Okay, let’s get to the question of can chickens eat celery? One thing I find fascinating about raising chickens is that I can feed them almost anything edible. This is quite interesting considering that most farm animals eat plants and nothing else. Perhaps that could be the reason why keeping chickens is increasingly becoming popular. But are you aware that your chickens can eat different kinds of vegetables and fruits?
Chickens can eat celery just in the same way they can eat other treats. Celery is rich in essential nutrients that your birds need. Most importantly, celery is safe for them to eat.
Chickens have a unique sense of what they can eat and what is harmful. This is what makes them a special kind of farm animals. Besides, they are choosey and will refuse to eat anything that seems dangerous.
That explains why they decline eating most of the plants belonging to the nightshade family. A perfect example of such foods is eggplants, which contain a poisonous substance known as solanine. So don’t be surprised to see your birds eating other foods and leaving others.
When it comes to celery, you can rest assured that your chickens will eat them. This type of vegetable is healthy and delicious to both humans and chickens. It stands out as one of the most common vegetables grown in different environments.
As a healthy treat for chickens, celery contains a substantial amount of essential nutrients. These nutrients can help your birds grow healthy and productive. When combined with other vegetables like lettuce and kale, celery can become part of your chicken’s vegetable diet.
In other words, food that is good for you is also good for your flock. Although there are a few exceptions here and there, just know celery is not one of those harmful foods.
Following this information, you can use celery to promote your chicken’s health. Balancing their diet with a few pellets will enable your chickens to receive essential nutrients. These nutrients include minerals, vitamins, and fiber, among others.
Most of these essential nutrients could be missing from other foods. So, this will give you a good opportunity to incorporate them into your chicken’s diet.
Also, celery can provide the right nutritional value to those chickens that don’t roam outdoors to find food. Such chickens would be missing some of these essential nutrients, and the only affordable way of giving them is through treats.
If you think your birds are getting tired of the same type of food, you may diversify their diets with several treats. Doing so will expose them to different nutrients not found in some of their commercial feed.
One thing you should know about your chickens is that they really like fruits and vegetables. Quite a number of these birds are keen on apple cores, bananas, broccoli, carrots, and vegetable peels. Through these types of food, they can experience more health benefits not found in other foods.
However, you must take care not to feed them certain fruits and vegetables because they can harm them. Raw green peels (potato peels) and some citrus fruits are not entirely safe for your chickens to eat. Besides, you should know that they need low salt and sugar foods, including whole grain, to keep them healthy.
Why Should You Feed Your Chickens Celery?
You don’t have to throw away your table scraps, especially if you have chickens. These leftovers can be a delicious treat for them. Chickens like table scraps and will do anything to have a taste of them if they get an opportunity.
But these treats should just remain optional or supplements and not a replacement for your chicken’s regular diet. Besides, your chickens should eat them sparingly and in moderation.
Too many treats might cause them to refuse to eat their regular food. As a result, your birds might become unhealthy or unproductive.
Before feeding them table scraps, take your time to find out if this type of treat is safe to eat. Always check if these leftovers are spoiled, moldy, or rotten. If you find a few that are in bad condition, discard them rather than feeding your chickens. Rotten food is usually dangerous to chickens and can negatively affect their health.
You may collect your kitchen or table scraps using a small pail and give your birds. Toss the table scrap over to their pen or yard where they will see and eat. Your flock will scramble for this treat and enjoy it more than their daily commercial poultry feed.
Alternatively, you can introduce other treats such as celery to see how they will respond to its taste. Don’t be surprised when you see them ignoring celery for the first time. Later they will be fighting for it once they get its actual taste.
Feeding your chickens a nutritionally balanced food is one way of keeping them safe, happy, active, productive, and healthy. Give them only the right nutrients so they may enjoy the health benefits of supplemental treats such as celery. While doing so, you must take into account their digestive system as well as nutritional needs.
Remember that your chickens don’t have teeth. This means they cannot break or tear up celery. Therefore, it can be tricky and stringy to eat. Regardless, they may not have problems digesting it. But if you give them this treat in long strings, they might not eat. They will just leave it.
Can Chickens Eat Stems, Pulp, Stalks, Tops, Leaves, and Roots?
Always remember that what you can eat your chickens can eat, although there are a few exceptions. This is a general rule that you should apply when it comes to feeding your birds some table scraps.
In the case of celery, your chickens can indeed eat stems, pulp, stalks, tops, and even roots. As you can see, this rule applies here as well, given that the parts of the celery mentioned above are consumable.
Most of these parts are rich in essential nutrients for your chicken’s well-being. The leaves contain a substantial amount of potassium, calcium, and vitamin C. This should tell you that this part of the celery is better for them.
