Peanut butter is a lot of fun to feed any animals. It’s thick and sticky yet appealing to any mammal or bird. So, can chickens eat peanut butter? Yes! They love it! But what’s inside peanut butter? What are some great ways to feed it to your birds? Why would you give it to them? Read on to find out!
Peanut Butter Nutrition Profile
What exactly do you find in peanut butter? Well, if you consider 1 cup of peanut butter, 13% is carbs, 72% is fat, and 15% is protein. Most of the fats are monounsaturated, meaning this is actually not bad for your chickens in terms of fat content. Vitamins you’ll find in peanut butter include vitamin A, C, D, E, K, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6, folate, pantothenic acid, choline, and betaine. All of which contribute to healthy chicken bones and eggs.
Minerals within peanut butter include calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, sodium, potassium, sodium, zinc, copper, manganese, and selenium. Again, these are all very important for chicken bone health and egg production.
How Peanut Butter is Made
You can get a great idea about how healthy something is to eat buy looking at how it’s made. First, peanut butter manufacturers will dry roast the peanuts. This is done through roasting 400 pounds of peanuts at a time at 800 degrees Fahrenheit until they’re about 320 degrees Fahrenheit for about an hour. From there, they’re removed from the heat and passed into a perforated metal cylinder through which large volumes of air are pulled through for cooling.
Once the peanuts are cool, the manufacturers will remove the seed coats with heat or water through heat blanching which takes away the bitter parts of them. As soon as the seed coats are off, they’re ground for various consistencies. You get the chunky peanut butter from mixing a 1/8 volume of kernels with the ground peanut butter. Smooth peanut butter is simply ground.
While the peanuts are ground, they are mixed with 2 percent salt, dextrose, and hydrogenated oil stabilizer. Meanwhile, the peanut butter is mixed and sent into a stainless steel hopper for mixing and storage then subsequent packaging. Properly packaged peanut butter reduces oxidation, you can be sure that no bacteria will grow.
There is nothing unsafe in this process of peanut butter production that will hurt your chickens!
Peanut Butter Forms
Usually, you don’t eat peanut butter alone, and I doubt you’re feeding this to your chickens straight from the bottle. Perhaps you want to feed your feathered friends some peanut butter crackers. First of all, crackers alone are always great for your chickens, especially if you crack them up. They’re not the healthiest, but they enjoy them. So, what about these crackers?
They are perfectly safe for consumption! They contain 190 calories per serving with 9.0 grams of fat, 300.0mg of sodium, 23.0 grams of carbs, and 4.0 grams of protein. So, they’re not healthy, but they won’t hurt your chicken’s health.
Another favorite is peanut butter and jelly.This is probably one of the most unhealthy forms of peanut butter to give your chickens, but it’s not bad in limited quantities. Consider a peanut butter and jelly sandwich made with oat bread. It will contain 440 calories with 33 grams of carbs, 3 grams of dietary fiber, 4 grams of fat, 1 gram of sugar, and 15 grams of protein. This also varies with the type of jelly being used. Some jellies are very sweet while others aren’t. Obviously, the sweeter jellies are more unhealthy. This can negatively impact the chickens in terms of egg production, and fat composition.
Peanut Butter Ideas
Peanut butter sticks. This is your biggest advantage in finding snacks to make with it. For example, you can try some peanut butter and pumpkin snacks. Simply mix some flour, oats, and any kinds of dried herbs you’d like into a bowl, mix it, and throw in some eggs and molasses. Combine this peanut butter and sweet potato until you have a soft cookie dough.
Roll out the dough and use a cookie cutter to cut out shapes. Arrange them on a baking tray and cook for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Allow them to cool and through them into a container in the fridge to preserve them. Your chickens will love these cookies! If you have dogs you can give them to them too!
Another idea is peanut butter trail mix. Trail mixes are so much fun to make for chickens. Your only limits are your supplies and imagination. With peanut butter, you can throw in a cup-full to a bowl of chicken feed, mealworms, and any other grain you wish to add. Mix it up, and put it in their bowl. They’ll absolutely love this! Plus, it’s also a sneaky way of getting your feathery friends to eat the oyster shell supplements they’ve been stubborn about eating.
Feel free to run to the store and grab a jar of peanut butter for your birds, as long as you’re ok sharing it with them! They’ll appreciate it.
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Becky
Monday 27th of March 2023
Will outdated peanut butter mixed with suet be harmful to chickens?