I can't wait to dig into your article; thank you so much! Where has this been all my years? (lol - I have somewhat studiously been _not_ reading on a quite passive-aggressive kick about the age-old survival of chickens without excessive obsession).
You are absolutely inspiring about kicking the habit of commercial feed. Not that we're in rural Ecuador, but still it should be not difficult to do this from actual "scratch".
I purchase expensive, organic "Scratch n Peck" which the chickens proceed to leave behind the fines of - then I lightly ferment that along with some more "scratch" (no fines remaining) and feed it back, thereby preventing waste at least.
Trouble is, they're presumably overweight (my vet friend would remove the "presumably" qualification). They're only happy with this when they get to forage constantly, meaning - it's really not enough -- either in variation or possibly even nutrition. They get a protein boost every night and I can believe it's not recommended by the mavens here, but we've always done it because of the harmony it furnishes all around from human to avian.
So I really appreciate a knowledgeable, resourced reference for getting started. Thank you very, very much.