HOW TO FEED YOUR CHICKENS if there is no scratch or pellets?

[GigitheBackyardHerbilist]

With the current events and talk of no fertilizer. The fear of losing animal feed is real. So I've been researching going through all of my homesteading books trying to find ways to feed my chickens and keep them healthy and producing with no layer pellets and no grains. I have found a few amazing videos as well, on composting with chickens which I've been doing since I've got my chickens. (Last spring) That was one reason I was really thrilled to have my own so I didn't have to go to my friend's house and beg poop from them.

What I'm finding is that composting and letting your chickens pick through compost, they eat the bugs they turn the compost and they leave their own little nuggets of nutrients behind. Is an excellent way to grow my crops.
Also there are crops you can grow just to feed your chickens which I was doing last year to supplement but now know, that there are ways to feed and I don't have to grow an entire crop of corn for the girls, which I have been failing miserably at, just trying to grow for our own table.
Hoping that my chicken poop would help me yield a better crop of corn for our family plus all my other veggies. But I do not have to grow another crop just for my chickens?
Which I just do not have the room.

So I thought I would start sharing some of the things that I am learning on how to feed your girls and boys, if there is no rural King to supply you with your chicken feed.
Anyone else interested in this? Anyone else have their own advice to give an ideas to share? I'd be happy to hear.
Just for fun, this is fluffy. Who's not so fluffy at the moment. She's molting. Lol

 

[Weeg]

I'm definitely interesting in this topic. I am mildly concerned about the possibility of chicken feed becoming unavailable. I am at least interested in finding ways to supplement the diet to reduce the feed consumption.

An idea posted on another thread was to grow black oil sunflowers, and harvest the seeds. I plan on getting a bag of black oil sunflower seeds and trying to plant some next week. Also experimenting with sporting grains, or growing fodder.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Absent big equipment (which creates problems of its own), and lots of space, its basically impossible for a modern person to support any number of productive modern breeds at anything like peak condition as a matter of self sufficiency. You can't feed chickens a single crop and expect anything but dietary imbalance - and most of us can't grow and store multiple crops in the amounts needed to overwinter and replant come spring.

What we can do, depending on space, climate, soil conditions, is "bend the curve" by planting a biodiverse polyculture. The key is that there is a mix of greens and grasses coming into season at any given time.

Here's mine (last year), I'm getting back to work on it this year, after I meet with some people about my house build early in the week.

The short form is that I have multiple grasses, multiple grains, multiple legumes, and even some fruits and veggies and "leafies" always going - but no single crop they can gorge on at any given time. Even then, all I can do is reduce my commercial feed needs. With better soil, more water, something heavier than hand tools and a (much) smaller flock, I could probably get the feed bill down to nothing for about half the year, by also providing meat scraps - but note that I am beginning to approach a "working farm", in that I have chickens, ducks, rabbits, goats, and ground (acres of it). I'd like to add fish to the duck pond, as well - tilapia - but I need a way to aerate the water which is both cheap and not dependent on power. Solar cells aren't in the budget right now.

 

[Battlepants]

I recently stocked up on pellets and that should last me a few months. As for falling back after a grain outage, it will likely be birdseed and local plant fiber mixed in to make what ever I have last longer (in hopes that grain comes back to normal). Then if things get really bad, culling to make sure they don't suffer.

I really need to start turning my property into farmland. Currently have ~3 acres of land that gets good sun and is currently just grass. About .5 acres is over a septic leach field which would be a prime plot to grow chicken feed as the area wouldn't be good for human-consumed food anyway.

 

[Lor]

I've been thinking about this lately as I have been having trouble finding cat food occasionally. I think it's a great topic.

I was thinking of a small fodder system but not sure what to grow.

 

[Weeg]

Out of curiosity, where did you get those seeds from? And is there any difference in seeds for planting and seeds for birds/eating?

Nope! The 50lb bag we're mentioning is sold for eating. Its just dried seeds, I don't see a huge difference.

 

[allenw]

The old timers used a lot of root crops, anything green leafy would help, meat for protein. think beyond just grain crops. With grain crops millet would be the fastest grain crop that could be grown.

Without modern feeds egg production would become more seasonal depending on what's available for feed at the time.

 

[Ebony Rose]

I recently stocked up on pellets and that should last me a few months. As for falling back after a grain outage, it will likely be birdseed and local plant fiber mixed in to make what ever I have last longer (in hopes that grain comes back to normal). Then if things get really bad, culling to make sure they don't suffer.

I really need to start turning my property into farmland. Currently have ~3 acres of land that gets good sun and is currently just grass. About .5 acres is over a septic leach field which would be a prime plot to grow chicken feed as the area wouldn't be good for human-consumed food anyway.

Have you considered raising coturnix quail? Grass and other seeds go a long way towards feeding them and at less than an ounce of feed daily (without supplementing them with your 3 acres of grass), is a small price to pay for meat and eggs at about 8 weeks of age. They'd need secure housing as they're smack dab on the bottom rung of the food chain (everything wants to eat them), but it would very easily utilize the space and fodder that you already have at your disposal. Tractor style housing would enable you to move them about the property to ensure that they browse and fertilize your land most efficiently.

 

[TooCheep]

What are you sprouting and where did you get it?

I'm sprouting a combination of wheat and barley that I got from farm stores. It makes up for the lack of fresh greenery during the winter and they love it. Purchased a 40lb bag of each and repackaged them into a bunch of 1gal sealed bags to protect them longer and I'll break open as needed.

 

[kodster]

Another suggestion for everyone to consider is growing sweet potatoes. They're easy to start... just get an organic sweet potato from your local grocery or farmer's market, stick 3 toothpicks in it, around the middle of the potato, stick it in a jar of water that's large enough for the potato plus some room so that you can add water as needed, wait for it to root out and produce slips. Take those slips off (you just gently twist them off) and plant them in soil, either in the ground or in a container/raised bed, like you would regular potatoes. As they grow and produce leaves (in abundance!), you can trim the leaves off and feed them to the chickens, as the plants will continue to produce more leaves. They've done an analysis on the leaves, themselves... 30% protein that is easily digestible to the chickens (and for human consumption as well when they're cooked like spinach, or as part of a salad). Then, at the end of the growing season, unless you've got them in an area that you can continue to grow them overwinter, like a greenhouse), you harvest them like potatoes, and you can store them... both for yourselves and for your birds, over the winter to feed you all.