How to keep chickens fed without buying feed?

[donrae]

Have you done a search here for homemade feed recipes? There have been several threads about this in the past, with some very detailed responses.

 

[katelk]

Lots of good ideas! I have never researched fermented feed. About to dive into that
Thanks everyone!

 

[CrazyTalk]

But back to chickens, there are recipes for making one's own feed with grains and such bought from health food stores in bulk.
I was just wondering if there is anything similar that can provide the adequate nutrition via including certain fruits, vegetables, meats, grains, etc. that you can get at the grocery instead of buying bagged feed.
It is just hard to get high quality bagged feed where I live without paying double because of shipping.

ETA: to give you an idea, the owner of the only feed store anywhere near me, when asked about all-natural/organic/whole grain feed literally gave me a lecture about how organic all-natural feed doesn't exist and how he got this information on the highest authority (Purina sales rep *ha, gag*) so yeah, I have to order feed online and literally end up paying double due to shipping weight

You're going to need to buy a pre-mix (It's basically all the vitamins and such that are specific to poultry) and mix grains with that.


Just buy the Purina - it's a much better feed then you're going to be able to make yourself. And the rep is right - "all natural" feed is silly - organic farmers use more pesticides than anyone - they're just not man made.