Updated September 26, 2026. This page used to tell you cheese was a healthy treat for chickens, and that cheese bread and cheese pizza were fine in moderation. I’ve rewritten it, and folded my old cheese bread and cheese pizza pages into it, because the sources I check feeding questions against don’t back any of that up.
The short answer: better not. If you do give cheese, a crumble the size of your thumbnail, shared, is the most I’d hand over — and cheddar, feta and parmesan are the worst picks. Colorado State University Extension says kitchen scraps for a flock shouldn’t be salty. UC Davis says chickens don’t need much fat and to avoid fatty foods. Most cheese is both. If you’re standing at the counter with something else in your hand, the free Can Chickens Eat It? checker gives you the verdict, the source and how much your flock can have today.
What I got wrong, and what the sources actually say
The old version of this page read like every other page on the subject: cheese has protein and calcium, hens love it, go ahead in moderation. All true-sounding. None of it came from anybody who studies poultry.
Here’s what the people who do say.
- Colorado State University Extension, on feeding scraps to backyard poultry: “Make sure they are not salty or have citrus or are moldy.” Treats should be no more than 10% of what a hen eats in a day.
- UC Davis (the vet school and UC Cooperative Extension, in their Feeding your Flock guide): “Chickens don’t require high amounts of fat, so avoid fatty foods.”
- Nobody publishes a safe amount of cheese for a hen. Not the extension services, not the Merck Veterinary Manual. So when a page tells you “a tablespoon twice a week,” somebody made that up.
And the protein-and-calcium argument doesn’t hold up either. Her layer feed is built to hit her protein and calcium targets already. Cheese on top of it isn’t filling a gap. It’s displacing feed that was doing the job.
The salt math, because “salty” is vague
I wanted a number, so I did the arithmetic from published figures. It surprised me, and not in the direction I expected.
The University of Maine Extension says sodium goes into chicken feed at about 0.15%. Alabama Extension puts a laying hen at 100 to 150 grams of feed a day. So her feed hands her something like 150 to 225 mg of sodium a day. Her whole treat allowance, at Colorado State’s 10%, is 10 to 15 grams.
Now fill that allowance with cheese. USDA’s FoodData Central gives the sodium per 100 grams:
- Sharp cheddar: 644 mg. A full treat allowance of it adds about 43% on top of the sodium in her day’s feed.
- Whole-milk mozzarella: 486 mg. About 32% extra.
- Cheese pizza (frozen, cooked): 447 mg. About 30% extra.
- Plain white bread: 490 mg. About 33% extra. Yes, bread.
That last line is the honest part. Mozzarella isn’t much saltier than the bread Colorado State lists as a fine scrap. So salt on its own doesn’t damn every cheese. Cheddar and the hard, aged cheeses are the salty ones, and feta sits in brine.
What does damn cheese across the board is the fat. USDA has sharp cheddar at 33.8 grams of fat per 100 grams and whole-milk mozzarella at 22.1. White bread is 3.3. That’s seven to ten times the fat of the bread, in a bird UC Davis says to keep off fatty food. The Merck Veterinary Manual’s backyard poultry chapter is blunter: fat scraps “should also be avoided, because they promote the development of fatty liver and acute death from liver rupture.”
Why a little salt still matters in January
Here’s where I’ll drop the dry tone for a second. The Merck Veterinary Manual’s page on salt poisoning says chickens handle a fair bit of salt as long as they’re drinking, and that the trouble starts when water is restricted. Merck names frozen water sources as one of the ways that happens.
A frozen waterer on a January morning is the most ordinary thing in the world in my coop. If the only water in the run is a block of ice until I get out there with the kettle, that is not the morning for salty scraps. The signs Merck lists in poultry include increased thirst, weakness and diarrhea. If you see that after a flock got into something salty, get fresh water in front of them and call an avian vet. Don’t work it out from a web page, this one included.
Cheese bread and pizza: worse, not better
I used to have separate pages saying cheese bread and cheese pizza were fine. They’re gone, and they point here, because the answer is the same and then some.
- Pizza brings the cheese plus a sauce that usually has onion and garlic in it. That’s the onion family, and onions are a flat no on Colorado State’s list.
- Garlic cheese bread is the same problem with butter on top.
- Plain pizza crust with nothing on it is bread, and bread is a scrap Colorado State names as suitable. Tear the crust off, bin the rest.
The greasy box and the slice somebody left on the patio table overnight go in the trash, not the run. Anything that’s been sitting out long enough to grow something is a separate problem. Colorado State says no moldy scraps, full stop.
If you give cheese anyway
I’m not going to pretend a crumble of mozzarella will hurt a healthy hen who has water. Nobody has shown that, and I’m not going to invent it. If your kid wants to hand a bit to the friendliest hen, this is how I’d do it:
- Mild and plain. Mozzarella or cottage cheese, not cheddar, feta, parmesan or anything smoked.
- A crumble, not a slice. Thumbnail-sized, shared across the flock. It still counts toward the 10%.
- Nothing mixed in. No garlic, no chives, no onion, no herbs you can’t name.
- Never on a frozen-water day, and never when it’s hot enough that they’re panting.
What I give instead
The treats that don’t come with any of this doubt are the boring ones, which is why they work. Leafy greens, pumpkin and winter squash (seeds and all), cucumber and melon in the heat, berries, cooked plain rice or oats. Colorado State names leafy greens, vegetable peelings and bread products as good scraps. And if you want to hand over protein because a hen’s molting, a scoop of mealworms is protein with no salt question attached. It still counts toward the 10%.
Weigh a day’s treats for your flock once, with a kitchen scale, and you’ll be surprised how little it is. For my twelve it’s roughly 120 to 180 grams all told. The checker does that sum for any flock size.
Sources
- Colorado State University Extension: Raising Poultry the Organic Way: Disease Control and Feeding (Howard Enos, December 2019, reviewed August 2025): scraps not salty, not citrus, not moldy; bread products and leafy greens; the 10% cap.
- UC Cooperative Extension / UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine: Feeding your Flock (Dr. Maurice Pitesky and Dr. Nancy Reimers): avoid fatty foods; scraps are a treat, not the main course.
- University of Maine Cooperative Extension: Salt is an Important Nutrient for Poultry: sodium added to feed at about 0.15%.
- Alabama Cooperative Extension System: Feeding the Laying Hen (Pacheco, Gulizia & Downs, August 2022): 100 to 150 grams of feed a day.
- Merck Veterinary Manual: Management of Backyard Poultry (Yuko Sato, DVM; revised November 2024): fat scraps, fatty liver.
- Merck Veterinary Manual: Salt Toxicosis in Animals: poultry and water restriction, frozen water sources, the signs in birds.
- USDA FoodData Central (SR Legacy): sodium and fat per 100 g for sharp cheddar (170899), whole-milk mozzarella (170845), frozen cheese pizza (170317) and white bread (174924). The percentages above are my arithmetic from these figures.
Sources checked September 26, 2026. I keep chickens; I’m not a veterinarian. If a bird is off her food, drinking hard or sitting fluffed up after getting into something, ring an avian vet.
Related read: How to Raise Chickens for Eggs — Instant PDF download. Secure checkout by Stripe
