Keeping the chickens happy

Image via Food Scraps and Organic Recovery.

Food scraps like you see them above, primarily cut off remainders of vegetables processed or unprocessed, slightly gone off fruits and veg, boiled potatoes, etc. can be given to the chickens. As an addition to their daily ration of raw corn, different seeds and chicken pellets, they'll provide them probably with the best entertainment they can have. 

Image via Cooking with Corey.

An apple core thrown into their area also provides for great excitement.

Only in some settings you'll be able to allow the hens to freely roam around. Our setting is a suburban backyard, and as a result, walls and hedges are relatively low. Additionally there are a lot of dogs around in adjacent properties. That means if they'd ever get out of the property, they'd be in real danger of being hunted down by dogs. But they best enjoy as much freedom as they can get. This is the reason why we are building a chicken run, which is much bigger than the one attached to their hut. Once it's finished it will keep them amused by roaming around, and there will be a few objects inside to allow them to climb, roost or perch in different places. The hen house itself will then be placed inside.

The hens take a lot of interest in what we do, and want to interact. When I was digging, it looked like they wanted to help. In truth they were probably just suspecting the presence of worms in those areas. I found one and thew the poor thing in - it was eaten within seconds, and they were quite excited about it. Altogether it should keep them happy, healthy and hopefully busy laying eggs.