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

[~gd]

Just wanted to add my disconnected thoughts on this:
Highly processed foods are not any better for the chickens than they are for humans. I rarely feed mine white bread or ready to eat cereal.
White rice is pretty much devoid of useable nutrients. Lots of people food has added sugar and salt that a chicken doesn't need.
Even in the winter, some bugs are available when the chickens scratch around.
My chickens are molting now and not eating much. I have been feeding them oatmeal and scrambled eggs, meaty leftovers and cat food. I think they would rather starve than eat the pellets I buy for them. Of course, by this time, they are spoiled.

I wouldn't buy white rice for chicken feed either, I would buy the stuff with the hulls left on and Let the chicken's gizzard do its job the fiber won't hurt them. Chickens do need some salt and please be aware that when grain is sprouted much of the starch is converted to various sugars. the sprouts need the high energy of sugar to grow as fast as they do, I doubt that the natural sugars are worse for chickens than the starches that are converted to sugar. ~gd

 

[Denim Deb]

GD, would you cook the rice first?

 

[Mickey328]

I sure would. Rice expands as it absorbs water and I'd rather it go in fully expanded, LOL.

We make sure feed is available to them at all times, but we've cut down on their consumption by giving them other stuff too. I particularly like to make sure they get lots of protein and greens. I cook a small crock of beans (usually pintos just cuz we seem to have amassed a lot of them, but any will do). I give them a cup or so at a time...usually every 2nd or 3rd day (we have 6 hens). I make yogurt for them and give them any cheese we have that has gotten hard or dry (if it's moldy, I cut off the mold) or if cottage cheese is "questionable" on the exp date. I don't give them "rotten" stuff of any sort. They really like all that stuff but go totally bonkers for any sort of meat! When I'm trimming meat for canning or freezing, I give them all the little slivers and gristle, or veins; I try not to get too much fat mixed in but a little won't hurt 'em. They get it raw like that or cooked and scarf it all down asap. When we get an egg that's been cracked or punctured, I scramble it up for them. We save all the shells and whizz 'em in the food processor. Those go in a can so they can help themselves as needed. All the weeds I pull from the yard (we don't use chemicals of any sort) go in the run. They get all the veg trimmings as well. When I was canning all our fruits and veg's, I saved the pulp and froze it in Baggies...about a cup or two in each...and tossed 'em in the freezer. Over the winter I'll pull one out from time to time and thaw it for them for a treat. Sometimes on a cold morning, I'll cook up some oatmeal for them and top it with some yogurt and flaxseed...they love that! I have some comfrey plants so they get a big leaf or two of that several times a week. I also put in some oats this spring and they love picking the seeds...the stalks I use for bedding. I put in a good sized batch of clover too and they get some of that often. I'm going to cut it down today and leave it to dry for over the winter for them.

I have noticed that on days where we give them lots of that kind of stuff, they eat less of their "feed"...in my estimation, we reduced their feed intake by about 25% over most of the summer. Next year we'll be better prepared so I'm hoping to reduce it even further.

 

[LilyD]

The chickens I am feeding are living on 2 acres of land. They have blueberry bushes, raspberry, blackberry, cherry, peach, grape and 8 apple trees on the property and they are my clean up crew for the drops that I have for each and every one. They also get veggie scraps pretty much daily from my garden. I am not too worried about feeding them during the summer and fall months, it's more the winter and spring when there isn't much of anything growing. Up here we get heavy snow for winter and then spring tends to be more of a mud pit rather than grass and growing things. We usually can start planting around may and that's when the bugs start coming out and the birds do well.

I will look for a source of natural rice grains. I like the idea of them getting the hulls for fiber as well. The sprouted beans or grains would be to supplement the missing grains in the winter months. I will also look for sources for organic veggies to give them. I used to have a bin at the store for veggies that were out of date but then new regulations came in and they weren't allowed to let us keep bins there anymore.

I pulled my free feeders out of the coops today and today they got cooked northern beans, yogurt and some leftover pasta.

I don't like to feed them food that's going bad either but it's easy enough when I cook for the family to make a little bit extra so that I have some leftover in the fridge for the next feeding time.

 

[~gd]

GD, would you cook the rice first?

Heck No! I don't think I have ever seen a bird with a pot or pan and I am pretty sure they can't start a fire. I have seen reports of them eating seeds from certain pine cones that only open after being exposed to fire but that is the end of that. I get a huge kick out of people that preach against processed food but want to cook [process] for their birds.
Mickey Do you know of a dry grain or seed that doesn't expand when it absorbs moisture? That myth about rice and wedings has three good reasons.1. it tends to attract pigions [winged rats] and they will poop on anything or anyone! 2 rice is hard and slippery people have been injured by thrown rice It will also make the sidewalk a slip and fall area. 3 those little paper or foil bits can br handled by a leaf blowers or vacuum cleaners better. Get off the Internet once in a while and git out in the real world.

 

[LilyD]

I don't believe that cooking makes an item processed at least not in my book.

I think that what people are trying to eliminate are the products that we don't know the ingredients to. If I look at a bag of chicken feed that is pelleted there are a lot of things in there that I know but there are also a lot that I don't know.

My main goal is that I know everything that I am putting into myself and my animals. For the most part I try to use as many 1 ingredient foods as I can and mix those to make a complete feed. It's easy to do right now with all the vegetable and fruit scraps hanging around for them to eat, it will get harder to do during winter. I think for this year I plan on still having some grain on hand just in case I need it to add to what I am feeding but I am hoping that as I keep going I will be able to buy less feed and make more of my own. Once my pasture is finished in the back I will seed it with edible grains and I will grow sunflowers around my garden to help protect my vegetables from spores that would ruin my crops. I also have a fairly good sunchoke crop ( I didn't plant it but now that it has a use I won't get rid of it either lol).

 

[~gd]

As one that was in the business I'll tell a little secret, The ingredient label is kept vague on purpose so I can take advantage of market conditions, If wheat is cheap I can replace the corn with wheat if my label is written "corn or wheat" as the first ingredient. If it reads Corn, wheat,etc Corn must be the main ingredient. Wheat s must be a bit less because the rule is main ingredient first followed in order by lesser ngredients. ~gd

 

[Marianne]

This is an interesting thread.

Mickey - Your hens don't/can't free range then? I would have thought the purchased feed consumption would have been less than that. My seven hens free range and I think I bought just one bag of scratch grains in a three month period. More bagged food now since we added a lot more winged critters. but I'm working on that, too.

Lily - Let me know how the sunchoke business goes. My goats ate the leaves this year (so I left them) and I was going to dig some later for the guineas and hens. Maybe they'll like 'em - the last batch of hens wouldn't touch them.

~gd - No foil or paper bits thrown at weddings around here. Birdseed is typically used. There's no reason to belittle someone here because they have a different opinion, choose to do things differently or ask a question. This should be a gathering place for people who support the DIY attitude even if it's something that you aren't interested in attempting.

 

[LilyD]

Marianne, The sunchoke roots seem really hard kind of like a potato. I am wonderinf if they need to sit and rot a bit before the chickens can eat them or if we cook them to soften them if they would be more edible. I do know the pigs love them and will go out of their way to eat them given the chance.

So far so good. The chickens are loving real food rather than pellets. They seem to eat all the things they really love and then they will come back throughout the day and munch on the rest of it. They still do have a lof of forage just not much for bugs anymore. It's too cold for the bugs. Our average temp has been in the 40's occasionally a little higher than that but I haven't seen many bugs for weeks now.

 

[FarmerJamie]

Mine don't like sunchokes, either. Even cooked and whipped up like mashed potatoes.