Feeding canned (cooked) corn bits to chicks and ducklings?

[nao57]

So I had a question about feeding canned corn to chicks and ducklings that are young.

Is there any problem with this? And what's the youngest you could do it and not have problems?

(To clarify I'm talking about the stuff that's canned with heat, so they are soft bits in the can, and already separated from the cobs.)

My intention is that this is great for training them to trust me by feeding them it as a treat out of my hand. (But I want to make sure this won't be an issue. I haven't had any trouble using really soft cooked peas doing this, but after awhile I ended up using all my canned peas.

I'm still using the normal chick starter for their main food also. This would only be for like mid day treats, and trust training.

Thanks for any insights.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Probably not a big problem with it. I would just make sure to provide grit for them. Grit is like their teeth so food has to be ground.
Also, understand that corn is already the main ingredient in feed. Adding more for young chicks can lower the protein content of their overall intake. Corn is less than 10% protein. Some people try mealworms as a protein rich treat to train chicks.

 

[LDev]

I give my broody a half corn cob later in the day, she takes what she wants and also shares it out between her 6 chicks....she breaks it into smaller pieces. It’s harder to eat than individual corn from a can and the outer shell stays on the cob. As @ChickenCanoe says you also need to supply chick grit whenever they start eating anything other that their chick crumbs. I crush up dried mealworm for my chicks for extra protein and am training them using that. Their mum loves mealworms and always ‘tells’ them it’s ok to eat them from my hand

 

[Kellow1]

I don't recommend feeding canned anything to the chickens as the processing takes out a lot of vitamins and adds a lot of salt, which is not healthy for the birds. If you want to give your chicks something from your hand, use the dry feed. They won't know the difference!

 

[LDev]

I don't recommend feeding canned anything to the chickens as the processing takes out a lot of vitamins and adds a lot of salt, which is not healthy for the birds. If you want to give your chicks something from your hand, use the dry feed. They won't know the difference!

Yep forgot to say I only ever would give canned stuff it was in water, never with added salt/sugar

 

[nao57]

I give my broody a half corn cob later in the day, she takes what she wants and also shares it out between her 6 chicks....she breaks it into smaller pieces. It’s harder to eat than individual corn from a can and the outer shell stays on the cob. As @ChickenCanoe says you also need to supply chick grit whenever they start eating anything other that their chick crumbs. I crush up dried mealworm for my chicks for extra protein and am training them using that. Their mum loves mealworms and always ‘tells’ them it’s ok to eat them from my hand

This is really cool!

Thanks for sharing this.

Its kind of interesting that there are such things as animal intelligences like this, and how amazing life and life forms are.