Is this a complete chicken diet?

[MelissaCoupas]

We want to raise chickens again but have their food be 100% free. Years back, we paid for chicken scratch. Where we will move is in the forest in high elevation so there is very limited things we can do to provide their food.

We can do: Soldier Flies, Raise worms in compost, & Duckweed. We can supplement with other items as we have them such as excess vegetables we sometimes have to toss out from the food bank. I would need to dehydrate some of the soldier flies to be able to last during the winter and the worms are year round.

Does this sound like a balanced diet? They can and will be free range part of the day but not 100% since there are bears around. We would need to use chicken tractors (tall chicken tractors) letting them out 1-2 hrs a day to free roam. Our pen for them will be large and set right next to the house so we can open the window, yell or jump outside if there are animals. Animals we are less worried about as we had chickens before so the pen will be major bear proof. Thanks so much

 

[MelissaCoupas]

We will also have a greenhouse where I want the compost to be to keep the bears out of the compost and we can just set the chickens inside the greenhouse to go at it. We won't be growing much food except potatoes & various sprouts. We will also have a pond with fish. Thank you for reading this and your time. Blessings

 

[nuthatched]

Not really, and if you really mean scratch and not feed, that wasn't a complete diet either.

 

[All4Eggz]

We want to raise chickens again but have their food be 100% free. Years back, we paid for chicken scratch. Where we will move is in the forest in high elevation so there is very limited things we can do to provide their food.

We can do: Soldier Flies, Raise worms in compost, & Duckweed. We can supplement with other items as we have them such as excess vegetables we sometimes have to toss out from the food bank. I would need to dehydrate some of the soldier flies to be able to last during the winter and the worms are year round.

Does this sound like a balanced diet? They can and will be free range part of the day but not 100% since there are bears around. We would need to use chicken tractors (tall chicken tractors) letting them out 1-2 hrs a day to free roam. Our pen for them will be large and set right next to the house so we can open the window, yell or jump outside if there are animals. Animals we are less worried about as we had chickens before so the pen will be major bear proof. Thanks so much

We will also have a greenhouse where I want the compost to be to keep the bears out of the compost and we can just set the chickens inside the greenhouse to go at it. We won't be growing much food except potatoes & various sprouts. We will also have a pond with fish. Thank you for reading this and your time. Blessings

As mentioned, your chickens' prior diet was not "complete". Scratch should only be a treat. Layer pellets/crumble should make up the bulk of the diet.

Is it possible you could travel to town once in a while, buying lots and lots of bags of feed so you don't have to restock very often? Layer feed is a balanced and complete feed for laying hens. It's also possible that you can make your own feed, which would include corn, wheat, peas, oats, protein, etc. This process would likely not be free.

 

[Weeg]

I wouldn't offer scratch as feed, this article may interest you-
Thread 'Successful 100% forage diet experiment (long post)'

 

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

Not even close.

 

[3KillerBs]

As a general rule, if your area does not support a year-round population of feral chickens it probably cannot support a domestic flock without feeding them.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Yeah, not happening.

Modern birds are much more productive than even their relavily recent (last century) counterparts, but as result are much more dependent upon us to provide a nutritionally complete feed, whose needs have only grown over the centuries.

While many romantacize the birds of the 1920s, allegedly not being fed at all, on their great great great grandparents fields, those birds were small, slow growing, light weight low frequency layers. Not something one could depend upon today as a source of revenue, or a regular source of protein. Moreover, they weren't fed "nothing" - yes, they got kitchen scraps, about the only thing modern man shares in common with the ancient process - but they also got the feed the dog missed, the pig missed, the cow missed, the horse missed. and they got seed that was spilled while preparing the fields or harvesting them. All the bugs they could eat in those fields, plenty of weeds, and the results of back-breaking physical effort to ekk by an existence at the edge of starvation.

All this supported by large amounts of storage to hold grains, hay, etc over the winter - when one would likely cull down to just the couple best birds (to reduce feed needs and provide protein for oneself) before re-growing the flock size in spring to two handfuls or so.

Economically, even those of us with large properties can't grow our own cheaper than obtaining bulk feeds from local mills - even maintenance on the equipment needed to till, water, and harvest the various crops needed to create a modern balanced chicken diet likely exceeds the cost of buying commercial feed outright.

As to the complete diet, itself? Likely a mix of one or two grains, a high value legume, a high value seed, and a source of animal proteins. In the 1900s, they used "meat scraps", modern man usually buys fish meal. Without that high AA value animal protein, the feeds tend to be deficient in Methionine, often Lysine, sometimes Threonine - the three most critical amino acids in pooultry development. Birds raised on such deficient diets tend to be smaller, less efficient, less well "put together", more prone to disease, and lower production.

There are some great threads on older feeding methods. You would be well advised to read a few to better understand what you are potentially getting yourself into.

 

[MelissaCoupas]

Thank you so much! Sorry everyone, I called it scratch but meant laying pellets. We gave our chickens laying pellets years ago plus compost which had a ton of worms and they were free range on 1/4 acre. So they ate well. We also supplemented with calcium sometimes.

I am also afraid of COVID so want to be 100% self sufficient if the feed stores close up. Our property also has a TON of frogs so we could provide that as protein and we will be raising fish too so that would work too. There is a good flowing spring which runs year round. Again, thanks to you all.
We will supplement the chickens with laying pellets, at least 2 ounces per chicken per day.

 

[Weeg]

Thank you so much! Sorry everyone, I called it scratch but meant laying pellets. We gave our chickens laying pellets years ago plus compost which had a ton of worms and they were free range on 1/4 acre. So they ate well. We also supplemented with calcium sometimes.

I am also afraid of COVID so want to be 100% self sufficient if the feed stores close up. Our property also has a TON of frogs so we could provide that as protein and we will be raising fish too so that would work too. There is a good flowing spring which runs year round. Again, thanks to you all.
We will supplement the chickens with laying pellets, at least 2 ounces per chicken per day.

Awwww, that makes sense. As long as your feeding a complete feed, you should have nothing to worry about. Everything else is a beneficial supplement to the diet.