Chicken Food type to supplement for approaching recession 2022

[70sLaverna]

June 2022.
Hello Backyard Chicken families. I pray that your backyard flocks are faring well. My girls are faring well as of this date and time. I was wondering, with the possibility of a recession in the weeks or months remaining in 2022, have anyone any ideas for supplement feeding the backyard family of chickens? I have begun a small garden of vegetables from seeds, [slow growth due to lack of sunshine in the Pacific Northwest], however, they haven't produced beyond an inch in height if any... I am having growth with the seedling of collard greens purchased at Wilco in May of this year and give them leaves from those plants, However, that aside, are there any suggestions of how many of us out here can put together food and what types of food

for the flock family if, grain feed gets low in the stores or become too expensive to purchase in a set number of bags in the weeks and months ahead? Thanks for your suggestions. 70sLaverna

 

[NatJ]

In normal times, a purchased chicken food is the easiest way to provide a balanced diet.
But if you cannot buy enough chicken food, they can get some value from anything people eat and many things we do not eat.

My first choice is to give them anything your family does not eat.
So I would give to the chickens:
--the outer leaves from lettuce or cabbage
--the peel of banana, avocado, and other vegetable or fruit
--the shells from eggs you cook
--the leftover food on any plates at the end of the meal
--the piece of toast that got burned
--the chicken nugget that fell on the floor
--the soggy mess of cereal and milk that someone didn't finish at breakfast
--the weeds you pull out of the garden
--the leaves you rake up in the fall
and many other such things.

Some of these thing they will eat directly (eggshells, toast, chicken nugget, lettuce leaves).

Some of these they will pick bits off of (they will eat banana or avocado from the inside of the peel, but leave the peel itself).

Some of these will get scratched around and the chickens will eat some bits, but I really don't know what bits they eat (dry leaves are the main place I notice this. I'm not sure if hte chickens are eating little bugs, or bits of the leaves, or what.)

As all of this accumulates in their pen, the chickens keep scratching & turning it, and they keep finding new things (bugs and worms) to eat as well. Eventually, the bottom layers will be completely broken down into compost, and you can dig that out to help your garden grow better.

This will not be a complete substitute for purchased chicken feed, but it can help.

It will not be a perfectly balanced diet for the chickens either, but it might be close enough to keep them in good health for quite a while, especially if they still have some of the purchased feed in addition.

Of course the most obvious way to reduce how much chicken feed you need is to have fewer chickens. But I assume you already thought of that.

 

[RoosterHuggerLiz]

I would advise planting fruit trees cause even though it takes a while for them to actually start bearing fruit once they do you'll barely have to buy feed in summer and spring months and your girls will be fat and happy as well as we let melons and gourds grow freely on our property because once they've ripened my Lady's Love to peck at the rinds and the rotten fruit that we didn't harvest as well as they assist in the transportation and germination of seeds when they poop them out in different areas of our property. These little mini gardeners keep everything in check by eating up falling fruit, rotting plants, and leftover Vines!! I found My lady's favorite fruits are mangoes and the small watermelons that grow!

 

[PeeperKeeper15]

June 2022.
Hello Backyard Chicken families. I pray that your backyard flocks are faring well. My girls are faring well as of this date and time. I was wondering, with the possibility of a recession in the weeks or months remaining in 2022, have anyone any ideas for supplement feeding the backyard family of chickens? I have begun a small garden of vegetables from seeds, [slow growth due to lack of sunshine in the Pacific Northwest], however, they haven't produced beyond an inch in height if any... I am having growth with the seedling of collard greens purchased at Wilco in May of this year and give them leaves from those plants, However, that aside, are there any suggestions of how many of us out here can put together food and what types of foodView attachment 3153693 for the flock family if, grain feed gets low in the stores or become too expensive to purchase in a set number of bags in the weeks and months ahead? Thanks for your suggestions. 70sLaverna

Hi, I’m new at this also and have been doing a lot of reading regarding the food they can eat. My chickens are under 3 months old and they eat: tomatoes cucumbers lettuce celery banana peel carrots parsnips Dandelion grasses chick weed and they love cover!!! I have two grapevines($6.50) I bought 3 years ago that I cut back down to nothing that keeps growing back wild and the chickens love eating the leaves and vines. I made them oatmeal with water tonight and that was a big hit. I’m going to make a cricket trap out of two plastic water bottles I saw a video on it and just freeze the bugs and give it to the chickens. Another person used A car vacuum sucked up the bugs and that worked great. My sons chickens free range so he doesn’t have to give them any feed until winter. I plan on making a hot house out of our old windows for veggies this winter. Hope this helps

 

[Critter88]

June 2022.
Hello Backyard Chicken families. I pray that your backyard flocks are faring well. My girls are faring well as of this date and time. I was wondering, with the possibility of a recession in the weeks or months remaining in 2022, have anyone any ideas for supplement feeding the backyard family of chickens? I have begun a small garden of vegetables from seeds, [slow growth due to lack of sunshine in the Pacific Northwest], however, they haven't produced beyond an inch in height if any... I am having growth with the seedling of collard greens purchased at Wilco in May of this year and give them leaves from those plants, However, that aside, are there any suggestions of how many of us out here can put together food and what types of foodView attachment 3153693 for the flock family if, grain feed gets low in the stores or become too expensive to purchase in a set number of bags in the weeks and months ahead? Thanks for your suggestions. 70sLaverna

What breed of chickens are those in your picture? Are they good egg layers?

 

[raingarden]

When the big recession comes, I'm going to save money on feed by eating more chicken. Until then...........................

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

When feed prices go up, so do egg prices!

 

[SandyRiverChick]

Just how high are you expecting prices to get? If a bag of layer goes from $19.97 to $20.05 do you really notice the increase? I guess I'm just not willing to mess with thier diet, I've tried it and egg production went way down as well as overall health. So potentially, when done wrong like my experience, and I now know it's very complicated to make your own feed, you're saving a few bucks on feed and losing money in lack of eggs.