Feast for the Flock

Thanksgiving might be one of my favorite times of year to have chickens.

While we are inside piling our plates with turkey, vegetables, potatoes, and all the traditional fixings, the flock is usually outside wondering why nobody invited them to dinner. My chickens absolutely know when food is involved, and they are not shy about reminding me that they want a plate, too.

The good news is that several foods from the Thanksgiving kitchen can safely be shared with your flock. Appropriate kitchen scraps can provide enrichment, encourage natural scratching and foraging behaviors, and help reduce food waste.

Before carrying an entire plate of leftovers to the coop, however, there are a few important things to consider.

Treats Are Treats

The most important thing to remember is that Thanksgiving leftovers should never replace your flock’s normal balanced feed. A quality poultry ration is formulated to provide the protein, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and other nutrients chickens need. Table scraps are not nutritionally balanced simply because they contain vegetables or protein.

I prefer to think of scraps as enrichment rather than dinner. A small Thanksgiving treat scattered around the pasture gives the birds something new to investigate and enjoy without significantly changing their diet. Moderation is especially important during the holidays because many of our favorite dishes contain a lot of salt, sugar, butter, sauces, and seasonings.

Sometimes the individual food is not the problem. It is everything we added to it.

Save Some Vegetables Before Dinner

One of the easiest ways to include your flock in Thanksgiving is to think about the chickens while preparing the meal instead of waiting until you are scraping plates afterward.

Making green beans? Set aside a few plain ones.

Chopping carrots? Save the ends and small pieces.

Preparing pumpkin or winter squash? Your flock can enjoy some of that, too.

Plain vegetables such as green beans, peas, carrots, pumpkin, winter squash, leafy greens, and cooked sweet potatoes can make wonderful flock treats. Cut larger pieces into manageable sizes, particularly when feeding birds that are not accustomed to receiving kitchen scraps.

Pumpkins and winter squash are especially fun because you do not have to make things complicated. Cut one open and let the chickens do the rest. Pecking and scratching at a pumpkin can keep a flock occupied much longer than dumping a pile of soft leftovers into a feeder.

This is also a great use for produce that is still safe to eat but perhaps is not pretty enough for the Thanksgiving table.

Just remember that spoiled or moldy food belongs in the compost — not in the chicken pen.

What About the Turkey?

Yes, chickens can eat turkey.

It may sound strange to some people, but chickens are omnivores. When given the opportunity, they naturally consume insects, worms, and other sources of animal protein.

Small amounts of plain, fully cooked, unseasoned turkey meat can be offered to your flock. The key words are plain and unseasoned.

Thanksgiving turkeys may be brined, injected, heavily salted, covered in butter, or seasoned before cooking. Instead of offering pieces of heavily seasoned skin or meat covered in gravy and drippings, set aside a little plain meat when possible.

I also prefer removing the meat from the bones rather than tossing an entire cooked turkey carcass into the chicken yard. It gives me better control of what the flock is consuming and prevents cooked bones and spoiled meat from being left behind.

Mashed Potatoes, Stuffing, & Casseroles

This is where Thanksgiving scraps can get tricky.

Can chickens eat potatoes? Plain, fully cooked potatoes can be offered in moderation. The mashed potatoes on our Thanksgiving table, however, may contain generous amounts of butter, cream, cheese, and salt. That is very different from a plain cooked potato.

The same principle applies to green bean casserole.

Plain green beans? Wonderful.

Green beans covered in salty soup, fried onions, butter, and other rich ingredients? I would rather give my chickens the plain beans I set aside before assembling the casserole.

Stuffing is another dish I generally do not offer as a flock treat. Recipes vary tremendously, but many contain large amounts of sodium, butter, onions, seasonings, and other rich ingredients.

When in doubt, simpler is always better.

Cranberries & Dessert

Fresh, plain cranberries can be offered to chickens, although your flock may have some very strong opinions about whether they actually enjoy them!

Cranberry sauce is different because it usually contains a substantial amount of added sugar.

The same rule applies to desserts.

Pumpkin itself can be a wonderful chicken treat. Pumpkin pie is not the same thing. Between the sugar, fat, crust, and other ingredients, pie is something I keep on the human side of the Thanksgiving celebration.

Your chickens do not need cake, cookies, candy, chocolate, or sugary desserts to feel included.

I promise they will not know what they are missing.

Foods I Would Leave Off the Flock’s Plate

Thanksgiving is a good reminder that “people food” is an enormous category. Some foods are perfectly acceptable in small quantities, while others should be kept away from the flock.

I avoid giving my chickens chocolate, alcohol, moldy or spoiled food, heavily salted dishes, extremely fatty foods, sugary desserts, and raw green potato skins or green portions of potatoes.

Be particularly careful with mixed dishes because it can be difficult to remember everything that went into them. That casserole may appear to be mostly vegetables, but what else is hiding underneath?

Sauces, gravies, dressings, and seasoning blends can add much more fat, salt, or sugar than we realize.

Turn Thanksgiving Treats Into Enrichment

Instead of thinking of your flock as a disposal system for Thanksgiving leftovers, make the experience intentional.

Hang leafy greens where the chickens can peck at them. Split open a pumpkin or squash. Scatter peas, chopped vegetables, or small pieces of plain turkey around a clean, appropriate area so the birds have to search and forage for them.

Turning a treat into an activity encourages movement and natural behavior while keeping the flock engaged.

Isn’t that part of the fun of keeping chickens?

We get to watch them scratch, explore, and chase each other for one tiny piece of food — even though there are twenty identical pieces sitting three feet away. Somehow, chickens can turn an ordinary vegetable into the most exciting event of the day.

This Thanksgiving, your flock can absolutely join the celebration.

Just serve them the chicken version of Thanksgiving dinner: less butter, less salt, less sugar, and a whole lot more scratching.