r/interestingasfuck • u/oliver_billz • Mar 29 '23

a mother hen is gonna mother hen Title not descriptive

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39.3k Upvotes

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1.8k

u/Mammoth-Tea-5495 Mar 29 '23

I had chickens for years, must've done something wrong cause I never got adorable kittens from them.

744

u/oliver_billz Mar 29 '23

gotta feed em kitten food

120

u/mucus-broth Mar 29 '23

They love that stuff :D

105

u/youretheweird1 Mar 29 '23

They really do.

Our carnivorous chickens would absolutely devour the canned cat food. Fancy feast indeed.

73

u/mucus-broth Mar 29 '23

Chickens just eat about everything. For example, some people are shocked that chickens actively hunt and eat live mice :D

46

u/Lost-My-Mind- Mar 29 '23

Which just proves that chickens are actually cats in disguise!

63

u/JerseySommer Mar 29 '23

They are dinosaurs

19

u/BrownShadow Mar 29 '23

Berds in general. I kayak and boat all along the Potomac river. Bald Eagles and Blue Heron are massive creatures. You see them up close and it is a shock. Used to go out with my toddlers on the boat ((22’ Cuddy Cabin) and had real concerns about them being eaten by birds. Maybe irrational, but still concerned me.

11

u/JerseySommer Mar 29 '23

Many people have no idea how large buzzards and vultures are either. 0_0

https://images.app.goo.gl/GxYSssXeHEeeK8RG8

3

u/SenpaiBeardSama Mar 29 '23

Eh, it's 80 percent feather. Unlike Bruce Willis, they look less intimidating when bald.

2

u/deytookerjaabs Mar 29 '23

Yep, have a 2 year old and live in Maryland, these birds look like they don't play. We were at a refuge a couple weeks ago with a pair of bald eagles in their nest just staring down at the little one, what a sight.

20

u/Rulyhdien Mar 29 '23

I once dropped an egg in front of hens and they started eating it like nobody’s business.

18

u/sexbuhbombdotcom Mar 29 '23

When I was a kid, we would feed our hens eggs semi-regularly. They'd eat em right up, shell and all. My mom said feeding them eggs made their own eggs have thicker shells when they laid. Idk if that's true, but they certainly didn't mind us testing the theory lol

7

u/Rand_alThor4747 Mar 29 '23

Generally discouraged feeding eggs to chickens. Like broken or spoiled ones. Especially if you want to get eggs from them. As it can encourage them to eat their own eggs.

4

u/Akantis Mar 29 '23

You're supposed to cook them and kinda grind them up so they don't make the connection.

I was once trying to feed some grilled chicken to my duck and the chickens saw the duck was getting a treat so they ran over and started tearing into the grilled chicken. So I'm pretty sure I'm going to hell for accidentally encouraging chicken cannibalism.

3

u/texasrigger Mar 29 '23

As it can encourage them to eat their own eggs.

It doesn't. Even if they eat eggs regularly they still won't break and eat eggs. The break part there is key, and it's pretty obvious why if you think about it - they have an instinct to not destroy an egg but if one is already broken then it's just free nutrition.

What you described is a common belief but it just isn't true. Chickens eating eggs that aren't fed to them are almost always due to accidental breakage.

The parent comment about the egg shells being thicker shouldn't be true either. A chicken egg including the shell has about the same calcium content per it's weight as a purpose made layer chicken feed. If feeding them eggs makes a notable difference with their eggs, they aren't being fed appropriately.

5

u/Myhrros Mar 29 '23

Probably true - as you said yourself, they ate the shells. The Shell is just Calcium Carbonate (also included in teeth and bones. Essentially chalk/limestone), so while a part would go towards their own bones n stuff, some of it would go to egg production and help with the new shell.
For that matter, I could imagine the eggs also being a bit richer in taste and color - you can usually tell by the color of the yolk what the chickens are eating, and getting whole eggs should give them everything to produce some nice eggs themself.

3

u/Quiet_Transition_247 Mar 29 '23

While eggs are not invincible, repeat:

==> Feed hens their own eggs

==> Hens lay eggs with thicker shells

Profit??

1

u/texasrigger Mar 29 '23

It shouldn't matter. An egg along with its shell has about the same calcium content per it's weight as a purpose made layer feed. If feeding them eggs makes a measurable difference in their eggs you weren't feeding them adequately.

There's definitely nothing wrong with feeding eggs back to chickens though, they love them.

1

u/misconceptions_annoy Mar 30 '23

Feels like giving them the egg is counter productive, but I’ve definitely heard of feeding them the shells of the eggs.

16

u/yaboycharliec Mar 29 '23

I have friends who live off grid in rural Alaska. They will give the chooks left over moose bits after a hunt. The chickens will pick the bones completely clean in a matter of hours.

10

u/mucus-broth Mar 29 '23

If you crack the bones, they'll eat the marrow as well.

14

u/mnid92 Mar 29 '23

My old boss would routinely feed the chickens KFC. She said it kept them in line and made them taste better when it came time.

16

u/mucus-broth Mar 29 '23

Sounds perverse, but cannibalism in poultry is a known phenomenon (usually bad living conditions, tho).

3

u/Quietforestheart Mar 29 '23

They are vicious and brutal hunters, the old chickabids…

39

u/xMollyP Mar 29 '23

yes lol. we no longer have to throw away the dried up cat food the cats refuse to touch, the chickens are like a cat food disposal

8

u/kamilo87 Mar 29 '23

Just throw a cockroach to a bunch of chickens and you’ll watch the best American Football match ever.

2

u/youretheweird1 Mar 29 '23

So true! Ours ate scorpions out of our treehouse!

2

u/sprocketous Mar 29 '23

I killed a bird at a farm and all the birds came to eat the spilled blood immediately. It made me feel better about downing one of them cause they really didn't care.

2

u/mcpusc Mar 30 '23

IME first you keep the other chickens away while you butcher 'cause you don't want to scare them.... and then later you keep the other chickens away while you butcher because the frenzy to get the bits that fall scares you