Feeding Chickens just People food...Can it be done??

[LilyD]

No I will try an ad, I didn't think about home brewers I just focused on the known breweries in the state but they are all taken by people already who use the grains.

I have been looking into fermenting my own grains and I am checking out what grains are available at the feed stores that we have up here. I might be able to go that route. They don't eat a lot of grains since they are foraging and free ranging most of the day. For the winter (and the rest of the year but the pigs will get most of it the rest of the year) They have bakery scraps which consist of homemade bread ends, veggie peelings and fruits that they use in their pasteries, as well as some meat and cheese from their sandwiches. The chickens are totally loving it and I am not having to feed much at all.

 

[Ula]

Hi Everybody!

I feed my chix leftover bread topped with bacon fat, cooked oatmeal with scraps(leftovers) & cracked corn. This coming year I am adding amaranth, quiona , sunflower & millet(.better to eliminate the corn)& more veggies. Seems the bacon fat keeps them laying longer too.

 

[Mattemma]

Great thread!

When I lived in Hungary as a child there was no pet or livestock food.Everyone had chickens,dogs,cats,maybe a few pigs and goats. All were fed whatever they grew or scraps.No pre-made food products for them.

 

[so lucky]

I remember my grandma had big coon dogs (big to me at the time) that she never bought food for. Every day she would bake up a big pan of cornbread and pour grease over it for them. I'm sure they got scraps when butchering was done, as well. I don't remember what they fed the chickens, but they free-ranged, so they probably got lots of good stuff.

 

[tressa27884]

Mine free range and get whatever leftovers we have from the dinner table...I've been doing it this way forever and mine are all fat and sassy

 

[Britesea]

commercial animal foods is a pretty recent phenomenon

 

[Britesea]

Your post is an inspiration!

 

[Lewis Adams]

They can eat quite a few different people foods but their are a number of things that they can't eat, some you wouldn't even think. You can see what is good and bad for them to eat at this backyardchickens forum post:

http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/chicken-treat-chart-the-best-treats-for-backyard-chickens

- P.S. backyardchickens.com is a great website to learn more about chickens

 

[MoonShadows]

Hi Lewis and welcome to SS! Thanks for that chart. Some of the folks here are over at BYC, too. Nice to have you with us and hope you become involved.

 

[lcertuche]

I know it has been a while since anyone has posted but I thought I would chime in. I too belong to backyardchickens. I like to free-range my birds, feed them a few scraps and a little fermented feed. If I was to do away with anything it would be the feed. Years past I mostly let my chickens free range and only threw a couple of handfuls of grain in the evening to encourage them to come to home to roost at night. On BYC though I have had members fuss at me for this saying that it is reckless to let chickens free range due to predators or not to feed them formulated feed because of its great benefits. I will probably continue this because I want healthy,happy birds and that's what they are when they free range. I have lost very few over the years to predators because I lock them up at night and they wise up during the day. The only big hit I ever had was when two stray dogs took out at least 2/3 of my flock. A shot gun cured that though. In the 'olden' days people raised extra squash, turnips, etc. for the livestock and it use to be economically feasible to raise chickens for eggs and the occasional pot of dumplings when the hens got old or you had extra cockerels. If you got money to blow then sure spend it but if you don't you can still afford a few chickens as all ya'll seemed to have figured out.