Is “Chicken feed” necessary?

[RodNTN]

I have never really considered putting lots of work into feeding my chickens, they have 20 acres to forage on during the day. And I feed them a bit of Purina feed in the evenings. Have been for years

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Why not just get your own custom feed mix from a feed mill? Lot of recipes available for those...

I mean, when people say they want to feed their chickens less grain... Do you think chickens eat less grain foraging when given the option? I dunno about ya'll but my chickens loooove them some grass seeds. Which is like grain before we made it big. Thistle seeds are a big hit too. Grain is just plant seeds. Flour is just ground plant seeds. Some seeds are more nutritional than others. Corn has a lot of sugar and very little incomplete proteins. Oats are better. Peas aren't a grain, but are packed with proteins. These are things chickens would eat in the wild when given the option to. They're designed to digest seeds just like any other bird.

I get a desire to avoid low quality grain (like corn) or a desire to avoid feeding only grains. But chickens eat cereal grains and love it. Spent brewers grains are an awesome chicken feed source. You could probably put together your own custom mixed feed by buying a few bags of this and that and mixing them in a big drum and feeding it out from there and have perfectly healthy chickens, no cooked or ground feed and healthier grains.

 

[Conman]

No you dont need it if they are free roam, because they will have alot of bugs and grass to eat. But try some crushed oister and some or just a little bit of grain feed for the winter or if they are broody.

 

[m1chelle1]

21hens-incharge brings up a really good point.

Breed differences also factor into nutritional needs. Some breeds do much better than others on foraging. Some breeds simply CAN forage better than others.

And how rich your ground is for forage makes a huge difference too. Flock size vs. ground size and forage availability factor in.

There won't be any one formula that says this many birds with this forage equals this.

Each keeper will have to carefully factor in their specific flock needs.

One head up warning, chicks started on bagged chick start often have trouble transitioning to straight forage. They can get spoiled with the easy to access and digest "canned" food.

I have free access to leavings from a produce store...only my spoiled girls, having been raised on bagged feed, turned their beaks up at it. Others have had similar issues.

I don't have enough free forage for my birds to not give bagged feed, so it became a losing battle for me.

Just something to think about too.

LofMc

agree with this. Many factors

 

[m1chelle1]

Why not just get your own custom feed mix from a feed mill? Lot of recipes available for those...

I mean, when people say they want to feed their chickens less grain... Do you think chickens eat less grain foraging when given the option? I dunno about ya'll but my chickens loooove them some grass seeds. Which is like grain before we made it big. Thistle seeds are a big hit too. Grain is just plant seeds. Flour is just ground plant seeds. Some seeds are more nutritional than others. Corn has a lot of sugar and very little incomplete proteins. Oats are better. Peas aren't a grain, but are packed with proteins. These are things chickens would eat in the wild when given the option to. They're designed to digest seeds just like any other bird.

I get a desire to avoid low quality grain (like corn) or a desire to avoid feeding only grains. But chickens eat cereal grains and love it. Spent brewers grains are an awesome chicken feed source. You could probably put together your own custom mixed feed by buying a few bags of this and that and mixing them in a big drum and feeding it out from there and have perfectly healthy chickens, no cooked or ground feed and healthier grains.

I'm glad someone commented this, because I was just on track with this after reading ALL of the replies to this post.
My 2c here is this- We are talking about chickens here, not cattle. Grain fed chickens are not equivalent to grain fed cattle. Two separate animals with two SEPARATE 'natural' diets. I think we live in an age now where people are deamonizing "grain fed", they hear and think "grain fed" EWWW or "grain fed" its not natural!! So, with cattle, correct, it isnt. With chickens...well, they're not cows. So if you chose to throw some home raised organic corn into your "custom" mix (maybe in smaller quantities??) I'm sure that would save you time and $$. Now, if its GMO's you're worried about, then that's a whole other conversation.

Hope that helps, happy feeding!

 

[JenLiz]

Thank you all so much! I love having a place to come to and get a multitude of opinion

 

[Venumfire]

I feed my girls sprouts from www.serenitysprouts.com I like being able to see the whole seeds and grains and knowing exactly what my flock is eating. Especially, considering I indulge in eating their eggs. My hens produce a lot of eggs on this sprouting feed and the taste and satisfaction of not feeding them pellets is amazing.

 

[Hannan]

A few years ago-that's the time when we had laying hens-we didn't use commercial feed at all. We just fed them uncooked rice, kitchen scraps, and eggshells. They remained healthy until death by predator.

 

[PatchtoTable]

My thoughts are - provide a commercial grain feed as the base and then provide as much foraged food and kitchen scraps as possible (leaves, vegetables, fruit, insects and animal protein). Chickens can balance their own diet - so will forage what they can get and top up on the grain feed. You can check out the article I wrote which covers this here "6 chicken keeping secrets from the evolution of chickens":

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...secrets-from-the-evolution-of-chickens.73654/