Everyone, post your best homemade chicken feed recipes!

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JoyfulPromise said:
Loved reading through this thread! We have been making our own layer ration and Meat chicken feed for the past 2 or 3 years now, mainly because of our desire to feed soy-free feed, and we couldn't find a good or affordable pre-made feed in our area. We have definitely learned a lot over the past year or two, and though I know there is still room for improvement, I am pretty happy with our current mixes. We are blessed to be able to purchase grains in bulk from a local Organic grain processor, and we purchase the supplements (Organic Fish Meal, Fertrell Poultry Nutri-Balancer, and Thorvin Kelp) from nearby Feed stores. We purchased a home feed grinder and are able to grind the grains at different sizes for the different aged chickens.

Here is our current Layer Ration - about 18% protein...

5.5lbs Whole Wheat
3.5lbs Cracked Corn
3.5lbs Garbanzo Beans (used to use Adzuki, but these are the other "safe" bean that is available right now)
2lbs Flax Meal Pellets
1.5lbs Whole Oats, run through grinder on Medium
.5 lb Organic Fish Meal - 62% protein
.5 lb Fertrell Poultry Nutri-Balancer
.18lb Thorvin Kelp

I put the corn through our grinder on Large, then the beans, Flax Pellets(they don't like the whole pellets), and Oats through on Medium. Wheat goes in whole, and then all the supplements. My younger brother is our Human Mixer currently - we are definitely in the market for a cheap barrel mixer or something of the sort!!!
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This recipe gets tweaked quite often, according to availability, or new information, or time of year. I have added some Wheat Germ too recently, about 1/4 lb for this size of recipe. This makes about 16.68 lbs BTW, which is approximately 1/3 of 50lbs, and is the perfect size to hand mix in our buckets...
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I have also just started fermenting the feed after reading the thread about fermenting feed for Meat birds. So far it seems to be going well! :)

Hope this is helpful to someone!


Edit: I forgot to mention that we give the above layer mash as 2/3 of our laying hens' diet - the other third is a scratch mix (currently fed dry) of Corn, Wheat, and BOSS.
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Just to make sure I understand, the recipe is the above layer mash, correct?
 
mudhen said:
Thanks MarkR!
My hens go bonkers with grapes. I'm going to try tomatoes today, since I have half a container of 'just the other side of perfect' grape tomatoes in my fridge.
Gotta try that cricket/tomatoe salad on them some day!
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Mine like blue berries off of my bushes! The get chopped kale three or four days a week. They get some table scraps and sometimes yogurt and cooked oat meal. oh, and dried meal worms. Needless to say, very spoiled also!
 
plant some crops in the garden that will feed you and the girls. sweet potatoes - chickens love them, good source of vitanin A. sunflowers - sunflower seeds are about 18% protein.
winter squash the girls will love them, and few things are tastier than pumpkin seeds. most winter squash seed have a similar nutrition profile. i am particularly fond of "cushaw" and "butternut" types. a hundred foot row can yield a quarter ton of winter fodder. great for pies, roasted, or fed to the girls. many types ("Apache giant") are primarily raised for livestock feed. winter squash stores well, and will last several months to provide fresh fodder through the winter.
chop the big stuff up to fist size and throw it in the run. the girls will take it from there
 

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