Eliminating grain commercial food?

[emmapal]

Has anyone taken their birds off grain completely? If so, how do you feed them to keep them healthy and laying well?

I have a friend whose daughter is celiac and allergic to many grains, and wanted to know what to feed her chickens as commercial corn-based food is a no no in eggs and meat. Our family also went primal/paleo and would love to extend that to the animals we raise for food, especially for the increased Omega-3.

Although mine are almost exclusively pastured/free range on 4 acres, they mostly hang around the house and unable to get enough forage to prevent still needing a lot of supplemental commercial feed. I wonder if they should be penned and rotated around to help them forage in areas further from the house.

If you have had success with this, I would love to hear about your management practice. Foods you offer, housing to encourage more forage, cover crops for grazing, and what you feed during winter scarcity. Thanks!

 

[Kaugomu]

I'm no expert, but it is my understanding that the grain in the food is where all their protein comes from. That being said celiac being mainly a gluten triggered thing, you could mix your own food mix using GF grains (depending on what other grain allergies she has).

A quick google search for gluten free chicken feed provided me with these promising looking links:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/702367/gluten-free-feed
http://glutenfreeraisingchickens.wordpress.com/category/gluten-free-chicken-feed-2/
http://curtissannmatlock.com/2012/0...dle-in-progress-looking-for-gluten-free-feed/
http://curtissannmatlock.com/2012/08/09/gluten-free-chicken-feed-ii/

Hope at least one of these helps.

Good luck, hope it all turns out OK

 

[emmapal]

free range birds get most of their protein from bugs and snakes, but with no grain I wonder if I should be getting pet store crickets, meal worms, or pinkies? They get all our kitchen scraps, but since we are not composting them they are not getting the larvae normally found in a compost pile.

I'd like to go corn/soy/wheat free, and reduce their grains and even legumes as close to zero as possible otherwise for the birds' health as well as the GMO-free and Omega-3 in the eggs themselves. My friend should probably go completely grain free given all their allergies and other digestive issues.

Since switching to a Paleo diet, it would be nice if the eggs we are copiously eating were in line with that principle (meat and greens). We are beginning to buy pastured meat only, but it seems ironic our eggs and meat from our own back yard are not even 100% pastured because of all the layer pellets the birds eat.