Everyone, post your best homemade chicken feed recipes!

[Medicine Man]

Yeah.

 

[Oneacre Homestead]

Yeah you have, or yeah you want to know too?

 

[Fluffy2]

Hi. I am newbie. My 2 month old girls weren't too crazy about me, so I got the mealworms. That did the trick.. But can I feed them too many mealworms? Will they filll themselves up on the worms and not eat their veggies? just thinking. also I have a ton of white rice in a big bag I never opened or cooked. So can it be sticky white rice I was planning to use in my sushi education that never happened.? ha. also have a bag of flax seed in freezer I have never used so I will give it to the 2-legged disposers. I have decided to feed them food from the house from a pie plate on the lawn to keep the food that can rot out of the sand floor of the coop. does it matter? I was thinking if I had a thousand meal worms could I put them into the sand of the coop and then give them heaven on earth?
thanks for helping my wandering mind.
also, someone asked if I would put bunnies in the old smaller coop. do chickens and bunnies get along? I would think they would have no interest in each other
thank u all so much!
I love to come Home here to this site at the end of the day!

 

[Oneacre Homestead]

Hi I think it is a good idea to feed them the house food outside of the pen! I am sure the worms are really good for them and I k ow they would eat the rice, but I think you have to treat it as chicken candy. Flax yum for chickens! I don't know about the other stuff. Good luck!

 

[chicksntexas]

digitS' :

Looking at a laying hen's requirements and food nutrients while trying to narrow it down to the simplest formula possible with what could be found at the corner store:

My laying hen, producing an egg each day requires 2 eggs and an oatmeal raisin cookie.

Now that's my kind of chicken!!​

 

[rich3800]

I raised one of my chickens on papayas that fell from my papaya trees. First time she laid eggs, she laid 22.

 

[mendozer]

Because I'm not in an area to get cheap bulk feed to compile my own recipe (although I would do the greener acres one mentioned many times), I made a little homemade mix of : millet, raw whole sunflower seeds, cracked wheat, scottish cut oats, corn (which was a pain in the ass to crush up) and whole barley. I bought them from the bulk foods section at the grocery store. If it was under 50c/lb, I bought some. I mixed it up and whenever I refill their feeder with Scratch and Peck Naturally Free, I put maybe 1/5 of it with this mix. They seem to like it. They peck at the sunflower seeds but never seem to get them opened.

silly birds

 

[stonecottagefarm]

What about wheat bran? I've been using this and so far really like it. The bag says 13% complete protein. Anything else beneficial about it?

Also, does everyone find that their chickens/birds eat less with this kind of diet as opposed to the corn-based diet? I've been noticing that myself and I a starting to think that alone is a money-saver.

 

[StrayMagnet]

I will go back n read more later.. but
Rite now I am useing the chick starter (medicated)

and as for chick chick (Momma) I went to a few stores with bulk section and made up a batch of feed from diffrent Oats, Grains an seeds. (sunflower out of shell)
I also feed some bread, sometimes If the kids do not finish their mac n cheese I'll toss a table spoon of it in there.. Corn on the cob is a favorite. I snap it in half and toss both halfs in.

I have a bag of Veggies in my fridge I was gonna use for stir fry.. but I"m thinking I'll give it to the chickens.. it has Brocli.. COliflower. green beans. and some thing lookin stuff. i'm thinkin is sprouts of some sort.. then they get all the bugs they can dig up under the porch and what crawls on th foundation wall that is in th coop.

 

[tourn]

There are lots of recipes, especially really old ones. We have some local access to organic corn, barley, wheat and oats. We have ground up corn, barley and wheat. Flax seeds can be bought organic in bulk 50 pounds. Most recipes use soy for more protein, but if chickens are free ranged I don't think that they need it. You can supplement the ground grains with Fertrells nutribalance products with minerals, probiotics and the like. But I don't think even that is needed. In the old days, chickens just free ranged and were lucky to get some corn and other grains.