the nutrient content of your complete feed should your birds eat a lot of it. Henhouse Reserve® can even be used as a complete feed, which means your birds can eat as much as they want and still have a balanced diet. Another clear benefit is how much your birds will love Henhouse Reserve®. Their love of it is clear whether you’ve just started using it or have used it in the past, with chickens being 3x more likely to choose Henhouse Reserve® over regular pellets. This year, try Henhouse Reserve® as a gift for your feathered friends.
Poultry Blocks
Another great treat for your flock is a poultry block. Right now, our Henhouse Reserve® Winter Candy Apple block should be hitting store shelves. But why buy a poultry block this holiday? Simple. Not only do our poultry blocks smell great, but they will also keep your chickens happy and healthy this holiday season. Poultry blocks fulfill this purpose in two main ways:
- Poultry blocks are great for fighting boredom, especially in winter when even free-range birds spend long hours cooped up due to dwindling food resources. Poultry blocks are great for entertaining your birds and giving them something to peck at instead of each other. Additionally, our poultry blocks are sturdy and made to last, which means this block will keep your flock entertained for days, maybe even weeks, depending on your flock’s size.
- Poultry blocks provide supplemental nutrition. A complete feed should be the primary source of nutrition for your flock. However, as food sources outside dwindle for free-range birds, so does some of their nutrition. Poultry blocks are a great way to fill in the gaps and keep your birds healthy.
Leftovers and Kitchen Scraps
If you're anything like me, the best part of Christmas is having a big dinner with friends and family. The food and the festivities are unlike any other time of year, so you would want to share it with your feathered family, and you can! Chickens can eat almost anything that a human can eat. So, it is usually okay for our flocks to enjoy some of our holiday leftovers and kitchen scraps. However, there are some rules to follow to ensure that they don't consume anything harmful. If it's unhealthy for a human to eat, then a chicken definitely shouldn't eat it.
- Some foods chicken can safely eat and enjoy are:
- fresh fruits–fruits contain natural sugars, fiber, and many vitamins and minerals;
- vegetables and leafy greens–their leafy portions, vegetable cores, brown or mealy sections, skins, and peels are all safe to consume;
- pumpkins–canned pumpkin, cooked pumpkin, raw pumpkin, all flesh, seeds are great treats;
- COOKED beans–cooked beans are great for protein and fiber;
- apples–there is some disagreement on whether or not apples are safe due to their seeds, but as long as you’re cautious, apples are a great treat.
- Some foods your chickens should not consume are:
- foods that are high in salt–salty foods cause an increased intake of water, which causes watery manure. Chickens will also avoid foods with high salt and will stop eating all food options if their salt intake is too high;
- mold–mold can contain mycotoxins, which are toxic compounds naturally produced by certain mold and fungi;
- RAW beans–raw beans (pinto beans, soybeans, navy beans, etc.) contain an anti-nutritional factor that must be cooked out before consumption;
- decorated/painted pumpkins–you should not eat paint/decorations and neither should your chickens.
Overall, all treats and extras should be limited to about 10-15% of the total feed intake for your flock. Treating your birds to some tasty holiday goodies is a wonderful way to bond with your flock this season, but most of all, we all want them to be healthy! If you wouldn’t (or shouldn’t!) eat it, you should usually avoid giving it to your chickens.
Explore Winter Treats for Chickens from Kalmbach Feeds
Kalmbach Feeds® has a multitude of different treats for you to see and explore, such as our Premium Poultry Block, which is an all-natural block supplement for growing pullets, ducks, geese, chickens, and game birds. Our premium poultry block will not only support digestive, immune, and health functions with our proprietary blend of prebiotics, probiotics, essential oils, and enzymes, but it also contains whole grains and won’t disintegrate in inclement weather. Here at Kalmbach Feeds, we also have a variety of poultry feeds, whether it be: crumble, mini pellet, pellet, or textured. We have a feed or block that will fit your flock's care requirements.
Poultry keeping is such a rewarding experience, and Kalmbach Feeds is here to help you every step of the way. If you have questions about the nutrient needs of your birds, feed options, or general poultry keeping, please let us know. We are super excited to continue writing about all of the topics that are important to you and your flock's health and can’t wait to continue learning and teaching others about poultry. Stay tuned, and thank you for choosing Kalmbach Feeds!