Has anyone succesfully had chickens without feeding chicken food

[freemotion]

I just blogged my latest recipe for chick starter, along with pics of my current batch of chicks: Icelandics, Buff Brahmas, mixed reds, and a few odds and ends from my flock. They are doing great on it, and it barely cost me anything to make.

 

[Erica]

I'm sorry to here things are so tough there Fancie.

This is probably a totally outlandish suggestion (sorry!) but I wonder if you could bring yourself to change breeds? I understand some of the game breeds (particularly the smaller bantam types) are really economical to keep, incredibly hardy, and can survive on just corn and forage.

Please forgive me if this is a terrible suggestion. It's something I think about in case it gets really hard to source affordable feed.

As someone already mentioned, sprouting is a useful way to improve grain, so is souring.

I hope you find a way to keep them.

good luck,
Erica

 

[JenARich]

A few more ideas for perennially sustainable chicken feeds that can be produced on-farm without much labor and without having to be replanted every year:

Fruit trees/bushes/vines: Eat what you can, let the chickens clean up what falls, the wormy or bad-looking fruits, and anything you can't eat or give away (which will probably be lots if you've got as many fruit trees as I have). There are also plenty of native & wild fruits that are not palatable to humans that chickens will clean up. Also, you can plant some trees as pollinators (like crabapples, which will pollinate almost any domestic apple) and give their fruit to the chickens. Mine won't touch citrus, though.

Nuts and acorns: Must be cracked. There are plenty of native acorns and pecans laying around here, plus any nut trees that you plant for your own consumption. You can run over them with a vehicle to crack them (put them between old sheets of metal or wood and then drive over them), or use a hammer, crackers, a hand-mill, or a mortar and pestle. You could also throw them in with big livestock and let them stomp them so the chickens can get at them. Not sure how good that would be for horses' hooves, but our cows walk on pecans all the time with no ill effects. You could probably just stomp on them yourself, for that matter.

Chayote squash: Perennial squash that doesn't have to be replanted year after year. Good people food as well. There are other perennial vegetables as well. I think I remember hearing chickens shouldn't be fed rhubarb, though.

Jerusalem Artichoke (Sunchoke): Edible, perennial, extremely resilient tuber. Can become a weed very easily. Looks like a sunflower above ground, underneath there is a vaguely potato-like tuber. Good people food as well. A bit more work since the tubers must be dug. Not sure if the seeds are edible for people; I assume they are edible for chickens, since wild birds will eat them, but I haven't tried it.

Edited to add: Not exactly the same thing, but to help ensure my chickens get enough protein (they free range, so they get a lot of bugs already, but I figure more can't hurt) I keep a few logs and scrap boards lying around in the dirt behind the chicken house and around back of the garden, and periodically I turn one of them over and expose the insect feast that has accumulated underneath, to the chickens' great delight. You can do this with any deadfall around their foraging grounds, as well.

I've also been considering a worm bin to produce supplemental feed for the chickens and speed up composting what doesn't already get eaten by dog, cat, or chickens, but I haven't tried it yet. I wouldn't need it to produce huge volumes of protein for the chickens, just a little extra to supplement what they already get. And, according to a book I read a while back called Worms Eat My Garbage, people can actually eat the worms as well. That book includes several recipes for incorporating them into various dishes, breads, etc. I'd have to be in pretty dire straits, I think, to get over the ick factor, but it's something to consider in terms of food security in case of very hard times.