I have some happy chickens.

We had to buy a new lawn mower so William selected one with the grass bag on the back of it. He cut the backyard this morning. We don't have a lawn in our back yard. Most of the plants growing there are chickweed and henbit. He caught all of this in the grass bag and threw it into the chicken pens. Those chickens acted like we'd served them up some caviar. LOL

I'm glad we can do this because we can't let them out of the pens to free range. Too many dogs roaming around the community. We've had whole flocks wiped out at one time. Now this way the chickens can get grass and weeds to munch on.

I bet they are happy! Like you, we can't let ours free range, so once in awhile I'll hand pick dandelions for them. They really go crazy for them.

I also have to keep mine penned up. We give them grass clippings whenever we cut the grass as well as veggie peelings and leftovers from the fridge. Mine have had lots of stale bread and old corn flakes from the food pantry the last few weeks.

Yeah, mine always get leftovers and peelings. We have a "chicken bucket" that stays next to my kitchen sink. Everyone who eats here knows that all that is not eaten goes into the chicken bucket. They love my fridge cleaning day.

I'd been pulling up the weeds and clover and giving it to the chickens. I love to watch them when I throw green stuff to them. They just go nuts for it. But it kind of makes me feel bad that they can't get out and scratch around for themselves. The bad feelings don't last long though when I think about the alternative.

I also throw my leftovers and frig cleanings to ours too. Also any eggs that are cracked or are so dirty I can't clean them are boiled and broken up to feed the chickens too.

Yeah, when we get too many eggs I'll scramble them and feed half to the dogs and the rest goes to the chickens.

Why don't you freeze your extra eggs for when the girls aren't laying? I break my extra eggs either 2 or 3 into a sandwich baggie, squeeze the air out of the bag, zip closed and squish the bag to break the yolks and mix the eggs up a bit. then I lay the bags on a cookie sheet and freeze until solid. After frozen, I place the sandwich bags into a freezer bag.

Ours lay year round. They slow down a bit in the winter, which means they lay plenty for our family. When they are laying in the spring and summer, we usually have a lot of extra eggs. We usually either give them away or sell a few, but even then we have extras. I have frozen some, but it seems we always have plenty without using the frozen ones, so I figure it'll give the critters a special treat.