Turning Trash Hauls Into Feed

[SeanKriger]

You need to look into black soldier fly production. Also duckweed.
As a side, I'm going to share my long term goal with you,
AQUAPONICS! You buy an IBC tote, cut the top off, put water and fish in, have the water routed through plants to clean it, get amazing plant growth and fresh fish for the family, and chickens! My goal is a small green house for this, filling with bluefin carp (cold resistant) with a secondary tank next to the first tank made from the top, much shorter, and fulled with shrimp and duckweed (which would also be added to the big tank occasionally) but with the tap to the original tank on full blast so any fry end up in the second "grow out tank", this is the tank that would empty into the garden beds and eventually be pumped back up into the main tank, after being naturally filtered by feeding your plants!
The best benefit of this is that between the black soldier flies, the chickens, and the carp you have a good source for any and all food waste you find to be turned into viable healthy food for you and the family. The carp get a full diet from BSF, duckweed, shrimp, and scraps. With the shrimp, duckweed, carp, and BSF you would basically have a complete chicken feed if you just add brown rice, greens and herbs regularly. (But you may want to look into other sources for amounts/balancing on that)
This might be more work than you want to do, but most found food i have stumbled across was on the edge of edible, so I wanted to share a more complete "upcycling" plan for it for you.

I'd love to chat about aquaponics. That was my original goal with the totes. I would really like to harvest small fish and ferment my own fish sauce eventually.

 

[NatJ]

My main concern has been the balance of energy and protein. How to turn greens into protein is my main focal point. It's gotta be worms or bugs somehow.

If you provide enough protein, the chickens can probably balance energy/protein for themselves.

If protein is the limiting factor, one option is to limit your flock of chickens according to the amount of protein you have available. Alternately, buy the highest-protein chicken food you can find, because that's the main thing you are supplementing. Do the arithmetic to find cost per pound of protein rather than cost per pound of feed, to see which type of feed actually makes sense from the available options. (Example: a feed with 20% protein by weight will have 20 pounds of protein in 100 pounds of feed. Two bags at 50 pounds each will make 100 pounds of feed, with 20 pounds of protein. So you take the cost of 2 bags of feed and divide by the 20 pounds of protein to get the cost per pound of protein.)

Feeding the game I trap is a fun idea. I actually have coyotes all over the place, but I built a chain link fence that is 6' tall with 19 gauge wire across the top and a 4' apron around it. Then I am trapping on all sides. It's a good idea to feed the chickens what I catch.

Yup, more protein
I didn't think you would want to eat the coyotes yourself, but the chickens won't mind!

If you butcher chickens, the rest of the flock will probably be happy to eat the parts you do not want (example: the guts.) That also provides some protein. If you find eggs that get frozen in the winter, the chickens can eat them too. If you incubate eggs to hatch, and candle after about a week to check for development, the infertile eggs can also be fed back to the chickens.

I do get some meat that I can feed the chickens, but typically try to reserve good meat for myself and donations. Might make sense just to throw some to them.

I agree about feeding meat to the people first. You get more food value by eating it yourself than by feeding it to a chicken and then eating eggs or meat from the chicken.

But if you have more meat than the people can reasonably eat, definitely give it to the chickens, unless you want to save it in your freezer to feed to people later.

And don't forget about dairy, beans, fish, and any meat that the people may not want to eat (Liver? Canned with too many spices to suit the people? Smells OK but you don't quite trust how old it is? Chickens are less picky than most people, and food usually becomes unappetizing to people before it becomes dangerous for people or chickens to eat.)

The composting inside of the run is an idea. I think what I will do is wood chip a giant fenced in section and let them rotate into it during the day. That's a nifty idea. I already have free wood being dumped on site. I will likely use a cast iron stove to cook certain foods, like potatoes, for the chickens.

Sounds like a good plan!

My main concern has been the balance of energy and protein. How to turn greens into protein is my main focal point. It's gotta be worms or bugs somehow.

Compost pile helps with that too. Rather than picking specific bugs or worms to raise, you have a selection of whatever shows up naturally and thrives in your conditions. With enough compost area & depth as compared with the number of chickens, they can get quite a few bugs and worms but cannot wipe out the population, so there are always more bugs and worms to be found.