Scraps are a treat, not a diet

There is something deeply satisfying about carrying a bowl of peelings out to the run and watching the hens come charging over. It feels like the closed loop every small garden should have: kitchen waste in, fresh eggs out. Up to a point, that is exactly right. Hens are busy, curious omnivores and they genuinely enjoy a bit of variety in their day.

The catch is that a hen's nutritional needs are already met, or should be, by a complete layers' pellet or mash. That is the part of the diet supplying the right balance of protein, calcium, vitamins and energy for laying. Scraps should be the garnish, never the meal. As a rough guide, keep treats to no more than about ten per cent of what your birds eat in a day – think one small handful per hen rather than a brimming bowl.

Fill them up on bread and leftovers and they will walk away from the pellets that actually keep them well. You will notice it first in the eggshells: thin, pale and easily cracked.

Scraps that earn their place

These are the leftovers worth saving, ideally chopped small so every bird gets a share and nobody can hog the lot:

• Vegetable trimmings and peelings – carrot, parsnip, courgette, swede, cabbage leaves, broccoli stalks, pea pods and podded beans. Cooked or raw is fine, potatoes excepted.
• Fruit – apple cores, pears going soft, berries past their best, melon rind, windfalls from the garden. Cut out any bruised or mouldy patches first.
• Cooked rice, pasta and couscous in small amounts. Plain is best; skip anything smothered in a rich sauce.
• Limp salad leaves and herbs, plus safe weeds from your own garden such as dandelion, chickweed and groundsel in moderation.
• Plain natural yoghurt – a spoonful now and then is fine, but too much dairy can upset digestion and hens do not need it.
• Baked, crushed eggshells if you want to top up calcium, though a dish of oyster shell grit alongside should cover it.

What to keep out of the run

Some kitchen waste does real harm, and it pays to be strict about it:

• Mouldy bread and anything furry. Mould produces mycotoxins that can damage a hen's liver and knock laying on the head, and damp mouldy feed or bedding is a well-known route to respiratory trouble in backyard flocks. Bread also fills them up while offering very little nutrition, so even when it is fresh, keep it to an occasional treat.
• Salty meals. Gravy leftovers, cured meats, crisps, takeaway scraps, tinned soup and stock-heavy dishes can push sodium to toxic levels. Hens cannot handle salt the way we do, and the result can be excessive thirst, weakness and worse.
• Raw potato peelings, sprouts and green potatoes. These contain solanine, which causes digestive upset and, in larger amounts, nervous signs. Cooked potato in moderation is fine; raw peelings are not.
• Other no-gos: avocado, rhubarb leaves, tomato and potato foliage, raw or dried kidney beans, mouldy cheese, cooked bones that could splinter, chocolate, caffeine, alcohol, and large quantities of onion, garlic or citrus peel, which can taint the flavour of eggs.

One practical note: if your hens are garden pets and the scraps come from your own kitchen, you are on familiar ground. If you sell eggs or keep a larger flock, stricter rules on feeding kitchen and catering waste apply, so check the current guidance before you tip anything in.

Portion, timing and presentation

How you offer scraps matters almost as much as what you offer.

• Feed in the afternoon. Let them fill up on pellets in the morning, then bring scraps out later so the complete feed stays the main event.
• Chop things small. Long, stringy items such as celery, leek tops, coarse grass and big apple chunks can ball up in the crop and cause an impaction.
• Use a separate dish and clear anything left after an hour. Food sitting on the ground draws rats, flies and wild birds, and wild birds bring disease with them.
• Keep fresh water and grit available. Insoluble grit in the gizzard helps them grind everything down, while oyster shell supplies calcium.
• Watch the total. A flock of three hens needs far less than the bowl in your hand suggests.

Reading your flock

Hens are good at telling you when something is off, if you know what to look for. Loose, watery droppings, a sudden dip in laying, pale combs, droopy wings or birds hanging back at feeding time all point to something in the diet or the environment. A crop that feels squishy and smells sour first thing in the morning, before they have eaten, suggests sour crop – often linked to too much soft, stodgy food. Weight loss despite a good appetite can mean they are filling up on the wrong things.

Keep the routine simple: pellets first, scraps second, portions small, and a clean dish cleared away afterwards. Do that and a bowl of peelings becomes what it should be – a small daily pleasure for you and the birds, and a neat way of turning the garden's surplus into another lovely egg. When in doubt, leave it out. Your hens will not miss what they never had, and their eggshells and droppings will tell you when you have got it right.