# Feeding chickens orange peels



## digging (Oct 29, 2010)

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to share something I tried that worked. I put some orange and grapefruit peels in a small food processes and finely chopped up the peels while added in the other veggie left overs with a small bit of cooked meat. They eat every single little bit right up. I looked up citrus peels and they have about 400 calories per pound. Just thought I would share that.

Digging


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## Sanza (Sep 8, 2008)

You're lucky you've got chickens that will eat them!...mine seem to turn their noses up at most vegetables and only want the dog/cat food treats and any meat scraps. I have to rake their yard up all the time and throw the unwanted veggies for compost.
I do use my citrus peels, but I use them to keep the cats out of my flower beds.


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## BobbyB (Apr 6, 2009)

My grown hens and rooster eat any and all vegetables and fruit I throw them. They really love anything bread, but it is all gone by the next day.

There has been some orange peelings in the bucket and I think some was picked on and some just dried up. Im not going to the trouble of running it thru a processor.


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## Ravenlost (Jul 20, 2004)

HUH...I read a long time ago that you weren't supposed to give chickens citrus. Guess I need to do some more research.

BTW...I put broccoli stalks in my food processor for the chickens. They love that stuff!


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## gone-a-milkin (Mar 4, 2007)

No way am I going to dirty the food processor and then wash it after,
just to make my chickens eat citrus peels. 

The most I will do for them cooking-wise is to boil some old eggs and then crumble them up, shells and all, and feed them back.

My birds get a lot of clabbered milk so they are still sort of spoiled, but the easy way.


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## heavyrebel (Oct 6, 2010)

If you are like us, you have access to a huge amount of various waste veggies from produce markets. Oranges are plentiful and alone not much will eat them. The cows like them, but nothing else would touch them. There were few other things they didnt like either. HOWEVER:

I went to harbor freight during a sale and picked up a plug, 110 volt, wood chipper. Totally useless im sure as a wood chipper but perfect for shredding down veggies into a pulp they will eat. They eat it all, as does everything else, when we mixin citrus with the things they like. Free food basically. Then you run the garden house through the whole unit and your done..


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## tnokie (Jan 30, 2007)

I picked up a couple of the old hand turned "meat" grinders at an auction. I set it up on a table outside and use it to grind up all the garden and fruit and vegtable scraps. The chickens love it! As long as it bite size to them(which is small) they will eat about anything. I even grind up overgrown weeds and flowers and vegatable stalks and they eat that! The trick is to get down to their size. Helps on the feed bill and the chickens seem to be healthier.


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## volchitsa (Jul 18, 2011)

I just throw orange peel halves after juicing to the rabbits and the chickens. The chickens play keep away with them, and then just pick at them. The rabbits seem to enjoy them, mostly when they are dried out and crunchy.
My goats won't touch citrus. 
My girls love picking at the stringy parts on peach pits. I think it keeps them a bit entertained too .


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## Ravenlost (Jul 20, 2004)

Rabbits like orange peels? Hmmm...


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## DYngbld (Jun 16, 2009)

Ravenlost said:


> HUH...
> BTW...I put broccoli stalks in my food processor for the chickens. They love that stuff!


 
Our rosters ate them right out of the garden last year.


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## digging (Oct 29, 2010)

The processor I have is an old one I had stopped using so I don't fuss over how clean it gets. I also have been mincing the eggs shell with the left overs.

I agree very much with the one comment it seems getting the feed down to a small size that they can easily eat is the trick. Take grass for example if the grass is to long then it can ball up in their craw so perhaps it's more about the size of the feed pieces that works better with their system so they can digest it?
Since they don't have teeth mostly they need to be able to just swallow bits down.

I am going to keep trialling different minced up veggie feeds of all kinds this summer Free feed is very important for us a bag of laying pellets costs $17.00 here.

Digging


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