Is “Chicken feed” necessary?

[Folly's place]

Those older farm chickens also were smaller, and produced many fewer eggs per year, than most modern birds.
Mary

 

[quackingdom]

This might give you some ideas: How to Feed Your Chickens Without Grain – 20 Ways to Cut Your Costs 100%

Personally, I'm looking into growing duckweed, amaranth, and pigeon peas for my birds. There are a lot of options out there!

 

[JenLiz]

Thanks so much for all the replies! We are growing lots of different herbs and flowers that are good for chickens to eat (from what I've read in BYC and other websites). Oregano, rosemary, parsley, mint, basil, lavender, marigolds, petunias. Sunflowers soon. I don't mind supplementing with commercial feed as long as it's as natural as possible. As I said in my original post, they will also be getting fruits and veggies, foraging some for bugs and worms, and I am looking into supplementing with natural mealworms (ones that have not been fed animal byproducts). Hey, I do have a question. Can you give chickens the crispy dead bugs from the bug zappers? It would be mostly mosquitoes and moths here. I guess I need to look into which bugs in Florida might be toxic to chickens. But we always have lots of bugs in the zappers.

 

[JenLiz]

This might give you some ideas: How to Feed Your Chickens Without Grain – 20 Ways to Cut Your Costs 100%

Personally, I'm looking into growing duckweed, amaranth, and pigeon peas for my birds. There are a lot of options out there!

Thanks, that article is awesome! So many ideas!

 

[wcbpolish]

This made laugh! My neighbors think I am nuts to haul manure from my steers into the chicken runs but it is heaven to the hens. What I don't manage to snag for them is eaten by large flocks of doves who come twice a day; it is great stuff!

Um... I feed my father-in-law's steers (2 of them) within a walking distance of one of my pens of chickens... I'm thinking about trying this... A couple of people posted in response to cow manure in a positive manner... anyone else actually take the manure into the chicken pen?!?! I am totally for the passive free range birds doing this, never thought about actively taking the poop to the birds.

I am able to "glean" leftover food from co-workers, leftovers from student lunches (I teach high school), and other sources. Protein is hard to come by, but stale bread/donuts is always available if you know where to look. I have to keep higher protein food on hand for when I supplement too many carbs.

 

[quackingdom]

Thanks so much for all the replies! We are growing lots of different herbs and flowers that are good for chickens to eat (from what I've read in BYC and other websites). Oregano, rosemary, parsley, mint, basil, lavender, marigolds, petunias. Sunflowers soon. I don't mind supplementing with commercial feed as long as it's as natural as possible. As I said in my original post, they will also be getting fruits and veggies, foraging some for bugs and worms, and I am looking into supplementing with natural mealworms (ones that have not been fed animal byproducts). Hey, I do have a question. Can you give chickens the crispy dead bugs from the bug zappers? It would be mostly mosquitoes and moths here. I guess I need to look into which bugs in Florida might be toxic to chickens. But we always have lots of bugs in the zappers.

Sunflowers! I hadn't thought of that. Great idea!

We have marigolds growing like weeds all over our property. The ducks don't eat them. They go mad for oregano, though.

We are still feeding commercial feed, but I hope to be able to stop in the near future. We do supplement with raw grains, especially milo (sorghum) because it's cheap. We've also bought raw wheat and oats in the past.

Here's another useful site I've run across: https://www.feedipedia.org/

It provides very in-depth information about the nutritional content of various types of plants that can be used as livestock feed, how successful they are as feed for each type of livestock, safe/recommend inclusion rates, any antinutritional factors, etc.

 

[sevenfatcows]

Um... I feed my father-in-law's steers (2 of them) within a walking distance of one of my pens of chickens... I'm thinking about trying this... A couple of people posted in response to cow manure in a positive manner... anyone else actually take the manure into the chicken pen?!?! I am totally for the passive free range birds doing this, never thought about actively taking the poop to the birds.

I am able to "glean" leftover food from co-workers, leftovers from student lunches (I teach high school), and other sources. Protein is hard to come by, but stale bread/donuts is always available if you know where to look. I have to keep higher protein food on hand for when I supplement too many carbs.

I'd just let mine roam with the steers, but it's a little farther out from my house than I feel is safe for chickens predator-wise. We are fortunate to live in a small town (one stoplight) and for years I have traded eggs to the family that owns the local fresh produce market in exchange for what they would otherwise throw away. What the chickens won't eat, the cattle will. I have to decide if I want to turn the soft berries and slippery spinach into steak or eggs. Food is around for the asking. One year, I fed my flock almost entirely on free range and the scraps from our one cafe under the same arrangement, but the logistics were difficult as the cafe needed everything picked up by 3pm, not to mention that my hens got fat.

 

[Meg-in-MT]

The breakfast of champions for all chickens is good old fashion cow and hose dung with hog dung coming in a close second. Besides these farm animal manures are loaded with pro and macrobiotics as well as being pre-fermented. Further more animal dung is relished by all chickens, even the most picky eaters. Many is the time that I have watched a brooding hen leading her clutch of chicks around in the footsteps of a cow while the hen eagerly and greedily waited for a fresh cow patty to hit the ground so that she could wade drumstick deep into the soft green oozing patty and begin calling her chicks to dinner. A word of caution, the best manures are produced by domestic animals that are fed a grain supplement to augment their diets of forbs and fresh grasses. This is what true FREE RANGE originally was.

My chickens spend a lot of time with the horse, cows and pigs. A lot. That is the first place the majority of them head when I open their run. Plus they like to kick around in the hay and straw Their eggs are fantastic! Haha.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

This might give you some ideas: How to Feed Your Chickens Without Grain – 20 Ways to Cut Your Costs 100%
Personally, I'm looking into growing duckweed, amaranth, and pigeon peas for my birds. There are a lot of options out there!

Boy-0-boy I'm all ears, tell me how I can cut feed cost by 100%
Why a 100% reduction means like for...... FREE.

And this organic wonder grub is only like $7.63 per pound down at your local Wall Mart discount store.

I'd hate to see what amaranth cost if Wall Mark was charging full price.

And it says right there on the package that amaranth is wholesome, so wholesome in fact that it also says in the package that amaranth keeps best if you refrigerate or freeze it. That takes electricity so there goes another glacier down the drain.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Bob-s-Re...=sem&msclkid=f5a07499c9d01c1a4b832e0dbcd54915

 

[GGRinger]

Hi it's me again.
if you want to try something Ultra natural,
supplement your birds with Farmer's Helpers supplements.
Https://foragecakes.com
I know the man who founded this company. very interesting person . he did his college studies on feeding native jungle fowl and how he could transition this primitive feed to a proper feed for modern poultry. he succeeded and his products are now promoted under the title "Farmer's helper". it's excellent nutrition. I raised my last season's chicks on Ultra kibble. great stuff . I was very impressed.
Best,
Karen

i use those products also to supplement my homemade grain feed mixture along with fresh greens and fruit, kitchen scraps, MWs, SFL, crickets and occasionally some cooked fish which they love Of course they have free access to grit and oyster shell and they have their own compost pile to dig through when they are in their pen. i can only let them free range when i can watch them because of coyotes, but i try to let them out several times a week.