The root also referred to as celeriac, is edible and equally nutritious, just like other parts. It is an excellent source of starch and tastes just like the stalk. So you may try it before feeding your birds.
As far as vegetables are concerned, celery is one of the best treats for your flock. You can eat or prepare it for your animals to enjoy it alongside other foods. This brings us to the question of how to make celery for your birds.
How Do You Prepare Celery For Your Chickens?
Feeding your birds’ celery needs preparation rather than waving several sticks of this treat at them. Below are steps you need to follow whenever you are feeding chickens celery:
Check To Ensure It’s Good For Consumption
- The first thing to do when feeding your birds celery is to check its freshness and expiry date. As mentioned earlier, you should never let your chickens eat anything that would harm them.
- With that in mind, make sure that you check the freshness of the celery before preparing it for them. You should do so to protect them from consuming moldy foods or rotten fruits and vegetables.
Chop It up into Small Pieces
- Since celery is stringy, you need to chop it into smaller pieces to help your birds have an easy time when eating. This is because chickens don’t have teeth to tear, break, or even chew this type of food.
- During preparation, cut the celery sideways to make it easy for the chickens to peck at while eating. When it gets inside the crop, the celery should be fine and digestible.
Mix it With Their Feed
- Once you are done with chopping this treat, you should mix it with the primary diet before feeding your flock. The main reason for doing so is to prevent wastage of food.
- Also, adding to the main diet will ensure that your chickens eat all food and not just the treats alone. The addition of celery to the chicken’s feed is a better way for your chickens to benefit from this delicious treat.
Feed Them in Moderation
- If your chickens start enjoying celery, don’t be carried away and forget that moderation is the way to go. Chickens tend to like treats and will do so when you feed them celery. If you are not careful, they will ignore their regular diet and pay most of their attention to this treat.
- It is not a bad idea for your birds to eat more treats. But you should keep rotating their diet using different scraps. Remember the 10 percent rule that clearly emphasizes on 90 percent being the main diet and 10 percent the treats. Once you apply this rule as required, your flock will achieve their nutritional needs within the shortest time possible.
What are the Nutritional Benefits of Celery to Your Chickens?
Celery belongs to the Apiaceae family in the plant kingdom. It shares the same family with parsnips, parsley, carrots, and celeriac. Due to its crunchy stalks, celery makes it to the list of the most popular low-calorie treats. This should tell you that it can provide a lot of health benefits to you and your chickens in general.
The fiber content in this vegetable plays a crucial role in the cardiovascular and digestive systems. In particular, this vegetable can help your birds overcome any digestive issues that may arise from time to time. This is because of certain types of non-starch, pectin-based polysaccharides that have special importance in the stomach lining. The polysaccharides control the number of secretions in the stomach, which in turn improves digestion.
Celery is one of those treats that have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. These properties come as a result of phytonutrients contained in this vegetable. As such, they can reduce risks of oxidative damage to blood vessel walls and body fats. They also can prevent inflammatory reactions, especially in the digestive tract or blood vessels.
As a vegetable, celery contains a substantial amount of riboflavin, which is helpful for your chicken development. At the same time, it contains several beneficial minerals and vitamins. They include vitamin B6, vitamin A, C and K, calcium, pantothenic acid, and manganese, among others.
Collectively, these building blocks play a significant role in the growth and development of your birds. Calcium in celery ensures that your layers produce high-quality eggs with strong shells. That is the reason you should consider feeding your flock celery as part of their diet.
Nutritional Profile of Celery
Celery is an excellent source of different types of nutrients. They include phenolic phytonutrients with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. The phytonutrients found in celery are caffeic acid, cinnamic acid, caffeoylquinic acid, coumaric acid, and many more. All these nutrients perform various functions within the chicken’s body.
It is also an excellent source of molybdenum and vitamin K. Besides, it is rich in dietary fiber, potassium, folate, pantothenic acid, and manganese.
Apart from that, celery contains about 53 mg of sodium in each stalk. This amount of salt is right for your chickens to enjoy their treat. Salt and sugar are not recommended for chickens because they are not good for their health.
Related Questions
What is the best way of introducing celery to your chickens? You can chop this vegetable into smaller pieces and mix it with their regular feed before allowing them to eat. Once they get used to the taste of their new treat, they will always crave it.
Can celery harm your chickens? Not really unless you feed them expired, moldy or rotten celery. To prevent such cases, you can always take your time to check the freshness and expiry date of this treat. Otherwise, celery is one of the safest and most delicious treats you can think of.
Final Thought
To recap, chickens can enjoy eating celery, just like other treats. Celery contains useful nutrients that can help your birds to grow healthy and productive. However, you need to feed your birds this treat in moderation to avoid specific health problems in the future.
Below is a Pinterest friendly photo…. so you can pin it to your Chicken Board!!
