Chicken Scratch AKA Chicken Crack

Chickens love corn. Periodically, I like to give them a little scratch to make them happy. Whenever I open up the can, they come running! They love scratch!

That being said, you always want to be a little careful with it. The scratch has a variety of seed types, making it great enrichment for them.The problem, scratch is very fattening.

If you feed to much scratch, then the chickens will develop excess fat deposits. This can be bad for laying hens, causing excess fat to develop along the oviduct. This can cause egg retention in hens.

In your butcher chickens, this can also be a problem, more fat usually means less muscle and a lot more trimming that needs to be done.