Feeding surplus to broilers?

[TillyFeathers]

Ok, so we want to raise meat chickens for the family this year. The Cornish x scares me so we’ll go with the freedom rangers or red broilers and pasture them.

My question is; Do you have to keep them solely on processed feed? I figure pasturing them is going to unbalance their carefully formulated ration a bit anyway. What else can you get away with and still have a decent and healthy carcass at the end of eleven weeks?

Let’s say that we get the chicks in July or August. We‘ll have garden surplus, perhaps a few small grains ripening, compost worms, fresh goat milk by the gallon...

Has anyone tried this? Is it worth the effort?

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

lot's of people do that, spend some time reading here on the meat birds thread and also on the nutrition thread, you are going to find A LOT of info on this topic.

 

[donrae]

I've not got to try it myself but I hear the milk makes the best meat! I would def. feed all you scraps, garden and general kitchen. That's the point of raising your own, right?