What to feed worms vs chickens?

[Ryooki]

My chickens are my great lovable garbage disposals who give me eggs. Every morning, I bring them scraps: kitchen scraps, left overs, food too “old” to eat from the fridge, etc. They love it all and devour it up in no time flat. (They have access to chicken feed, too.) We also dump almost all green waste & yard clippings in the chicken coop & run for deep litter method / consumption. I haven’t cleaned the coop or run in 3 years as deep litter method takes care of that for me until I’m ready to harvest the compost.

I’ve been thinking of raising worms, mostly as snacks for my chickens, but maybe for a little worm tea for the garden. My question is what do I feed the worms? Everything is already going directly to the chickens, except citrus which worms don’t want either.

All I’ve figured out so far is diverting mail and box board from the garbage for worm bedding. But I know that’s not enough.

The picture below shows this morning’s offerings: left over spaghetti from last night, tri tip from a week ago, take out fried noodles from 5-6 days ago, hot salsa from Chipotle, gumbo from last week, a piece of beef jerky too tough to eat. The food will be gone by the time I’m back to collect today’s eggs.

 

[My Bagurks]

There are some amazing articles and videos on making a black soldier fly (BSF) farms. It doesn’t take much to set up and they harvest themselves if you make the container right. A big tote bin, some oats and then kitchen scraps to keep it going.

Once established, you’d probably end up giving most of the kitchen scraps to the BSF larvae instead of the chickens. But the larvae are a great protein, calcium and amino acid source. Along with a lot of other nutrients.

I’ve seen setups that liquid fertilizer is collected almost daily and solid is collected every so often. The chickens will LOVE the larvae and with an extra piece of tubing, you can make the larvae drop right into your coop for you chickens.

As far as regular worms and such, the food they will eat is the stuff you give the chickens. But the scraps aren’t always balanced and some may just be “empty” calories for the birds. But once it is eaten and pooped out, the worms are better for them. If you can get a good system going, the kitchen scraps are better used for the worms or BSF larvae.

 

[Kiki]

Your birds may not be suffering now but if you can continue to feed them an unbalanced diet they will suffer eventually.

Is there a reason why you don't feed them a commercially made pelleted or crumbled age appropriate chicken feed?

 

[Brooks_]

Your birds may not be suffering now but if you can continue to feed them an unbalanced diet they will suffer eventually.

Is there a reason why you don't feed them a commercially made pelleted or crumbled age appropriate chicken feed?

OP said feed was available, but yeah I see an imbalance as well.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

I compost citrus in my chicken run…the flock mostly ignore it but it still composts down and their scratching speeds the process.

Diverting the amount of food waste from the chickens to the worms that the worms need likely wouldn’t reduce the chicken’s haul much, and adding worms to their diet will help with any “nutritional deficiency” that feeding scraps may cause.

 

[NatJ]

I’ve been thinking of raising worms, mostly as snacks for my chickens, but maybe for a little worm tea for the garden. My question is what do I feed the worms? Everything is already going directly to the chickens, except citrus which worms don’t want either.

I would take a shovelful of chicken bedding/waste/compost to "feed" the worms. Repeat as needed.

(I haven't tried it exactly that way, but I've certainly seen lots of happy worms in composting chicken bedding.)

Your birds may not be suffering now but if you can continue to feed them an unbalanced diet they will suffer eventually.

Whether it is unbalanced will depend on exactly how much of what they are eating. I'm not going to try to figure it out, just pointing out that food scraps do not ALWAYS cause diets that are unbalanced enough to harm chickens.

I agree that a purchased, complete chicken feed is the most convenient way to assure balanced nutrition for chickens-- but OP's chickens do have that available too.

 

[Chicken poppy]

Sounds like the diet is imbalanced. Agreed with what everyone else says, not the best diet.

 

[Weeg]

I would take a shovelful of chicken bedding/waste/compost to "feed" the worms. Repeat as needed.

(I haven't tried it exactly that way, but I've certainly seen lots of happy worms in composting chicken bedding.)


Whether it is unbalanced will depend on exactly how much of what they are eating. I'm not going to try to figure it out, just pointing out that food scraps do not ALWAYS cause diets that are unbalanced enough to harm chickens.

I agree that a purchased, complete chicken feed is the most convenient way to assure balanced nutrition for chickens-- but OP's chickens do have that available too.

I agree with NatJ.
I think using bedding to feed the worms will work well.
I also agree that kitchen scraps don't always offset a diet to the point that it causes issues. l used to feed the chickens all the kitchen scraps, everything that wasn't toxic. I would fill up the compost bin and dump it about once a week. They loved it!
My rooster who had ate like that almost his whole life, is now 9 years old and doing great.

I don't feed that anymore, now I only feed veggie scraps which they also love, and is beneficial.

That being said, I think that you could also use carby foods like noodles, rice, bread, etc to feed the worms rather than the chickens. I don't love to feed that to my girls since it had no nutritional value. Maybe give your chickens all the meat and veggie scraps, but give the other stuff to the worms? The worms will compost it and use it better than the chickens will.

 

[Chicken poppy]

I agree with NatJ.
I think using bedding to feed the worms will work well.
I also agree that kitchen scraps don't always offset a diet to the point that it causes issues. l used to feed the chickens all the kitchen scraps, everything that wasn't toxic. I would fill up the compost bin and dump it about once a week. They loved it!
My rooster who had ate like that almost his whole life, is now 9 years old and doing great.

I don't feed that anymore, now I only feed veggie scraps which they also love, and is beneficial.

That being said, I think that you could also use carby foods like noodles, rice, bread, etc to feed the worms rather than the chickens. I don't love to feed that to my girls since it had no nutritional value. Maybe give your chickens all the meat and veggie scraps, but give the other stuff to the worms? The worms will compost it and use it better than the chickens will.

Agreed. Scraps can be fine, but you have to know what the scraps are that your using. Things that are safe for chickens to eat, and insuring its not moldy obviously.

i dont feed my chickens kitchen scraps, i guess it really depends, but i would personally focus more on feed then on scraps.

 

[WIchickMama]

I do similar to what @Weeg does, I feed veggie/fruit scraps (mushy grapes, end of the lettuces, etc) and a little bit of meat but the carbs and extra sugary junk I do not.

I don't know anything about worms, but the cardboard mixed with chicken compost and some non-fatty/animals products seem to be good medium for them.