growing food for chickens

[Amastacia]

My husband and I want to grow as much of the food for our hens as we can. they free range frquently (almost daily) in the summer, and i just read about growing fodder for them in the winter (great idea, lots of info available here on that). but what else can we grow for them?

i am planning on still offering layer crumble/pellets, but i'm hoping to cut costs down while increasing feed quality.

if any one knows much about feeding rabbits the same way, that would be helpful too

thanks in advance.

 

[Percheron chick]

I have a large winter squash garden just for the chickens. Not the most balanced and nutritious stuff out there but they do love some fresh vegetables in the middle of winter. Spaghetti squash is their favorite. Thank god they also like zucchini. I just slit it in half and throw it in a ziplock bag in the freezer to save it for later . I'll give 15 of them a smallish 3# squash 3-4 times a week. Really cuts down on the amount they eat but it's so low in protein I'll mix in some game feed to bump that up.