What do you grow for your chickens?

[Illia]

Quote:
Good idea! Quinoa is high in protein too!

It is also a natural part of the diet for blue/green egg laying chickens.

 

[kla37]

Everything I grow seems to have a bit of it ending up for the chickens. They especially love my flowers!

They really like pea plants, and the lettuce, and cabbage, and baby carrots, and tomatoes, and radish greens, etc. Daylily flowers excite them, and they eat all the weeds I pull. Lots of pigweed and purslane and dandelions.

 

[xyresicchick]

sunflowers, kale, cabbage, lettuce, spinach, red and white clover, mangels, and johnny's "sucraseed" mix.

 

[Wifezilla]

I have quail and ducks, not chickens, but I am trying to grow as much of their food as possible too. This year I am going to try a patch of Amaranth. I am actually getting two varieties. One is good for seeds, the other is for greens.

My ducks also have grape vines bordering their pen. They love the leaves. Sometimes they will eat a few grapes, but it is mainly the leaves they go after leaving the fruit for me

Last year a black oil sunflower seed got tossed in the garden in some quail bedding and that made for an attractive volunteer. I saved the seeds and will plant more next year.

 

[booker81]

Mine think I grow strawberries for them.....

 

[chickeemama]

I now feed my chooks BOSS - can you grow those seeds? or what type of Sunflower do you recommend for growing for them. Also for those of you that have grown your own BOSS, how do you dry/store them?

 

[Barry Natchitoches]

This time of the year, the only thing I can grow for my chickens is turnip greens. And even that has to be grown under row cover. I did overseed a portion of the lawn with rye seed, to give them a little more winter greens.


Most of the year, I grow organic food for us HUMANS, but the chickens get benefit from that too. I give them the outer leaves of the cabbages, broccoli, and lettuce plants. They get to eat less than perfect watermelon, or even that last slice of perfect melon after my wife and I have had our fill. They get plenty of less than perfect tomatoes (misshappen fruit, fruit that has a slight blemish, etc). They THINK that the raspberry plants are for them, and can't understand why some of the berries mature higher than chicken height. They would get into my strawberries, if I didn't keep them under row cover.


I'm going to grow corn especially for them next summer -- some non-GMO, heirloom variety. Maybe hopi blue or bloody butcher. I'd never be able to grow a years supply of corn for them, but maybe I can grow some. I was talking to a farmer just today who not only grinds up his whole kernels, but grinds up the cob too, and gives it all to his chickens. If I can find a grinder for my cobs -- or perhaps use his -- then I think I'll grind up the cobs for my chickens too.

 

[xyresicchick]

Quote:
yes you can grow boss seeds!! i have done it accidentally -- it is awesome!

 

[PepsNick]

We used to have a very large garden and we would sell fresh produce to neighbors, but then we made it into a small garden on the side of our driveway. This Spring we hope to make a larger area out of the place that's too sunny for the hydrangeas to grow. Last year everything from the garden was the chickens. We had to put up a fence to keep them out, but as humans do, it all ended up going to the chickens anyway.

 

[GardeNerd]

So far this year I have planted the following with chickens in mind:
Lettuce
Borage
Swiss Chard
More grapes vines
Another Fig

I give them trimmings from our stuff, too. The only edibles I grow they don't seem to eat are citrus.