Home made food for chickens?

[LindseyM12]

Hi all, I was wonderen If I could make home made food for my chickens because the only food I can by cost $12 a bag!

I am loosing so much money. Thanks!

 

[Ms~Silkie~Girl]

you probably could.. but also try looking around for a feed mill, i switched to a feed mill and its half the price

 

[LindseyM12]

Ok, so what do I put in it? Can I grow anything like sunflowers or something?

 

[LindseyM12]

Anyone????

 

[Preservation Acres]

Feed your chickens table scraps and fill in with feed. Also, let them free range as much as possible. They'll eat bugs and grass and that will keep your feed bill down too.

 

[Barred Rockstar]

I agree with Preservation acres. Also supermarkets routinely throw out barely spoiled produce, you could collect that. I collect scraps from a local restaurant. There is so much food wasted in this country, you just have to look for it.

 

[IN-farmgirl]

I saw something on TV about a man who went around to restaurants and collected scraps and just fed all of that to his chickens! Sorta like "slop" for pigs...except it is "table scraps" for chickens!

 

[LindseyM12]

Well, I sort of want to make it, like my own home made chicken food. I want to try to grow it or make it or something like that.

 

[chickeydee]

Type in organic chicken feed on the web and it will come up .

 

[Ariel301]

To grow enough grains and vegetables to feed the chickens would take a lot of land and probably cost you way more than buying the commercial feed, unfortunately.

I'm not sure cooking human grade foods for them will be cheaper either. I mean, what human food can you really buy 50 pounds of for $12 other than maybe flour?

You could make them some snacks like oatmeal, and give them sunflower heads, and leftovers from your vegetable garden if you grow one...Maybe come up with some recipes like cookies for chickens (I used to make 'parrot cookies' when I had caged birds, basically cornbread with vegetables, rice, eggs, etc cooked into it). Give them all the leftovers from your fridge that no one wants to eat.

If you have a brewery nearby, ask them about buying their spent grains. We buy leftover grain mash from a local beer brewery for $15/55 gallons, which is about 3-400 pounds of grains. I don't buy layer feed at all, because, well, no one here sells it...It's brewery mash, leftovers from the kitchen, free range time, and crushed eggshells for calcium, along with the occasional dog/cat food snack for protein.