I like to give the girls an apple to keep them occupied pecking at it throughout the day. Because their little beaks struggle to get through the peal, I peal their apple, quarter it and remove the pips. My little girls are quite spoilt.
The girls have an apple treat
They love a bit of apple to peck at
By the end of the day the apple will have completely disappeared. A healthy treat for the girls.
Click here to see the history of my flock.
Looks as if they are enjoying their treat.
They love apple. By the end of the day there was nothing left of it. It’s a good way of getting a few photos of them together.
Mine like apple, too, and I do cut them in half, although leave it at that and just pick up the odd bit of peel when they’ve finished. They seem to like the seeds – and they absolutely love melon seeds.
I now have your comment. I read about the apple seeds containing cyanide so I now remove them. It did say swallowed whole as chickens do it wouldn’t be a problem as they need to be chewed to release it but once I had read that I couldn’t resist removing them to be on the safe side. They do go mad for melon seeds which are supposed to be good for them so I allow them.
Sorry, Carol – have changed from using firefox, so am not recognised – then I mis-typed my email address.
No problem. I have this comment but not sure if you made another comment?
Technology! I really don’t understand – you got the original comment ahead of the apology! Thanks for the heads-up about apple seeds. Whenever we have melon, the yucky mess we remove to get rid of the seeds goes straight to the girls – and they devour it. Pleased those seeds are danger-free.
It’s weird because I got the apology first in my comments folder and replied to that first and yet it changed order on my blog. I don’t understand the technology either!
When I first read about cyanide in apple pips someone questioned that they had always eaten apple pips and hadn’t suffered and it said that we would need to eat a wheelbarrow full of pips to be poisoned so it is only a very small amount.
On Terry’s blog she said that melon pips are said to help protect chickens against worms but that she couldn’t find any conclusive proof of that. My girls race to a slice of melon to be first to get at the pips.
I haven’t tried apple with ours for a while. The first time they didn’t seem to be fussed by it. The second time I grated it with a cheese grater and they ate it all. They were a lot smaller then though so maybe now they would put more effort in!
They love bananas!
It’s weird because I have read of chickens liking bananas but mine won’t touch them. I think they don’t like the texture. They flatly refuse to eat them. They love melon and grapes and pears as well as apple.