Chicken feed: What to grow?

[Oldcountryboy]

What is the best grain to grow for chicken feed?

I've been wondering just what all is in egg pellets that make the chicken lay a little better. I give them cracked corn to put a little color and flavor in the egg. But if I feed them corn only, seems they don't lay quit as good.

I've been wanting to grow most all my animal feed. But don't really know what kind of grain would be the best for chickens. What is egg pellets made up of that I might could grow myself?

[farmgal]

We grow cattle corn. well I just ream the neighbors dairy corn once he harvests it, when he makes turns there are bags full left behind. But for garden stuff we grow lots of spagetti squash. They love it as do we...lol. We cook it on the wood stove first. And it stores well into spring. We also freeze all the scraps from canning, like tomatoes etc. as they are free ranging then, so we save it for winter.

[Illini]

I love this gentleman's website. He seems to use BOTH science and common sense.

http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Feeding.html

Best of luck to you!

[uncle Will in In.]

Boughten chicken feed it mostly ground corn mixed with soybean oil meal to add the needed rotien. Other things are in it but not in major proportions like the corn.

[tinknal]

Straight corn does not have enough protien and lacks vital nutrients. If you raise your own corn have it milled and have the mill use it to mix a complete ration. Either that or look for multiple food sources (kitchen waste, garden excess, etc.)

[Forerunner]

In my estimation, corn is king because it is easy to grow a lot of it by hand, and it makes a lot of bulk starch.
Buckwheat is next. It provides a rare form of protein for man and beast, alike.
All livestock enjoys and does well with some buckwheat.
A big compost pile that the chickens can have occasional access to is a huge plus. They will pick through and keep weeds down around the pile as well as mix the pile and get a wide range of proteins and other nutrients from the worms and local insect activity.
Chickens love garden weeds, and we make grand use of that fact all during the growing season.
Wheat is also a good chicken crop, and can be grown in excess to feed the birds and the family over the winter.
I have heard old timers say that an occasional flake of high quality alfalfa hay will bring the flock out of it's normal winter egg-laying slump.
I offer my birds dried kelp meal as my overall mineral supplement.
Bean meal is good, if you can find non-GMO.
If you have access to good beans, any variety, you don't have to have it processed "professionally" to kill the protein inhibitor, just set a large pan over an outdoor fire and cook the beans like you would for a large pot of soup. All livestock enjoys and does well on beans so processed, especially still warm and tender from the pot.

[reese7866]

my chickens like wheat. i have a farmer that gives me whats left at the bottome of the combine... the chickens love it. I dont know if that would round out the diet, but i give them layena, cracked corn and the wheat along with lots of scraps.

[Freya]

Grow worms. Seriously. Then they can have bugs in the winter and you can have vermicompost for your plants. If you don't have big compost piles about.

[Jenn]

Don't know the protein content but they love sorghum

[culpeper]

Chooks, as we call them here in Australia, need a diet not unlike that of humans. The following site spells it out.

http://www.users.on.net/~greggles/feeding.html

It is the shell grit which provides the calcium needed to produce strong-shelled eggs.

If chooks are allowed to roam fairly free, they'll usually find whatever they need - they'll eat a lot of weeds, seeds, grass, small insects (ever see a chook chasing a butterfly? Hilarious!), and worms.

I have found that chooks really love strongly-flavoured herbs like garlic chives, and they adore nasturtiums - all of which provide nutrients plus health benefits.

They need regular de-worming, and a patch where they can have a 'dust bath' which they use to get rid of mites etc.

Chooks will not drink water which is any hotter than their body temperature, so in hot weather frequently add ice blocks to their water container if necessary, or bury the container in the ground to help keep it insulated.

[Oldcountryboy]

Originally Posted by culpeper

Chooks, as we call them here in Australia, need a diet not unlike that of humans. The following site spells it out.

http://www.users.on.net/~greggles/feeding.html

It is the shell grit which provides the calcium needed to produce strong-shelled eggs.

