Letting them forage is great, table scraps are fine in limited amounts, mixing homemade with commercial would likely be more effort and expense than it's worth and not provide much if any benefit (and possibly be detrimental), I would simply find the best quality food nutritionally and provide...
Their question was about mixing in a homemade feed that they found the recipe for online with commercial feed, not about whether they should let their chickens forage or not (which most people here would agree is an overall good thing), the benefits of letting them forage or providing them...
The gamefowl feed with oyster shell on the side is fine, you can also feed everyone chick starter or all flock as long as they have crushed oyster shell on the side, whatever is your preference
Most hens do start slowing down at around 2, some stop entirely by this point (although this isn't typical). Even if you don't plan on culling your old birds, adding a few young pullets every 2-3 years or so will make sure that you still have birds laying even if some have slowed down or stopped...
Our whole summer is a heatwave so you're spot on about that. Basil went broody a few weeks ago and of course I had to go out there to make sure she still had food and water. of course she did and it was indeed untouched as she was too busy trying to mother infertile eggs and ceramic eggs to...
It's a coincidence, many brown laying breeds happen to have red lobes while many white layers happen to have white lobes, ear color though has no bearing on egg color it's just a myth with some basis in truth
Indeed, he was my first dog too and he was a great first dog, very easy to housebreak and despite being a pittie didn't really chew much of what he wasn't supposed to, he was a bit shy but a few outings to Lowes, tractor supply and the local Mexican restaurant fixed that
She's just mad you caught on and wants to cow you into accepting her lie. At the very least your bird is sweet and pretty anyways, hopefully you can find some actual high quality silkies elsewhere, I definitely wouldn't do business with her again
If you use bucket port feeders I would strongly recommend using pellets as crumbles will waste too much. Actually as pointed out pellets are better for cutting down on waste regardless of what feeder you use as birds are more inclined to pick up dropped pellets than dropped crumbles
That still doesn't tell me much, what was the nutrition profile of the feed? In any case free ranging can certainly reduce the impact of bad feed but the effects of messing with a significant portion of their diet when they don't have access to a large area to free range will be a lot more obvious
A rooster has absolutely no chance against a hungry coyote, most a rooster will usually do against a predator of any kind is sound the alarm so the girls can hide, and if there's no rooster the head hen will usually take up that job. The danger an aggressive rooster poses isn't worth the minimal...
This doesn't have much to do with what I said though? I'm speaking of mixing in stuff to commercial feed, not about what they can find while freeranging. Free ranging is certainly good but mixing in stuff directly to commercial feed without knowing exactly what you're doing is likely to throw...
I agree with @nuthatched, it's going to be better to just buy a quality feed and save the extras as treats (no more than 10% of their diet). A complete commercial feed is already complete and trying to mix things in with it can throw the nutrition profile out of wack