Bushels of grain per chicken?

Here's a simple formula:

Allow the chickens to free range whenever possible.
Give them cuttings from your garden and table scraps.
Provide them whatever mixed grains and alfalfa you have grown.

In the winter you would have to provide them more feed because there is obviously less to eat on the ground.

The chickens will be fine.

See that's what i was thinking, but as I do more research I keep getting the hint that I'm going to severely malnourish my chickens lol. I'll probably still go ahead and mix chicken feed a la the formula I found, since I really like it, but probably use it primarily for winter feed.

In the winter we've got 4 feet of snow from roughly november through march, so I will have to actually mix feed for them anyway.

jasmer said:

See that's what i was thinking, but as I do more research I keep getting the hint that I'm going to severely malnourish my chickens lol. I'll probably still go ahead and mix chicken feed a la the formula I found, since I really like it, but probably use it primarily for winter feed.

In the winter we've got 4 feet of snow from roughly november through march, so I will have to actually mix feed for them anyway.

Click to expand...

Oh, I see.

Yes, you will have to grow a lot of feed where you are.

Where are you with that much snow? Maybe you should move somewhere warmer.

An old timer of my past acquaintance told me once that his daddy use to brag that it required a 100# barrel of flour to feed his brood for one month and even then there were often days toward the end of each month when biscuits and gravy was absent from the breakfast table. He said that flour was the only staple food his daddy bought, Everything else was either grown, killed, caught, or gathered. I think that counting mama and daddy there were 15 hungry mouths at my friends breakfast table. You should be able to cipher out how many pounds of flour your family will consume from the above example. Don't forget that 1 pound of wheat is not the same nor is it equal to one pound of flour.

Bullitt said:

Oh, I see.

Yes, you will have to grow a lot of feed where you are.

Where are you with that much snow? Maybe you should move somewhere warmer.

Click to expand...

Northern Idaho. We're right in the middle of a snow belt. About 20 miles away it's at most half of what we get. Moving somewhere else isn't optional since we were born and raised here and love it here . But yeah, the snow starts flying in October, but usually doesn't stick all day until November or even December. And it takes clear into March for it all to melt off and even in April there's still patches of snow laying around sometimes. The buildup gets crazy because whenever it's snowing elsewhere, we're just getting dumped on.


Early November


Mid March

I had a picture where my car was totally buried but I can't seem to find it. I went out one day and it was just gone lol.

Anyway, as for the flour, I'm going to see how it goes and just plant that whole field we have with wheat. Probably try the Bonfils method and seed it with clover. Any excess goes to the birds, if we don't have enough, I'll buy wheat or flour. My state averages 82 bushels of winter wheat per acre, but I need to call the local U of I extension or ag office and see what my particular area can pull off.