Can chickens eat tick?

Why

Chickens are enthusiastic insect foragers, and ticks are among the many bugs a free-ranging bird will pick out of grass and leaf litter. Eating them is normal chicken behaviour, not something to prevent, and many keepers value their flock partly for how thoroughly it patrols the yard. The practical cautions are about the yard rather than the tick: birds should not forage in areas recently treated with pesticides, and a flock is a helpful patrol rather than a guaranteed way to clear a heavily infested property.

If you do feed it

• Nothing to prepare -- free-ranging birds find and eat ticks on their own
• Keep the flock off lawns and beds recently treated with pesticides or tick sprays, where poisoned insects are the real risk
• Treat foraged insects as a bonus to a balanced feed, not a replacement for it

Watch out for

• Yards treated with pesticides or tick treatments -- poisoned insects are the hazard, not the tick itself
• Heavy infestations on the birds themselves, which is a coop and husbandry question for your vet, not a diet one
• Relying on chickens alone to clear a badly infested property

Better choices