5 Bad Summer Foods for Chickens

We all want to keep our homestead flock healthy and cool during the summer months! Monitoring your flock’s diet during the summer is essential to helping them handle the heat. It will also help them stay healthy during the summer months. These 5 bad summer foods for chickens are ones that you should cut out of your flock’s summer diet. What a chicken consumes will affect how well it is able to stay cool. Foods that provide high energy, generate internal heat, or cause digestive upset should all be avoided during the summer months. I’ve compiled a list of five general foods that the homestead flock should not consume during the summer!

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Why Avoid These Foods?

A summer diet for chickens is really no different than when you adapt their diet for the fall molting season or the cold winter months. You just take into consideration the environmental stresses that your flock will experience during the summer and adjust their diet to help them stay healthy despite the change in weather and added stress factors.

The major environmental stress factor that affects your chickens during the summer is the heat. From naturally having a high body temperature to constantly having on a feathered coat, staying cool can become challenging for chickens. Adapting your flock’s diet to the hot weather is just one way you can help them stay cool this summer.

The following five foods definitely have their place and time for the homestead flock. However, by cutting out these five foods from your flock’s summer diet you can help them stay both healthy and cool.

#1. Vinegar

Due to its high acid content, vinegar should not be given to chickens during the summer months. It all has to do with the pH levels of a chicken’s body. A chicken’s body naturally tries to stay more on the alkaline side of the pH scale. By having a slightly alkaline pH level, the body can more easily fend off disease and inhibit bad bacteria from taking up residence.

All foods are somewhere on the acid to alkaline scale. To maintain a slightly alkaline state, the body must convert and acidic foods into a more alkaline state in order to maintain the ideal pH level. Once an acidic food enters a chicken’s body, the body immediately works to buff that acid with alkaline substances.

The most readily available alkaline substance in a chicken’s body is usually calcium. When a chicken consumes vinegar, its body draws on calcium reserves to convert the vinegar into an alkaline state. This is detrimental during the summer when calcium absorption is already inhibited due to the heat and excessive panting.

Giving your flock vinegar, like apple cider vinegar, during the summer can cause them to lay thin-shelled eggs, stop laying, or suffer from calcium deficiencies. Don’t add apple cider vinegar to your flock’s water during the summer!

#2. Scratch Grains

Scratch grains are high in energy and low in everything else. That makes them a good, special winter time treat but definitely not something to be offered during the summer months! Most scratch grain mixes contain a mixture of grains that provide instant energy (carbohydrates). They are not really high in nutritional value nor do they add diversity to the flock’s diet.

High energy is not a priority during the summer. A chicken will be using normal energy levels going about its daily routine. Normal energy requirement should be met by a balanced, complete feed. Extra energy from scratch grains are not needed and can actually be detrimental to the chicken’s health.

Carbohydrates require energy to be digested and used by a chicken’s body. Most scratch grains are high in carbohydrates since they are a source of quick energy. The use of energy to digest the grains generates internal heat. The generation of internal heat does not help a chicken stay cool!

From providing unnecessary, extra energy to generating internal heat when digested, it’s pretty safe to say that scratch grains are not needed in the flock’s summer diet! Save them for winter time treats when the extra energy can be used for staying warm.

#3. Meat Scraps

Meat scraps are another food that should be limited in the flock’s summer diet. While meat scraps are not bad to offer on occasion during the summer, they should be limited. The reason being that protein also generates heat when it is digested and meat is naturally a more acidic food.

Protein is an essential component in a chicken’s diet. It is also one that often gets neglected during the summer when a chicken naturally consumes less feed (thus less protein). Free-range chickens have less of a problem with summer protein deficiencies since they forage for bugs and grubs. Thus, offering treats on occasion that do provide protein can be helpful during the summer months.

As far as meat scraps go, it’s best to limit how often your flock gets meat scraps during the summer. Choose other plant-based sources of protein that will be easier for chickens to digest, generate less internal heat, and won’t need an acid buffer.

If you do have some leftover meat scraps that you want to treat your flock with this summer, save them for the morning or evening. Feeding your flock meat scraps during the coolest part of the day will reduce any negative affects the meat has on helping the chickens stay cool.

#4. Bread Products & Carbs

Like I mentioned earlier, foods that are high in carbohydrates should be limited in the flock’s summer diet. High carbohydrate foods often include breads, buns, crackers, pasta, and other starchy bread products. Limiting these foods in your flock’s summer diet will help them stay both cool and healthy.

Treats and table scraps that are high in carbohydrates should be avoided because they generate internal heat when they are digested and they provide unnecessary extra energy. Your flock should be getting their energy needs met by the complete feed they are fed, which is also balanced out with the other dietary elements they need (like protein, vitamins, and minerals).

High carb products also tend to be more on the acidic side of the pH scale. Feeding your flock an alkaline diet during the summer is more helpful than feeding them foods that are slightly acidic!

Chickens naturally consume less feed during the hot months, so the foods they do consume should be beneficial and nutritious. Bread products and other carby foods do not fit the feed bill for the summer!

#5. Dairy

Lastly, dairy products should also be limited in the flock’s summer diet. Chickens naturally don’t have the digestive enzymes to easily digest dairy-products. Think about it, birds never had the need to digest milk so they would never had developed the digestive enzymes necessary for digesting milk-based products.

Because dairy is hard for chickens to digest, it can often cause digestive upset when consumed too frequently or in too large of quantities. Digestive upset can cause an imbalance in essential digestive enzymes and can lead to diarrhea. Diarrhea can quickly lead to dehydration, which is the last thing a chicken needs during hot weather! Digestive upset can also make the chicken more susceptible to disease and a weakened immune system.

Just like with meat products, dairy products are also acidic. When consumed, the body has to use an alkaline buffer (usually calcium) to maintain a healthy pH level.

Fermented dairy products are often given to chickens during the summer for providing beneficial probiotics. However, there are healthier sources of probiotics that a chicken will digest easier and utilize better (like fermented chicken feed).

Limit and avoid dairy products in your flock’s summer diet to keep their digestive systems happy and to help them stay cool!

Feeding Seasonally

By not including these five bad summer foods for chickens in your flock’s summer diet, you are doing them a favor by reducing un-used energy consumption, limiting internal digestive heat, and helping them stay hydrated and cool. Having your homestead flock eat a seasonal diet is the best way to keep them healthy, meet seasonal dietary needs, and make raising homestead chickens economical and sustainable! While these five foods do have their seasonal benefits, summer is just not the right time for your flock to be consuming them. Keeping your flock cool and healthy summer starts by correctly adjusting their diet!

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by Alexa