Let me begin by saying I am NOT in favor of forgoing a commercial chicken feed for my girls. It would be difficult, if not impossible, for an individual to formulate a nutritionally complete diet for chickens on their own. However, I am encouraging the use of healthy, nutritionally dense fresh foods on a daily basis.
For many years I was the manager for the Parrot Garden, the exotic bird department for Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah. One of the major duties of my position was to make sure we were utilizing the most up-to-date, scientific information to offer exemplary care for the birds in our facility. It is a sad fact that most caged birds suffer from a deficient diet, and the most common health issues are those associated with poor nutrition. It became my goal to improve the diet for all the birds in my care.
My research brought me to Patricia Sund and her avian nutrition process she calls “chop”. The basic concept is that parrots can be incredibly picky eaters, and if they were brought up on a seed-only diet, they can be resistant to even trying fresh grains, fruits, and vegetables. Also, it can be time-consuming and expensive to provide a daily mix of fresh foods for them to eat. Ms. Sund developed a process where freezer-safe fresh foods could be chopped into small pieces and frozen in single-day servings. For a minimal amount of money, one could feed birds an incredibly varied fresh diet. To my surprise, the chop was an immediate hit not only with the sanctuary birds but with my own parrots as well. Chop did not replace a pelleted diet, but it did supplement it. It allowed us to vastly improve birds’ health and well-being and this method of feeding is still being utilized at the sanctuary years after I have moved on.
When we finally were able to live my dream and move to the country, I was able to add chickens to our lives, something I had wanted to do for years. I did all the necessary research to make sure they were getting the nutrition they needed to be happy and healthy and to provide us with lovely, hard-shelled tasty eggs. Time and again I read that a fortified pellet or crumble diet should be all they needed, along with fresh, clean water. But something about that concept bothered me. I do provide a layer feed for our girls, but I could see how important bugs, grains, weeds, seeds, and grasses were to their diet when they were free-ranging. They still ate their pellets, but there was no way that it was the majority of their diet. If a pelleted diet was all they needed for health, why would they be eating so many varied things they found on their own? It is obvious to me that while a commercial diet is probably meeting their basic nutritional requirements, supplementing it with healthy extras shouldn’t be discouraged or regulated to the treat category.
I started doing more research. Why was supplementing a chicken’s diet something that was not encouraged, and in some cases actively discouraged? Where were the studies that backed up this contention? And who sponsored the studies? It came as no surprise that many, if not most, of the studies, were done either by chicken food processors or paid for by companies that manufactured chicken feed. It is in their best interest to encourage the exclusive use of chicken feed.
As I stated at the beginning, I am NOT in favor of forgoing a commercial chicken feed for my girls. However, I am encouraging the use of healthy, nutritionally dense foods on a daily basis. And in order to do that in an economical way, I turned back to Ms. Sund’s concept of “chop”. I made a basic batch to see if it would be something that was workable for chickens and it was an immediate success. My chickens absolutely love chop. I mix it in with their fermented feed every morning and evening and they clean it up. Because it is mixed with commercial feed, I know they are getting the best of both worlds, especially during the winter months when fresh food is scarce on the ground.
The concept is pretty simple and the whole process should only take you a couple of hours, start to finish. I like to make about 6 months' worth of chop at a time. It generally costs me about $75 a batch, which is pretty economical for 6 months of food for a small flock of chickens.
You will want to purchase chicken-safe vegetables to be chopped up in a food processor, cooked grains, and dry ingredients to soak up excess moisture when you freeze your batch. Ratios are general, and I usually grab a handful of the mix to test for dryness. If it turns into a giant ball of glop, it is too wet and I will add dry ingredients until the consistency is a uniform crumble. I mix everything up in a large tote and then freeze it in freezer bags. Each bag is generally 2-3 days worth of extra nutrition for my girls. I also like to add a couple of “fun” things into each batch, such as blueberries or unsalted peanuts. Here is a list of some of the ingredients I often use in chop.
Dry Ingredients
- Bobs Red Mill 10 grain cereal
- Old Fashioned Oats
- Quinoa Flakes
- Flax Seed
- Layer feed, crumbles or pellets
- Wild Rice
- Kashi Pilaf
- Lentils
- Split Peas
Frozen veggies (add frozen at the last minute)
Produce ( chop up fine in the food processor and drain the extra liquid)
- Kale
- Mini sweet peppers
- Swiss chard
- Collard greens
- Turnip greens
- Yellow squash
- Zucchini
- Jalapeno peppers
- Brussel Sprouts
- Carrots
- Green Beans
- Peas
- Bok Choy
- Broccoli
- Watercress
- Sweet potatoes
- Wheat grass
- Celery
- Snap Peas
- Jicama
- Unsweetened coconut
- Nut pieces
- Unsalted peanuts
- Cranberries
- Blueberries
- Other frozen fruits (fresh fruit doesn’t freeze well)
- Mealworms or crickets
Mix everything together and fill freezer bags or freezer containers. You can feed this mix all year round, or do as I have decided to do, which is feed during the winter when pickings are slim and my girls are getting bored of their same old diet.
I know not everyone will think this is a necessary way to feed their chickens. But my girls work hard every day laying eggs for us. I want them to have the best of all things to keep them happy while they work.
[JJ1]
