Hi everyone:

I'm thinking of getting a few chickens. I want to do all of my research first before I go out and get them.

I was doing reading on the types of chicken feed and want to avoid soy and corn (gmo) chicken feed. There are a couple of organic feed companies that I've found, but they are expensive in comparison.

I got the idea of researching costs of making my own feed, and what to actually put in the feed, ration wise. I was thinking at one point, feed wasn't as mainstream as it is now, so people must have been making their own.

Has anyone made their own feed? Any suggestions?

TIA

Bump!

My DH and I have 8 hens and 1 rooster for a year now. They are happy and healthy and totally spoiled rotten. I supplement with grain from the feed store. They are fed whatever food products that I get for free. At Christmas, cream cheese was free......they LOVE, LOVE, LOVE cream cheese. I open it up, remove from wrapper, and throw it in the run. Cereals, canned beans, frozen burritos (LOVE these), etc. I soak the cereal in either milk, coffee creamers, or yogurt as mine prefer softer items. I have it worked out with a local restaurant to get the buffet throwaways whenever I need them. If my egg shells start to crack easily, I just give them more calcium in thier diet.

Happy, healthy, and pretty hens give me lots of eggs.

Thanks for responding!

I was thinking about greens, veggies, alfalfa, and cooked quinoa. When I get the corn growing in my garden, that too.

I had no idea chickens eat cream cheese! Well, I've heard that they'll eat anything, but it's still surprising.

Do you raise mealworms for them? I was reading about that too.

We have about 25 chickens right now. They free range around our property during the day and they roost in an enclosed pen at night. We have commercial feed for them to eat, but they rarely eat it. When we lock them up at night, they get a snack of the grains we have for them but don't even look at the feed. They get their nutrients eating bugs and worms and vegetable scraps we put out for them. We throw away much much more of the feed we buy than they eat. We change it when it gets wet or old or pooped in. Do some research on nutrition. They don't have to have a commercial feed to be healthy.

All our kitchen scraps, plus our hens free range so my backyard never needs mowing and we are bug and weed free....in the winter and less in the summer we use a basic egg layer pellet...

The opinions listed above are mine.
I have a brain, sometimes I forget to use it.
Forgive me, my closest friends are chickens....

I have a few chickens and they roam around wherever they want and eat grass/bugs/crickets and are very happy. Lol. My dad buys some food for them to put in the pen but they don't really need it. Sometimes they will eat a little but they're happier just roaming around and crowing at all the wrong times instead of the right times. Lol.