I have found a recipe that really works and makes use of the stuff I grow for free from the garden. We have all kinds of fruit trees too. I just take 1 large cucumber, 2 large summer squash, and 1 apple, along with whatever other optional veggie scraps you may have (like I often use carrot scraps). I chop them into big cubes and liquify them in the blender with a splash of water just enough to keep the blade turning well. I pour that into a large mixing bowl and add a couple cups of wild bird seed mix (A pinch of baking yeast is optional but I use it, as well as a fist full of hardwood ash from the stove). I then add an equal amount of store bought feed by volume. I mix it well and fold it into a dough. I have a big plastic tray I dump it out on in the sun and mash it down until its about half an inch thick almost like ginger bread or something. I lay that out in the sun for 1 hour until it forms a sort of uniform consistency. I then take it and break it up into a bunch of big chucks to increase surface area and speed up drying. I continue to slightly break down the big chunks hour after hour as it dries in the sun. This leaves a nice texture the chickens love when its finally fully dry and broken into bite sized chunks. When its too wet its very soft and will crumble into powder if you try to break them up too small too fast and the chickens prefer chunks to powder. Its a big hit with them. You can do this experimenting with different kinds of veggies but this combo works well and my garden produces TONS of this kind of stuff to use.
. In Eugene, Oregon.
