Feeding chickens your holiday leftovers

As the holidays pass any of us that  have hosted a party or gathering will soon find ourselves staring into the refrigerator wondering "what am I going to do with all these leftovers?" As chicken keepers, most of us like to give leftover food to the chickens. They love the treat and it's a frugal way to lighten up the feed bill a little. 

In the winter I even warm the leftovers up for them since it's so cold outside. (I know I'm not the only one!) Holiday dishes though, can contain ingredients we don't use the rest of the year. This can bring up the question of whether it's safe to let the chickens eat it, or not? 

I've talked about feeding chickens for free many times in the past as saving money on my feed bill is something I'm always thinking about. (Have you seen my feed expenses? Take a look, you'll understand) I hate to waste anything that I can give to the chickens and today I wanted to talk about what kinds of holiday leftovers you can and cannot feed your chickens and guinea fowl.

Easy to make feather ornaments

As a chicken keeper I always have a whole box of feathers. I pick up the perfect or unique feathers when I see them lying around on the ground or in the coop. So there's always a huge supply of chicken feathers and I love to use them for crafts. What better way to bring my feathered friends indoors with me than to use their feathers in my home decor? 

Last year I saw a box of empty glass ornaments in the store and decided to make something with them. I had actually seen a Frozen themed ornament with blue glitter and white snowflakes inside on a craft blog, so that was the original idea. However when moving my craft supplies around to get to the glitter my eyes fell on the box of feathers and the plans changed.

Right then and there I decided that chicken and guinea fowl feather ornaments were much better than cartoon characters! Not only are they more 'me' but they have that homemade Christmas look that I love. They fit my homesteading style too!

Unfortunately even though I actually made these chicken feather ornaments for the first time in 2015, my lazy butt didn't get to writing about it till today. *sigh* Farming is hard in the winter...It really wipes you out! 

Before we get to these filled ball ornaments though, I also made these elegant hanging feather ornaments. You can find all the supplies in the same place, so I wanted to let you know before you head to the craft store!

Related reading: How to make a chicken feather necklace.

Back to the ornaments though. You'll only need a few things: