What all can you feed chickens?

Question

I eat eggs, but live on 2 acres in a rural neighborhood. Instead of buying eggs at the market, I would like to get 5 medium-large hens, and just eat their eggs.

Well, I eat a lot of fruit and vegetables (raw), so I end up with lots of peels and such. I also have a cricket trap. There are also many earthworms here.

I know that they sell special preparations for chicken at the feed store. I will be buying them oats and such. I am, just wondering what else I can feed them, that won't cost me any additional moneys, and which perhaps reduce the amount of kitchen waste I have. Of course, I don't want to hurt my chickens, and I do want the eggs to form properly.

But I'm not a crazy PETA person, so I definitely won't be feeding them any sort of strict, expensive diet. So please, if all you have to offer is some arrogant thing about being cruel to animals, find something more productive to do with your energy besides responding to my questions.

Thanks.

:-)

Answer 1

How much of your land will your chickens be allowed to roam on?

If you only have five hens and they are able to roam most of your two acres, they may get most of their needs met all on their own.  

Do you have any fruit trees on your property?  Chickens love to eat fallen fruit, and they also gobble up flies that come to the rotting fruit.

Your chickens will ADORE your chicket trap, and learn to come running the second you call.

I actually completely AVOID feeding laying mash.  Laying mash contains chemicals that defete the purpose of raising your own farm fresh eggs yourself.  

Instead I suppliment my chickens diet with just plain old cracked corn, and oyster  shell (for the calcium).  

I had six hens, and one rooster.  My farm was 40 acres, but the chickens, even though completely free range, only traveled over about 1/2 acre of the property.  On that 1/2 acre they were able to meet almost all of their needs for food.  They would politely waddle over and look when I called them and tossed some cracked corn....almost always they were so completely stuffed, and their craws were simply BULGING with what they had foraged themselves.

My eggs were delicious, and the yokes were bright orange.  My personal favorite of the chickens were Austrolorps.  They are the black ones, with the beetle green shean to their feathers.  The were excelent at foraging on their own, and also went broody and hatched out, and raised their own chicks if I allowed them to.

Black oil sunflower seeds are another good food for the chickens.  

I can purchase a 50 pound bag of cracked corn for $7 from the feed store.  A 50 pound bag of black oil sunflower seeds is about $12-$15 from the feed store.

Chickens will eat anything.  I use to have feeders hanging to feed the wild birds in my apple/pear orchard.  The chickens learned how to catch and eat the songbirds that came to the feeders.  They will also eat mice, lizards, frogs, small snakes and such.

If you have a garden, I highly advise fencing the chickens OUT of the garden.  Even if the chickens do not like strawberries (or whatever) they may take a bite of each and every one....just to be sure.  

In the fall, chickens will be THRILLED if you bring home pumkins, and squash for them.  Throw the pumkin, or squash hard against the ground, so it cracks open.  The chickens will go nuts over the seeds, and then the flesh.

Toss anything you don't want to eat from your garden out, over the fence to the hens.  This includes bugs, or rotten/damaged vegtables.

When harvest is all done in your garden, allow the hens into the garden.  They will till up the soil, aid their manure, and eat any bugs, or their eggs they find.

If you have some odd spots you can lay a piece of timber, or a board on the ground, the hens will learn to come running every time you call, and turn the board over, so they can get at all the nummy bugs hiding underneith.

If you own a dog or cat, you will have to protect their food from the hens....or the hens will gobble it down faster than you can believe.

If you have someplace to grow sunflowers, you can harvest the heads, and then feed them to the chickens over the winter.  Corn on the cob can also be dried, and tossed to the hens over the winter.

Any time I ate out with my family, we asked for a doggy bag, and just scraped everything into the bag, and gave it to the hens when we got home....chickens are quiet fond of french fries.

Can you grow a hedge of Siberian Pea Plants on your property?  They are very easy to prune.  If you keep the hedge trimmed to about your wait level, the Siberian Pea Plant will be very dense, and produce tons of pea pods in the fall.  The chickens can self harvest these.  Russians use to harvest the pea pods to keep their chickens alive during the long winters there.

Hens are wonderful.  They provide hours of entertainment.  I cannot wait until we have moved, and I can once again have chickens!

Good luck on your hens....they should be a great deal of fun for you.

~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming over 20 years

Answer 2

Chickens will eat almost anything, including each other at times.  They love scraps and in the winter, putting out a flake of leafy alfalfa hay is a real treat to them.  Scraps, waste garden vegetables, even some tender lawn clippings is good for them.  If you want eggs with dark orange yolks, feed more corn.  Wheat and oats are good, but the yolks will be more pale.  Don't forget to provide some oystershell for calcium.

Answer 3

If you want alot of eggs I reccomend you get sexlinks they are the top egg layers I have 5 sexlinks and I get about 2 dozen eggs a day.  the large brown eggs they even lay double yolked eggs. A chicken will never eat another chicken dont believe that.  But they will eat their own eggs for the calcium in the shell.  but they will and can eat: rice, corn, corn bread, any fruit, and just about every veggie, except collard greens and cabbage(will make their eggs taste bad), bread.   Something they absolutely love is grass, so when you cut your grass save the clippings and give it to them (fresh ofcourse).  but basically anything you will eat they will eat except meat.  and I know this because I have 23 chickens and they are all my babies, I love to spoil them. one more thing they love tomato's.  and if you want to increase their egg production feed them laying mash, the people at the feed store will know what it is.  but really any veggies or peels you dont eat they will eat the left overs.  sorry to go on but if you want a really really cheap way to feed them make them corn bread everyday its cheap and easy, and they'll love you for it.  a happy chicken lays more eggs than a hungry chicken.

Answer 4

Well, I think your idea is great. I love raising chickens myself.

An interesting frase I have always remembered is, "What you feed your chickens, will eventually be what you eat." Peels are great, they love apple peels.  

I work on a small local organic farm and we often feed Field Peas and squash to our chickens. Field peas have a great natural flavour to them and have the highest protien value out of most vegetables. High protien builds muscle/meat on the chicken and also inhances the food value in eggs. Field peas are great alternative in time where feed prices are rising. Beware the Field Peas are different from soybeans.

Leting them walk around the yard is another great idea becuase it is the closest thing to their natural habitat, if there ever was one, lol. They like to eat greens, bugs, grass hoppers, grub, and small stones. The stones have minerals that strenghthen their egg shells, and also act like teeth for grinding food. It makes it easyer for them to digest,..improving their health and eggs too.