Feeding chickens without buying feed has been a long - time goal … but it ’s a goal I ’ve never successfully pulled off .
A few years agoI write a Emily Post on the theme of home plate - produce chicken feedsfor The Prepper Project .
There are many problems you ’ll encounter when you dig into the nitty gritty of give your backyard flock . allow ’s jump into them one at a metre .
Chicken Feed Is A Weird Collection of Junk
The typical bag of chicken feed you get from your local farm supplyis a combining of GMO corn and soy with other filler , often include squealer intestine and even poultry waste matter .
That intend you ’re feeding chicken to your chicken .
Other ingredient include bone meal , eatery grease , canola ( which is also a GMO ) and barleycorn malted milk left over from brew .
Don’t feed me no weird stuff, yo!
Do n’t eat me no unearthly stuff , yo !
innovative chicken provender is a bizarre collection of bits and bit . If you ’re not comfortable with feature genetically alter organisms and chicken wastes being lend onto your homestead to feed to your chickens , I do n’t fault you .
However , if you want to purchase “ constitutional ” chicken feed that does n’t carry all the unearthly stuff , it ’s going to cost you . $ 40 a base is n’t rare . That ’s compared to the $ 13 – $ 16 I paid per bag for the cheap commercial-grade feed .
Heirloom corn we grew in part for homegrown chicken feed
The chicken do n’t seem to know the remainder between feed , either . They ’ll lay bollock when fed the awful stuff and they ’ll lay egg when fertilise the good stuff .
I ’d rather give them all big nutrient but my budget did n’t allow that … so we gave them the cheap provender and supplemented their diets with sound nutrition from other sources , such as extra garden truck from the garden and fresh forage where they could crunch on weed , locoweed and worm .
Feeding Chickens with Homegrown Chicken Feed
You ’ll see recipes for mixing up your own chicken prey from time to clip . I ’ve found that the effort , money and prison term involved ready this unattractive . Unlike some volaille fancier , I do n’t want to expend all twenty-four hour period babying my birds . I ’ve catch garden to dig and Bible to write !
Justin Rhodes spread over some innovative methods for stretching your feed budget and getting the most from your feeds in hisPermaculture Chickensmovie ( you cansee his loose videos here ) but I have n’t develop to experiment with those ideas yet as we ’re in - between homestead mightily now .
You could technically produce enough food for your chickens if you planted them some gardens with gamey - protein legumes mixed with grains and source for carbohydrates . Chickens will also eat just about any kitchen fight you hawk their way , including meat , veggie , alimentary paste , Vienna sausages , ramen and birthday patty . chicken are the pig of the doll humankind .
Chickens will eat some really creepy things – like this wood-boring beetle grub.
The trouble in feeding crybaby is protein . We ’ve fed them on homegrown texture , vegetable and kitchen scraps , only to have them quit set . They need the protein levels establish in chicken feed . If they do n’t get enough protein , they may be happy and scrappy , but they wo n’t lay any eggs .
Heirloom corn we raise in part for homegrown chicken feed
Getting the correct proportion is tricky . Modern chicken feeds , despite their offensive ingredients , are well - balanced in their carb / protein proportion .
If you ’re feeding your birds portion of good stuff and nonsense but they are n’t lay eggs , they ’re not paying their direction on the homestead .
Soldier Flies, Mealworms, Maggots and Earthworms
All of these are possible sources of protein for your chickens – but have you ever try out to produce any of them on any sort of ordered series ?
Soldier flies raise those chunky , half - 2-dimensional , segmented maggot in the compost pile . Chickens have sex to run through them and they ’re high in protein – but getting enough of them going , particularly yr - round , to feed more than a couple of hen would be problematical . You ’d need a good beginning of compostable material and you ’d want a good direction to reap them . I ’m not saying it could n’t be done on a large enough scale to give your wimp enough protein – in fact , I ’m certain it can – but it would take some engineering attainment to pull up off .
mealworm are similar . They ’re the larvae of the darkling mallet and can be raised at menage with some mere techniques , but there is sentence and DoL involve , plus you ’ll likely have to buy metric grain materials to feed them . Do you need to become a full - time mealworm Fannie Merritt Farmer so as to feed your birds ? I do n’t .
crybaby will eat some really creepy things – like this Ellen Price Wood - boring beetle grub .
Another chicken protein germ estimation that ’s always kick around online is the “ roadkill in a punch bucket dropping maggot in the chicken yard ” approach . This is a disgusting and stinky style to feed your raspberry . Carrion flies carry disease and potential unwellness that can kill your bird , plus your chicken yard will smell like death if you do this . I ’m obviously in favor of returning organic matter to the soil , but I ’d rather buy roadkill and plant a fruit tree over it , not have to sense it for weeks in my backyard while watching maggot spill into the chicken run .
No .
fishing worm are another good germ of protein for volaille but they ’re not that easy to spring up in quantity sufficient for regular feeding . I ’ve red wigglers on use and encourage earthworms on accident through cryptical layers of mulch , but there are never enough to feed my covetous chickens . If you function large - ordered series , I ’m sure you could pull it off – but then you ’ll be a worm James Leonard Farmer . Better to sell those valuable worm to fishermen and vermicomposters , then bribe eggs from someone else !
So What’s the Final Deal on Feed?
Since we did n’t have admission to affordable organic chicken provender , I reckon that we would be paying way too much per XII nut if we throw away the creepy commercial-grade provender .
So commercial-grade provender it was .
But alongside that GMO - cannibal - restaurant - dirt - cow - guts junk , we gave our chick other good things to eat . They got mass of novel sens and weeds as we moved their tractors around the grounds . They got to eat dirt ball and Caterpillar . They were given sugar and moringa and sweet potatoes . They get weevil - filled Elmer Rice from the buttery . They even got lots of solid food bit from church dinner , including beef , dome , stew and bread .
My chicken feeding has never hit a perfect grade , but it did keep the birds laying . When I tried for an affordable organic approach with oodles of homegrown materials , they drop out pose . So compromise it was .
I ’m not done , however . I still think you may feed in your crybaby off your land and have them keep lay . It ’s just a matter of finding the correct foodstuffs and the right-hand chicken breed for maximal conversion of food into eggs .
One day it will bechance .
