Has anyone succesfully had chickens without feeding chicken food

[rebelcowboysnb]

Never saw an issue with milk ether?

 

[Mahonri]

Why is chicken feed so much cheaper everywhere else.

For decent quality you have to pay at between $12 and $16 around here.

 

[rufus]

I hate to mention it, but the chickens were let loose in the corrals to clean up the poop. They love to work over the manure. This kept the flies down. It is not a nice thing to think of, but it works.

Rufus

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
It couldn't be because you are in the desert, could it?

 

[werecatrising]

I have been having rough financial times recently as well. I have had an easy enough time feeding the birds since I am always on the look out, scrounging things up, etc. A 50 pound bag of layena costs about 12 dollars here.I can make that last pretty long. What kind of area do you live in? I am in the mountains, so if I look around the wild berries, buck brush, etc is plentiful. I find that planning ahead and storing stuff helps out a lot. This past summer my mom planted a bunch of zucchini and other types of squash. She missed picking a bunch so they got huge. She said they weren't good for people to eat, but the birds loved them. I cut a bunch up and stuck it in the freezer for when I really need it. There is a huge farmers market in the area. Several people give me the damaged produce or stuff they don't want to bother bringing home. Try keeping look out at wal mart and places like that. I recently got lots of BOSS and seed mix that was marked way down because it was considered a seasonal item. Now I have that to add when I am feeding other lower protein foods.

Try posting an ad on craigslist. You might find people with yard clippings or even "leftovers" from hunters who process their food.

 

[Ariel301]

I had a flock of 40-50 Barred Rocks that I raised when I was a kid. I raised them from babies to egg production/butchering on nothing but free range and scratch feed with oyster shell available in a dish when they wanted it. We didn't know much about them then, it was just an impulse buy when my dad took me to the feed store once, I loved the baby chicks so much that my dad bought me a big box of them. The feed store clerk told us they ate scratch feed, so that is what we fed them. The hens laid pretty much daily year round for us and as far as I remember were healthy. We had tons of double-yolk eggs too.

Currently I am in a similar situation to you. My husband and I lost our jobs in February and have not found work since. We are both in school, paying for that out of our own bank account because financial aid is not available for us. We just sell things we own or do odd jobs now and then to feed our animals. I feel very strongly about raising as much of our food as we can and being self-sufficient, not dependant on the government and grocery stores to feed us. We don't like to eat a lot of processed food and chemicals that are unhealthy. Homegrown food is much healthier, and being Jewish in a very non-Jewish area (we get lots of nasty stares in public!), kosher food products like meat or cheeses are impossible to get unless we make our own or drive several hours away and pay prices we really cannot afford. We have dairy/meat goats as well as chickens and a garden for vegetables. Other goat farmers get all over me for not feeding my girls multiple pounds of dairy animal grain mix or sweet feed every day, but not only do I feel it is unhealthy for them to eat so much grain, I just plain can't afford it, at $18 for 50 pounds of sweet feed. Living in a state where there is very little water to grow crops, and hay/grain must be shipped in from out of state, things are very expensive. Hundred pound bales of hay run between $6 and $15, and it fluctuates wildly. Grain of any kind is $10+ per bag. 'Layer' feeds for chickens or even gamebird feed are not available here. The chickens get cracked corn (it's the cheapest grain available) as a treat--mostly just to get them to come when I call them--and have a bowl of brewery mash grains available to eat as much as they like (I can buy 55 gallon barrels of it for $15 from a nearby brewery, so it's economical!), and free range, plus kitchen/garden scraps for them and the goats both. My hens are not laying right now because of the weather, but they seem healthy and in good condition. I give them crushed eggshells for calcium, and they also eat a lot of scraps of hay that my goats leave.

'Back in the day' they did not have all the special formulated diets we feed today. Maybe their chickens did not live quite as long as they might today. But they did all right. Chickens in less developed countries produce fairly well on whatever they can find in the yard.

 

[EweSheep]

My grandparents had chickens and they did feed them leftover milk, breakfast and dinner scraps and bread heels. They did have cracked corn and free ranged as well. They didnt buy commercial chicken feed and they all did just fine. I would add canned veggies, pasta, some ground meats for dinner which they loved it! Anything expired from the food pantry will be given to the chickens and any old oatmeal will do just fine too for mornings meal. I bet you can ask all of your friends and families for old stuff in their pantries and you can use that for chicken feed. Be sure to keep calcium shells for them as well as grits.

If you are caring for your sis' husky, time to take that husky back to sis and let your birds free range.

 

[Ariel301]

It's great to see that people on here are ok with low-budget and alternative diets to commercially formulated things. I joined a goat forum a while back and finally quit posting because every time I had a question about ANYTHING, my goats' diet would be jumped all over, and I felt looked down on because I don't spend top dollar on their food. I definitely feel more welcome here lol.

 

[fiberart57]

Another way of getting protein is to ask on Freecycle or Craigslist for freezer burnt game. It's hunting season here (well, okay, it just ended) and there's lots of people who offer free elk or deer meat from years ago. I'm not fussy and it's good for the dog and the chickens.

Mary

 

[ChickenCat]

Ask around to hunters in your area about getting a carcass or two of deer. Our girls watched us cutting up deer and were mesmerized. A few flew over the fence were picking up scraps of fat and meat. I cut up scrap meat into little bites for the others. They went wild!!!! A friend in California said she just gives the whole deer carcass to her chickens, so i did. those girls" crops were soooo full that night. In 2 days they picked the carcass clean.

two days later, I gathered 5 more eggs than normal. Must have been the protein.