Growing chicken food to replace feed.

[Jada22]

What foods can be grown to replace feed?
I’ve read a few threads on this already but the amount of information has me a little overwhelmed and confused.
If you were to go 100% grown food what would balance it out?
Would you need to measure everything out and mix it or would the chickens eat what they need?
We are currently back to starting to grow our own food due to price increases and food shortages.

We are working on fixing up a big area to grow some more foods but I’m thinking there’s more than enough area here to have a chicken feed plot.
From what I’ve read wheat,oats and corn are probably where I’d need to start.
I’m already planting sunflowers for the seeds.
They would probably get enough veggies from what we are growing ourselves but is there anything in particular that’s quite beneficial to them?

I’m thinking of breeding red wrigglers or mealworms to add to their diet. Is either better than the other? Or any other bugs good to breed for chickens?

I’m not sure I’d ever go 100% without feed but I’d like to get my knowledge and food sources to the point that it could be done- in case it’s ever needed.

All advice/ideas/opinions welcome.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

What foods can be grown to replace feed?
I’ve read a few threads on this already but the amount of information has me a little overwhelmed and confused.
If you were to go 100% grown food what would balance it out?
Would you need to measure everything out and mix it or would the chickens eat what they need?
We are currently back to starting to grow our own food due to price increases and food shortages.

We are working on fixing up a big area to grow some more foods but I’m thinking there’s more than enough area here to have a chicken feed plot.
From what I’ve read wheat,oats and corn are probably where I’d need to start.
I’m already planting sunflowers for the seeds.
They would probably get enough veggies from what we are growing ourselves but is there anything in particular that’s quite beneficial to them?

I’m thinking of breeding red wrigglers or mealworms to add to their diet. Is either better than the other? Or any other bugs good to breed for chickens?

I’m not sure I’d ever go 100% without feed but I’d like to get my knowledge and food sources to the point that it could be done- in case it’s ever needed.

All advice/ideas/opinions welcome.

If you are feeling overwhelmed, that's a GOOD thing.

You don't say where you are at, so its very hard to guess what crops may do well on your soils and your climate. You don't say how many chickens you intend to feed, how many acres are available to you, or what you might have in terms of heavy equipment and infrastructure (i.e. water supply in the fields) to support scale agricultural operations. Or what you might have to store crops during the majority of the year when they aren't productive.

Nor do you indicate your desired level of chicken performance. Is 1920s' levels adequate to your feeds? 1970s? Modern performance levels?
Its virtually impossible to home brew a modern level of feed performance without bring in external resources. Its hard to home brew a feed recipe at all, and chances are, your climate and soils, in combination, won't grow everything you need - meaning substitutions, reduced performance and/or importing.

Your questions, and the way they are posed, suggest (to me, at least), that you would be better served learning the basics than trying to jump ahead to planting crops. Yes, space travel is just a scaled up bottle rocket combined with a bit of scuba - but that doesn't mean you should ask the internet for fuel recipes and start mixing while the dive shop fills your tanks.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

and if, as many of us do, you learn best by failing, hands on? Then I recommend you start by trying to bend your feed curve a little with core ingredients - not a bin of wriggling treats and a second high fat source (more treats).

 

[Jada22]

Thanks for all that, I’m in Ireland, so it’s very wet here, we don’t tend to get much snow where I am and we don’t get very hot weather either. We have a poly tunnel to grow some foods also.
Yes I learn more through a hands on trial and error approach but I won’t be doing a lot of the growing, I am terrible with gardening of any kind but working on an arrangement where I’ll have a lot of help with the actual growing of the foods, I just need to figure out what’s best to be planted.

I don’t actually intend to replace feed completely, what I am trying to do currently is supplement what I can instead while still having pellets available.

I would however like to learn what foods are best if feed wasn’t available. We are experiencing food shortages here since brexit, covid and now with everything going on between Ukraine and Russia.
Im worried that at some point the chicken feed won’t be available so I’d like to prepare to feed my chickens the best I can if that happens.
I hope that makes sense.

The reason breeding worms was an option as that’s something I can do, I’ve had breeding colonies of a few different types of bugs in the past for reptiles.

I’m not sure if maybe I worded my post badly. What I’m trying to do is grow as much foods that I can that are beneficial to the chickens.
But at the same time trying to learn the best way to get a balanced diet if feed wasn’t available.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Thanks for all that, I’m in Ireland, so it’s very wet here, we don’t tend to get much snow where I am and we don’t get very hot weather either. We have a poly tunnel to grow some foods also.
Yes I learn more through a hands on trial and error approach but I won’t be doing a lot of the growing, I am terrible with gardening of any kind but working on an arrangement where I’ll have a lot of help with the actual growing of the foods, I just need to figure out what’s best to be planted.

I don’t actually intend to replace feed completely, what I am trying to do currently is supplement what I can instead while still having pellets available.

I would however like to learn what foods are best if feed wasn’t available. We are experiencing food shortages here since brexit, covid and now with everything going on between Ukraine and Russia.
Im worried that at some point the chicken feed won’t be available so I’d like to prepare to feed my chickens the best I can if that happens.
I hope that makes sense.

The reason breeding worms was an option as that’s something I can do, I’ve had breeding colonies of a few different types of bugs in the past for reptiles.

I’m not sure if maybe I worded my post badly. What I’m trying to do is grow as much foods that I can that are beneficial to the chickens.
But at the same time trying to learn the best way to get a balanced diet if feed wasn’t available.

