Topic of the Week - "Off-grid" Feeding - Homemade feeds, etc.

[song of joy]

Comfrey is an easy-to-grow, supplemental food source for chickens. There are non-invasive cultivars, and once a plant is established it is very easy to sub-divide it in order to propagate additional plants. There are times of the year when my chickens will eat it to the ground, probably for its high protein and vitamin content. It's interesting that my hatchery birds won't touch it, but the chickens that are from breeders seem to love it (e.g., dominiques). Perhaps they are closer in behavior to their wild kin.

Some other food sources I've seen mentioned on other threads include: Siberian Pea Shrub and Mangle Beets. I don't have any experience with these yet.

Free ranging can provide a significant amount of free food during spring, summer and fall, especially if there is a variety of vegetation available (e.g., clover, grasses, dandelion, etc.). Dropped fruit (e.g., from apple trees, pear trees, etc) is also a good supplement.

Free ranging can also provide animal food sources for chickens, including insects, earthworms, mice, snakes, etc. If cover-boards (e.g., tin, old pieces of plywood) are placed on the ground, they will attract small mammals (mice, voles), which will in turn attract snakes. All of these can be wild food sources for chickens if they are quick enough to catch them when the cover-boards are lifted. I would not recommend placing cover boards near houses or coops. When a mouse nest is discovered, the baby mice provide a good protein source for chickens.

A deer carcass is a great protein source during the hunting season.

If I were trying to sustain a small flock during hard times and limited food availability, I would choose a breed that is easy to sex at hatch or within the first couple of weeks (e.g., dominique, barred plymouth rock) so male chicks could be culled very early. Cooked eggs (mashed scrambled or hard-boiled eggs) would be an ideal food source for chicks during the first several weeks of life, along with foraging on pastureland with a good mother hen. I've seen 3-day old chicks eat insects that the mamma hen caught and gave to them. By 3 to 4 weeks of age, they were doing a very good job of foraging on plants and insects, having learned this skill from the mamma hen.

 

[Dr.Dale]

Do you perchance have a list of those manufacturers?

I know there are others, but I mostly buy Purina

 

[PirateGirl]

Ok, after reading many more responses I have more questions.

Will chickens eat yarrow? I have an abundance of this that grows wild in the yard/field. Free ranging is not an option, but I can certainly throw it in their run.

Voles. We have lots of voles. Usually the cat (which I specifically brought home to take care of voles and prairie dogs) pulls them out of the wood pile. Will the chickens eat it if it's already dead? If the cat kills it and I throw it to the chickens is this a good treat? Do the chickens have to hunt and catch the live voles themselves? Or is it better for the cat than the chickens? Should I let the cat eat the things it catches? (I usually take the rodents away and dispose of them, but perhaps I am wasting a valuable resource doing this)

 

[Beer can]

Mung beans and lentils are great for that too. My chicken love those treats!

Dollar store dried beans sprout. I've bought pinto, navy, black, beans $1 two pound bag, grow them in the garden and/or cook or sprout them for the birds, good source of protein and a much better treat than scratch or corn IMHO. Birds love and gobble up a pile of refried beans lol.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Dollar store dried beans sprout. I've bought pinto, navy, black, beans $1 two pound bag, grow them in the garden and/or cook or sprout them for the birds, good source of protein and a much better treat than scratch or corn IMHO. Birds love and gobble up a pile of refried beans lol.

now do you start them let them sprout first

 

[Beer can]

Trying out mammoth red mangle beets this winter for the chickens, hoping it cuts down on feed.
I didn't take very good care of them, didn't thin out or weed them. Try better next yr. Grew pretty good though for a $2 pk of seeds. And the birds peck the heck out of them, love them.
My little harvest this last yr

Supposedly the same food value as grain and they grow 10-20lbs. Plus they can eat the greens.

"Henry Field’s Seed Sense for February 1926. In it the author writes, “If you don’t grow mangel beets for anything else, grow them for your chickens. They furnish a very important food element for your laying hens. Your hens will loaf on the job during the winter if they do not have green food of some kind like sprouted oats, cabbage, or beets. Mangels are easy to grow and make enormous yields. "

"Laura Ingalls Wilder, of Little House on the Prairie fame, was famous for getting excellent egg production out of her hens in the winter on her farm. She wrote of mangels in her memoirs saying, “Some stock beets should be raised to feed the layers in winter. The hens are fond of them and they act as a relish and appetizer as well as save other feed.” "

 

[pennyJo1960]

Impressive grew lettuce and cabbage all winter birds love it have to work on the beets
now

 

[Beer can]

now do you start them let them sprout first

In the garden just planted the seeds.
For the birds you HAVE to either sprout or cook, I usually just soak and cook (so I can have some lol)
Raw, undercooked and raw beans are toxic, cooked are fine. Sprouting them also eliminates the poison. Sprouting is probably better for the birds, either way beans are good for us bird or human.

 

[pennyJo1960]

the lettuce and cabbage of course is raw

 

[sevenfatcows]

Under the topic of odd things one can forage for poultry food.......We have been at war with California Ground Squirrels for years. In fact, my family has been at war with them for four generations of ranching in the state. On a good day, from the human point of view, I capture three or four of them, the record amount was eight caught between early morning and 1 p.m. I never waste a squirrel- my chickens eat them with gusto. They get interested and line up at the fence when they see me coming across the property with traps. My near neighbors are amused by this eccentric behavior and often drop their traps or just the dispatched squirrels for my flock-fine by me; hens need a lot of protein and I have a lot of hens.
Other posters have mentioned their birds eating snakes. That is interesting to me as mine will eat small lizards but they run from the snakes; snakes tend to get pretty big on my property.
We grow comfrey for the chickens and as a treat for steers. It is not invasive in the desert as it is limited to where the ground is damp, but it is hard to keep it going through the hottest part of the summer. Chickens do enjoy it though, and it is a food for humans in some parts of the world. For those who live in the desert, chickens will eat ground mesquite pods. These are high in protein, seventeen %, if I recall correctly, but kind of a bother to prepare. I sometimes use the ground pods in a home made flock block. Certain mallow plants that grow in vacant lots and such, pretty much state-wide, are also good chicken food. I brought some seeds into my yard from the neighboring county just to plant them for the birds. I can't think of the botanical name just now, but I think many people just call it "common mallow."
I do not think it would be easy, but a small flock could probably be maintained without commercial food in a SHTF situation by doing as our forebears did. This is an interesting thread.