Chicken Feed + Kitchen Scraps = ?

[donrae]

If it's good enough to feed my kids, it's darn well good enough for chickens. I was raised with the feeling "chickens will eat anything that won't eat them first" and we adhere to that. When they ranged, my set up was like Beekissed---dogs are above chickens, so got first pick of the scraps. Now the birds are penned and pretty much finish off everything I throw out there. Late summer, I fully expected to get tomato flavored pinkish eggs from all the tomato scraps.

 

[Oregon Blues]

My birds get veggie trimmings from the kitchen and leftover greens and garden trimmings.

Anything that is unwanted meat or sauce does to the dogs, not the poultry.

I try to only cook what my family can eat. It costs too much to throw food away. I do cook intentionally for leftovers, but those leftovers are packaged into quick and easy microwave meals and they go, clearly labeled, into the freezer.

Back to the veggie scraps, in my opinion, a regular diet that includes greens and fruit and veggies will give you better tasting eggs and better tasting roasters for your table.

My ducks and geese get their food weighed and I don't cut back on their feed when I feed them greens. They still eat all their feed. But mine aren't free fed and they don't have access to unlimited feed.

The down side to it all, is that the only thing I've been able to put into the compost bin all year is onion skins, one loaf of moldy bread, and the tomato plants I pulled up