what would you feed a chicken?

My part of this weekend's harvest festivities was guiding much anticipated tours of the chickens' new outdoor accommodations.



One of the most important questions is: what do they eat? Since grow mash (corn based, which is the bulk of the chicks' diet) isn't particularly exciting, we let the kids give the chickens a treat - worms from the vermiculture bin...



They even got to feed the chickens some rocks (which the chickens need to swallow to keep in their crop to grind up their food before they digest it since they don't have teeth).



Despite repeated offers, however, the kids would not feed ladybugs from the recently harvested lima bean fields to the chickens.

Maybe understandable if you happen to be dressed as a ladybug for Halloween...