Chickens pretty much know how to eat instinctively. If you hatch baby chicks in an incubator, they will start pecking at food within a few hours, and they'll do fine. But if you introduce some new food, say, a strawberry, or some crumbled bread--they might not know what that is. I've seen chicks huddle in one corner of their box for HOURS because they were scared of that RED THING!
Our old broody hen Hex, used to pick little bites off the apple core, or bagel crust, or corn cob, and put it in front of her babies. If they were slow, she'd peck at the morsel and coax them to try it. You could almost hear her say, "Like this. Just peck it. It's good." She showed her babies how to pick the corn kernels and peas out of the mixed vegetables first, and save the yucky carrots and green beans for later. Audrey was raised by Hex, and she will eat anything.
Maybe Hex did things that way because she was a bantam, and she raised other hen's eggs; her babies were full sized, often bigger than her by the time they were 5 weeks old--because Starboard does things differently. Jordan took some stale bagels out to share around yesterday. It's the first time the peeps have seen any food but scratch feed. Starboard started chuckling, "I found something good to eat." Two peeps ran right up and started tackling the bread crumbs, but two hung back. They were scared of that THING! Their mom called them again, and when they didn't still come over, she went and got them. She literally picked them up and dragged their fuzzy butts to the table, then demonstrated how to tear bits off. "Like this. Just grab it--child, I'll snatch you blind if you don't come over here and peck this bread. One bite. Try one bite. Don't make me come get you."
Starboard is kind of an intense mom.
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