Can I feed my chickens leftover high quality dog food as a treat?

Yes you can. You can also feed them cat food and any leftovers you have. The only things I've seen chickens not eat are citrus fruits and big slugs.

Chickens have very little in the way of taste buds. So they do not know a treat the way a human might, when presented with something especially tasty.

Chickens are omnivores. There is absolutely nothing in dog food that would be harmful to chickens. They can eat it just fine, and will enjoy pecking at it.

However if you may not want to teach your chickens that dog food is good to eat, if your chickens are free range, and might ever be near a dog food bowl. It's annoying when the hens come running, when you're trying to feed your dog. You end up having to stand there and defend the dog from chickens!

~Garnet

Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years

P.S. Pet food (even open bags) can always be donated to your local animal shelter. Most shelters are having serious financial trouble this year.

Can Chickens Eat Dog Food

A very good treat indeed but not for every day the birds will love any foods you toss out as well some things they don't eat such as bananas potato skins celery,some fruits eat most every thing humans do and ddo like bugs all kinds and plenty of scratch feeds and laying pellets wild bird seeds sunflower seeds also wet cat foods or dry I give mine some of both 1 every 3 weeks as a change and allow to run around the yard 1 a week to get the bugs they love.

For the best answers, search on this site https://shorturl.im/axjRS

Looks like you are aware of food that harm dogs. As long as you don't feed them those items and apply commonsense, there should be no problem feeding them table scraps or leftovers. Dogs in many countries eat leftovers or home cooked meals. I have rarely seen any of those dogs die at an early age or succumb to illnesses such as cancer. My childhood pet dog lived on human food and died at the age of 15, of natural causes. Unless you buy organic or holistic dog food, your dog will probably get a lot of processed junk in their canned food. With leftovers from your table, your dog will get human quality food, which will be good for him/her in the long run. Besides, you are feeding them little bits of the leftovers, like treats, so you shouldn't worry at all.

Give the dog food to a dog friend as it has ingredients that are not for chickens. Chickens will like a handful of chicken scratch feed and wild bird seed mix thrown on the ground, fruit and veggie scraps and if confined off grass some grass clippings every day. Layers also need oyster shell to replace the calcium used in the eggs shell.

Small amounts aren't harmful if there are no spices involved, re pepper, of any sort. The digestive system is not as fine tuned as ours and pets will get sick very quickly. I feed my dog all sorts of fruits vegetables, mostly fresh, and that's good for them as long as they get a healthy portion of dry food to supplement for vitamins and minerals they need. Do not ever feed your dog raisins, grapes, plums, prunes, spices, or chocolate for any reason. Your dog won't survive long if you do. Please go to your nearest library or veterinarian and research what is acceptable to share with your pets.

ok, i see you have a few mixed answers already! haha well, we have hundreds of chickens and we do feed them a little bit of dog food. dogfood is high in protein and you chooks will love it. they may like it wet and slushy better than in the big bulky biscuits so we soak it in water. just be sure you don't give them too much as it may go mouldy in their pens and mould will kill them.

hope this helps

it won't hurt them ,they might like it. don't feed too often if you plan on eating them ,too much protein will make the meat stringy .

yeah, we feed ours all of the leftovers (except meat!)