Friday, May 11, 2007

Will they eat it?

I've heard of this thing called "Will it Blend?" that is supposedly a commercial about a high powered blender. I think the host puts weird things in the blender, and then blends them while being videotaped. Things like iPods, and video cameras.

Ok, now I just googled it and apparently they have a website; www.willitblend.com Are you really surprised? Me neither.

That isn't the point, though. I've started to conduct my own sort of experiment that I've entitled, "Will they eat it?" Perhaps you know that chickens will eat most things. I've actually read up on the subject and discovered (via the internet) that there are a few basic rules to feeding weird things to chickens.

1) Nothing that has "gone bad," has mold on it, or is otherwise suspiciously slimy
2) No raw potato peels. Bad for digestion
3) Not too much meat. A little niblet is ok, but stick to an amount that mimics a bug or small lizard that the chicken would theoretically catch and eat naturally.
4) If they are laying eggs, and you want those eggs to taste good, nothing that seems unwise like garlic, cabbage, asparagus, or onions.
5) Rumor has it that coffee grounds are too acidic for them.
6) Chicken meat. Don't feed chicken meat to chickens. Got it.

Other than that, I think I have a carte blanc to feed them just about anything. So Matt and I have been giving them random things.

I know you are all wondering what they have eaten so far. Here you go: cooked white rice, cooked brown rice, carrot peelings, Maui Kettle chip bottom-of-the-bag crumblets, Hint of Lime Tostito bits, shredded cheese of virtually every flavor, raw spinach, cooked spinach, burnt bagel crust, cooked leftover cous-cous, cooked rotelli, scrambled eggs, hard boiled eggs, pie crust crumbs, the crusty stuff stuck in a casserole dish after I baked a Mexican Lasagna and forgot to soak the dish over night, dandelions, large black squirmy beetles, earthworms, caterpillars, grubs, thinned squash seedlings, thinned lettuce seedlings, crumbled graham crackers, uncooked quinoa, dead flies, stale raspberry crunch granola, uncooked broccoli, cream cheese, butter, and yeah... chicken feed.

2 comments:

Jennifer said...

that seems like a tragic waste of butter.

MissoulaChick said...

Well, most of the time when we feed them something weird (like butter or cream cheese) it isn't a fresh, clean blob of it. It is usually something that fell on the floor and therefore was covered in dog hair, or in the case of the butter I think it was the little bits of butter that end up stuck to the butter dish when you are done with that stick of butter.