Feeding chickens *WITHOUT* chicken pellets ??

[Folly's place]

Balancing a diet for laying hens is not as easy as it may seem! Originally, chickens are jungle animals in SE Asia, small birds laying maybe thirty eggs each year at most. A decent modern egg laying hen can lay 300 eggs each year or more, a huge metabolic effort on her part! Dual purpose breeds are larger, and still may produce 150 to 250 eggs each year, also a lot of work.
In 'the good old days' on farms, hens might produce 60 to 150 eggs, and have a wide range of food available, including grains fed to other animals on the farm, and many more bugs, worms, and 'stuff' than anyone can have on one acre of 'yard'. Adding lots of vegetable matter lowers the protein level in that diet too, and unbalances it further by changing the mineral balance.
I had poultry science and livestock nutrition classes in college, and learned a lot. Mainly, I learned that formulating complete feeds in HARD to get right, and expensive, and it's all right there at the feed store. Buy organic feed if that's your plan, and don't try to make it yourself.
Mary

 

[Folly's place]

And if you want to have healthy birds on that sort of diet, get breeds closer to those original birds, like maybe game breeds, who have low egg production. A high producing leghorn, for example, will pull calcium from her bones if her diet is mineral deficient, until those bones fail. Not something to try for!
Mary

 

[gtaus]

Balancing a diet for laying hens is not as easy as it may seem! Originally, chickens are jungle animals in SE Asia, small birds laying maybe thirty eggs each year at most. A decent modern egg laying hen can lay 300 eggs each year or more, a huge metabolic effort on her part! Dual purpose breeds are larger, and still may produce 150 to 250 eggs each year, also a lot of work.
In 'the good old days' on farms, hens might produce 60 to 150 eggs, and have a wide range of food available, including grains fed to other animals on the farm, and many more bugs, worms, and 'stuff' than anyone can have on one acre of 'yard'. Adding lots of vegetable matter lowers the protein level in that diet too, and unbalances it further by changing the mineral balance.
I had poultry science and livestock nutrition classes in college, and learned a lot. Mainly, I learned that formulating complete feeds in HARD to get right, and expensive, and it's all right there at the feed store. Buy organic feed if that's your plan, and don't try to make it yourself.
Mary

Very informative post. Confirms everything else that I have been learning about raising chickens. It's good to see how various techniques of raising chickens and type of feed will affect egg production. As far as trying to save money and mix/make your own feed compared to buying it, I think your bottom line (literally) was spot on, "Don't try to make it yourself."

 

[NatJ]

I'm not necessarily looking to go 100% on pellet but want to avoid it where possible.... Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions where i can start looking.

I found some articles that talk (at length) about exactly that:
http://www.plamondon.com/wp/feeding-chickens-cafeteria-style/
http://www.plamondon.com/wp/save-money-on-chicken-feed/
(And lots more, on the same site.)

Two quotes, one from each article:
"always provide a feeder full of a quality, balanced chicken feed, and offer anything else you’ve got on the side. If the chickens like the side offering, great. If they don’t, they’ll just ignore it and eat the balanced ration. This method leverages the fact that the chickens are better judges of chicken feed than we are."

"If the chickens have access to a feeder full of chicken feed, they’re really good at avoiding other feeds that are bad for them. They will balance their own diets by eating a little of this and a little of that better than any but the best poultry nutritionists can."

That author also offers oyster shell, and of course water.

He sounds as if he knows what he's talking about, so I hope he really does

 

[Folly's place]

I have a comment about the whole 'offer different grains and hope for the best' plan for feeding chickens, or whoever. Do we all eat right? Really?
Some birds, specifically, will be much better at eating what's good for them, and that's great. Others will eat what tastes good, and not eat anything closed to a balanced ration. Hens will eat oyster shell for calcium, but it's much more complicated than that! Do your chickens rush for the scratch goodies? Mine do. If they had free choice corn, hulled sunflower seeds, and steak, they would likely pig out on the goodies and leave the balanced stuff.
I'd love to live on steak and strawberries, but I know better.
Hens programmed genetically to produce an egg every day, or every other day, or dairy cows producing 100 pounds of milk every day, are far from what their wilder ancestors could do, or would do well on nutritionally.
Mary

 

[NatJ]

I have a comment about the whole 'offer different grains and hope for the best' plan for feeding chickens, or whoever.

The original question was about how to serve LESS or NONE of the pelleted feed, so I provided links to articles by a guy that's been experimenting. He says what works best for him is to keep a complete chicken feed available at all times in addition to whatever else he offers them.

OP's chickens are already used to spending hours each day free ranging, so they are already selecting from a variety of things to eat. If they lay less eggs, or seem sick, or gain/lose a bunch of weight, then of course something should be changed--but I assume OP will be watching for that.

I'd love to live on steak and strawberries, but I know better.

