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Backyard flock keeping

Is that safe to feed your chickens? Find out before you throw it in the run.

Eight years of keeping hens, written down honestly — including the parts where I got it wrong. Straight answers on feeding, breeds, coops and the strange things chickens do.

  • Eight years of keeping hens
  • Safety answers sourced
  • No sponsored feed reviews
  • Mistakes included

Quick answers

Can chickens eat…?

Type what is in your hand. Every food I have looked into, with the honest answer — safe, fine in moderation, or keep it well away from them.

Explore

Where do you want to start?

The whole site, in five shelves.

Fresh

Latest from the run

Newest posts first.

Method

How I decide what to tell you

Feeding advice for chickens is full of confident nonsense copied from one blog to the next. This is the filter everything here goes through.

01

Is it actually dangerous?

Toxic, or just untidy? Those get very different answers, and most lists online muddle them.

02

How much, and how often?

Almost nothing is poison in a peck and safe in a bucket. The dose is the whole answer.

03

What does the vet literature say?

Where a real source exists I follow it, and where one does not I say so instead of inventing confidence.

04

Have I actually done it?

My flock or somebody else’s. I mark the difference, because it matters.

05

What goes wrong in practice?

The failure mode is usually the useful part — the mud, the rats, the hen who eats none of it.

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