If your birds are NOT free ranging you must give them something. Scratch does have its advantages. It promotes the chickens to eat robustly and it is healthy for them. A 50 pound bag of poultry grain (scratch) is fairly cheap and a scoop a day for over 50 chickens goes a long way. I guess you could feed them yogurt, bread, fruit and misc. people food, but scratch allows them to grind the food in their gizzards. I put out oyster shell, not just for the egg shells, but for them to have something so they can grind their food in the gizzard. I very much believe in free ranging, but some of us are forced into runs. Chickens will even eat dirt, especailly wet dirt to get earth for their digestive tracts. It also helps with worms and parasites, though it is not a treatment for this. My birds poop out light brownish/green with a good white tip. When I see a loose or discolored poop I worry. Sounds really dumb, but i watch this more than any thing else. I watch the water uptake and the way they act and roost. It takes a little time, but it is well worth it. Every morning I throw a scoop of scratch down on the dry dirt barn floor. It is gone in an instant and off they go to range the property. When they come in for roost I allow them a feeder of poultry grain (free choice). Some eat, some do not. I guess it depends on what they got for the day. My wild roo is out without the grain and he come in without the grain. I see him everyday and he eats alot of bugs, grass and gets his water from the horse trough. He is very healthy.