If chooks are allowed to roam fairly free, they'll usually find whatever they need - they'll eat a lot of weeds, seeds, grass, small insects (ever see a chook chasing a butterfly? Hilarious!), and worms.

I have found that chooks really love strongly-flavoured herbs like garlic chives, and they adore nasturtiums - all of which provide nutrients plus health benefits.

They need regular de-worming, and a patch where they can have a 'dust bath' which they use to get rid of mites etc.

Chooks will not drink water which is any hotter than their body temperature, so in hot weather frequently add ice blocks to their water container if necessary, or bury the container in the ground to help keep it insulated.

Okay, I'm suppose to raise Chooks and feed them to my Chickens!!!! Just doesn't make sense to me.


Kidding! Just kidding!

Thanks everyone for your response. I plan on raising corn for feed but would like to supplement other types of grain to feed along with the corn. I would like to raise something that has a seed head on top and might be able to use the stalk for goat feed. I want to raise a small pasture of it, cut and store it loosely in a storage shed and use it throughout the winter.

Thanks for your replies.

[oneokie]

Back when I worked in a feed mill making a rail car full of chicken feed each night, the main ingredient was ground milo/grain sorghum.

[Maura]

Amaranth might answer your needs. There are several varieties.

[Humburger]

I would feed them whatever grain is easiest for you to grow. However, they don't need grain. You can feed them mangels, turnips, pumpkins, bean sprouts from beans you grow, cabbages, beets, etc. They really don't need scientifically balanced and complete feed. Especially if they have a yard to dig around in. Last year, I grew field corn, pumpkins, beans, and cabbages for them (after I got what I needed). This next year, I will add mangels, sugar beets, butternuts, and more cabbages. All stuff that will store.

[Paul Wheaton]

That's a big part of pemaculture: growing feed for your chickens.

Sepp Holzer is one of a few folks I have found that have managed to get their feed bill down to about nothing by growing their own chicken feed. And maybe on 5% to 10% is human harvested and fed back only on the most frozen days of winter.

[clovis]

Okay...here is some thread drift:

My uncle runs a remodeling crew in a low end, but very large apartment complex. He takes all the canned food, cereals, oats, breads, etc., that people have abandoned in their apartment, usually when they move out in the middle of the night. Quite often, he gets large amounts of food at a time. Did you know that chickens love peanut butter, Cheerios and green beans?

I am sure folks will beat the daylights out of me for posting this, but I learned that he saves a bundle on his feed bill, even though most of the food is a supplement to their laying mash diet.

At any rate, I think it is cool that you want to grow your own feed for the chickens. That would be a tremendous cost savings if you have the time and space.

One thing that I love about HT is learning from people that are doing stuff like this.

[Paul Wheaton]

Plant stuff that the chickens can harvest themselves. What this is could fill a book and depends so much on so many variables of climate and micro climate. I think mulberry trees are the best thing to plant for chicken feed. But they only produce during the summer. But! You usually raise your meat birds during the summer. And you put your poor layers in the freezer in the fall. So your winter birds are far fewer than your summer birds. For winter self harvest feed, tall grains and winter keeper apples.

I cover it a little in my raising chickens article.

[Callieslamb]

sunflower seeds

[lmrose]

We've grown wheat for our chickens and buy lay mash when we can afford it. Our hens also eat out side until winter after the garden is in. I give them chard and other greens from the garden in the summer when they are in the fenced area.

In the winter they eat cabbage and a half of a turnip every day as well as the wheat or mash. When the goats are milking the hens get a pan of milk every day also and always have oyster shells available to them.

[culpeper]

A good supply of assorted kitchen scraps provides a good diet. This will inevitably include stale bread, which of course is made from grains, albeit treated! You'll soon find out which foods they'll eat, and which they'll reject, but it's an excellent way of recycling over and over. In one end, out the other, grow more food, and so it goes!