I have a friend that loved potato salad but could never get enough of it, until I made him a giant bowl of the stuff. He finally got as much as he wanted, but after that one meal, he didn't want it again for about two years. I predict that steak + strawberries won't actually taste good for very many meals in a row, either. So yes, I do think that even people balance their diet fairly well, based on what seems appetizing.

(And yes, I have seen chickens with free-choice corn and free-choice chicken feed that ate some of both, but clearly preferred to spend most of their time eating grass and scratching for bugs and worms. They looked healthy, and I'm told they were laying a reasonable number of eggs.)

 

[gtaus]

I found some articles that talk (at length) about exactly that:
http://www.plamondon.com/wp/feeding-chickens-cafeteria-style/
http://www.plamondon.com/wp/save-money-on-chicken-feed/
(And lots more, on the same site.)

I found those articles interesting. Thank you. Since I basically have the same approach to raising my chickens - having commercial feed available 24/7 but supplementing with other lost cost and/or free food - I thought that guy was really smart!

More seriously, I don't free range my chickens due to predator concerns, but in the growing seasons, I do mow the lawn, or sections of it, almost every day and feed fresh grass clippings to my chickens as a supplement to their commercial feed. I have not figured out the exact savings on feed cost by doing that, but the chickens enjoy the fresh grass and eat less commercial feed. I don't think the grass clippings and kitchen scraps I give to my chickens has negatively affected them. In the winter, I am supplementing my commercial feed with daily offerings of barley fodder, some kitchen scraps if available, and chicken scratch. They all seem to be doing fine, but I never worry about it as I do have a hanging feeder of commercial layer feed that never runs dry for them.

I think that approach works for many with small backyard flocks. If I was into chickens solely for egg production, I would probably just leave them in a small cage and feed them only commercial feed. But I enjoy watching my chickens scratching through the grass, or grass clippings, and enjoying some leftover food or kitchen scraps that I have saved from being thrown into the garbage can. I keep track of my egg production for my flock, and, so far, am averaging about 20 eggs per month per my dual purpose chicken breeds. That's right on track for 240 eggs per year per bird.

I also liked that same author's article on Deep Litter in Chicken Coops. That's what I am trying to do and mostly, it has been very successful for me. I have learned a few lessons this first winter with my chickens, and will adjust to make things even better next year. But, on whole, I really like the deep litter method.

 

[Folly's place]

I don't mean to say that extra foods are a bad idea, and especially love any range time the birds can have! It's when too much of something is offered at the expense of having a balanced food out there that there's more likely going to be a problem.
Mary

 

[Mtnboomer]

I read somewhere about a sort of squash that people used to grow to feed their livestock and chickens. One squash can keep them supplied for a long time, and it is the main part of their diet. I forgot what they are called but want to order some soon. I guess I'll have to specially order them, but I hope it will be worth it!

Edit: welcome to BYC! And also, you should consider joining SS, it supports the more organic life you (we) are looking for!

I grow jack-o-lanterns and pumpkins for our fall decorations each year. Last year I had 15 pumpkins on my front porch with corn stalks saved from the garden etc. Well, by the time Halloween actually arrived I had to go buy pumpkins for my kids to carve because the chickens and the deer ate every single one right off the porch!
I let them in the garden after the season is over and they clean up any remnants of watermelons, cantaloupes, raddishes, tomatoes etc that are still in there.

 

[Mtnboomer]

If you want to grow veggies, grains, fruits, etc for the chickens go for it. I do. But I still provide access to feed. My boys and girls will make their rounds almost like clock work each day. I open the door and they leave the coop a little after sunrise. First stop is the clover around the coop. Then they come to the side of our deck where food table scaps from the previous nights dinner and that mornings breakfast were thrown. They then skirt the edge of our fields through more clover for bugs, seeds, and fruit depending on the season. Around the house for whatever they can scratch out of the flower beds. Then its across the driveway and into the woods to scratch under the leaves for tasty bits before heading into the wood shed to dust themselves and pick through the wood chips and bark. Finally they make it back to the coop and from there they seem to wander. Some will start to sneak inside to lay or grab some feed while the others pick grit from the driveway or repeat the mornings routine.
Sorry for the long story, but the point is that they move as a flock or a mob really and gather a wide variety of food long before they show any interest in the feed (unless its winter).
I experimented with oats and rye grown in an old section of rain gutter last year. I kept them off of it until it was pretty good and thick. Once discovered and granted access it took less than 2 wks to have only dirt left. They loved it! They stole the blueberries off half my bushes and destroy any apple or pear that falls from our trees. This year was a good year for persimmons and the deer, wild Turkey, and chickens all gobbled them up in our yard side by side.
You don't have to have a farm to create a variety of "natural" food. Even if you live in a subdivision, think of your landscape as your garden. Maybe consider planting fruit or nut bearing trees znd shrubs instead of just ornamentals. Use strawberries as ground cover. It will help you and your flock.