What can I feed my chickens? If you are a new owner of backyard chickens, it is possible you have wondered which kitchen scraps are safe to give your chickens and which are best kept for the compost heap. Surprisingly, even if you give chickens foods that are not safe for them to eat, it's likely that they won't eat them anyway. Chickens seem to be surprisingly cluey in deciding what to eat and what not to eat.