Just saying you are in Ireland helps immensely. The EU gets by with amino acid supplimentation of otherwise sub-par diets. The US gets by in exactly the opposite way - excess protein in an effort to make sure certain amino acid targets are met.

In either case, hard winter wheat is an excellent base for chicken feed - but I strongly suspect you will be too wet for it. Also, it benefits of scale production with heavy equipement. Corn isn't good, but neither is it really bad - its sub-par, but relatively easy to compensate for.

My suggestion, as one not particularly familiar with your soils, is that you look for "near grain" grasses that may do well for you, have long growing seasons, and produce significant seed. Witchgrass, "Autumn Millet" (actually a panic grass), some of the other millets (the lighter the better). Re: Panic grasses, try and avoid the ornamentals - pretty, but mostly poor seed producers. Orchard grass, timothy may also work for you.

Then find a couple of legumes that do well for you - clovers, alfalfa, even soy if you can. Winter peas and field peas are also maybes for you.
Those crops are self replicating, the birds can forage them, and they provide some of the harder to find (in the vegetable world) amino acids.

All your legumes, in quantity, need to by dried and heat treated - so if you mow, dry before bundling. The peas and beans are better for your birds if cooked.

Don't begin to pretend that's anywhere close to a complete diet - but its better than mealworms and sunflower seeds which are both high raw protein, but also very high fat - and the fat is greater detriment, in my view, than the protein is benefit. Its also low maintenance, and will help stretch the feed budget some.

I have a different climate, but am doing much the same for my flock.

 

[Battlepants]

Depending on how much land you have, I would strongly suggest planting fruit trees. Bit of an upfront cost with them, but a little care each year and you will have free food for many years. Apples in particular are very good for fresh eating and dehydration. Additionally, the core or any gross/buggy ones can be tossed to the chickens as a seasonal bump in food for them.

As for plant-then-single-harvest style items, my go-to would probably be Black Oil Sunflowers. These things can grow damn near anywhere and produce some really good calories and fats.

 

[Perris]

If you have a lot of land and decent diversity of plants they can forage, and you are not aiming for the most efficient / cheapest mass production possible, a flock of free ranging chickens can find a lot of what they need for themselves. They have done it for thousands of years, and their not-too-distant cousins the jungle fowl still do. And if you want to improve the forage, let nature take over an area for the chickens to forage in. All the technical stuff about balancing diets is based on transferring commercial practices to domestic backyards, which isn't what everybody has in mind when they keep a few chickens in a backyard. Grass is good, and in Ireland like UK it will be available all year round so long as you don't overstock.

But if you are going to confine them to a coop and run, then purchased feeds are probably in the birds' best interests, and if they become unavailable, then I guess we'll have a lot of other things to worry about.

Mealworms are easy to farm in a small plastic drawer set, and I have yet to meet a chicken that doesn't relish them.

 

[Jada22]

Just saying you are in Ireland helps immensely. The EU gets by with amino acid supplimentation of otherwise sub-par diets. The US gets by in exactly the opposite way - excess protein in an effort to make sure certain amino acid targets are met.

In either case, hard winter wheat is an excellent base for chicken feed - but I strongly suspect you will be too wet for it. Also, it benefits of scale production with heavy equipement. Corn isn't good, but neither is it really bad - its sub-par, but relatively easy to compensate for.

My suggestion, as one not particularly familiar with your soils, is that you look for "near grain" grasses that may do well for you, have long growing seasons, and produce significant seed. Witchgrass, "Autumn Millet" (actually a panic grass), some of the other millets (the lighter the better). Re: Panic grasses, try and avoid the ornamentals - pretty, but mostly poor seed producers. Orchard grass, timothy may also work for you.

Then find a couple of legumes that do well for you - clovers, alfalfa, even soy if you can. Winter peas and field peas are also maybes for you.
Those crops are self replicating, the birds can forage them, and they provide some of the harder to find (in the vegetable world) amino acids.

All your legumes, in quantity, need to by dried and heat treated - so if you mow, dry before bundling. The peas and beans are better for your birds if cooked.

Don't begin to pretend that's anywhere close to a complete diet - but its better than mealworms and sunflower seeds which are both high raw protein, but also very high fat - and the fat is greater detriment, in my view, than the protein is benefit. Its also low maintenance, and will help stretch the feed budget some.

I have a different climate, but am doing much the same for my flock.

This is all very helpful thank you.

 

[Jada22]

Depending on how much land you have, I would strongly suggest planting fruit trees. Bit of an upfront cost with them, but a little care each year and you will have free food for many years. Apples in particular are very good for fresh eating and dehydration. Additionally, the core or any gross/buggy ones can be tossed to the chickens as a seasonal bump in food for them.

As for plant-then-single-harvest style items, my go-to would probably be Black Oil Sunflowers. These things can grow damn near anywhere and produce some really good calories and fats.

Thank you.
We are already planning to plant more fruit trees- we have one sad little apple tree, we originally had 2 apple trees and 2 pear trees but they weren’t very established when 2 goats were dumped on us and it was a sad goodbye to our lovely fruit trees

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Thank you.
We are already planning to plant more fruit trees- we have one sad little apple tree, we originally had 2 apple trees and 2 pear trees but they weren’t very established when 2 goats were dumped on us and it was a sad goodbye to our lovely fruit trees

^^^ also have goats. I feel you. Even when they don't simply eat the tree, they peel the bark off of saplings while scratching their back - they also use the metal fencing for that - but they seem to prefer smelling of bark.