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Feeding Chickens after you can't buy anymore chicken feed

14K views 60 replies 32 participants last post by  xen 
#1 ·
Chickens have a very long list of things that they can eat and I am now officially a chicken farmer.

I'm trying to think of everything possible for alternative food sources so would love to hear your ideas.

My mom said when she was little her & her sisters would heard their young turkeys across the fields to get lots of grasshoppers, etc.

One that I came across on web was taking any kind of meat/fish scraps you end up with and using them to grow maggots for your chickens. Free protein source using a waste product. Just go to Youtube and type in Maggot Bucket...

another was putting buckets of water under lights to catch bugs in it at night.

I'm also planning on letting them at the worms when planting/harvesting in the garden to get lots of worms.
 
#4 ·
Free range for most of the year and in the winter, sprout wheat grass, feed stuff grown during the summer and preserved in a root cellar, field corn, etc. I've never tried it, but just a thought.
 
#9 ·
I believe that "back in the day" feed was never bought. Farm women (nearly always the job of the women to look after the hens) fed left-overs if there were any, grain and corn from last year's harvest and then let the hens free- range all day. The girls weren't nearly as productive as they were later bred to be, but the farmyard flock supplied the eggs for the family, and the ocassional chicken dinner.
 
#11 · (Edited)
Free ranging is the best way if they are safe from predators. Or, you can let them out and sit watch over them to ward off any predators.

My darned new dogs won't allow it. :)

I need to build a pen for the dogs so that I can let the chickens out. Being out they eat a far more natural diet that far removed jungle fowl would eat. Vegetation makes the yolks beautifully bright orange and tasty.

If you have to keep them penned and cannot get grains they absolutely love legumes. Peas. Beans. Whatever you have. It's not cheap, but you can boil whatever amount of dried legumes, cool it and they will do flips for it.

Table scraps are a norm at my place.

The maggot buckets are pretty smelly and nasty, but they do work in a worst case situation. Drill a few quarter inch holes in a 5 gallon bucket. hang it a foot or so off the ground. Shovel up some road kill and put it in. Allow flies to lay eggs and presto; maggots fall through the holes in the larval stage. East Texas summer heat makes this a really nasty way, but I have done it and it does work. Just keep shoveling road kill in on top... On occasion you'll have to dump the collected bones and fur.
 
#12 ·
A subject I find very interesting. Any info you find on great design recession farming will be of help. I have kept chickens for the last 6 years.

I assume that if you cant buy feed, things will be bad enough that free ranging will be out of the question due to theft. For small numbers, a chicken tractor would be helpful.

Things i have read but not tried...
MANGEL BEETS. Very large beets, i want to raise these and try them, but would be more likely to raise large sugar beets so i can manufacture sugar as well. Hang the beets in the coop and let the birds peck.
ROAD KILL. A favorite way of adding protein during the great depression.


Things I have tried...
FISH. Remains after cleaning. They will pick the trout to the bones in no time. Catfish dont seem to be as popular. If it was put in a blender they may eat it faster and more completely.
WEEDS. Dandelion greens, clover, plantain greens (the weed not the fruit tree).
SUNCHOKE. Aka jerusalem artichoke. A great survival food for you and animals. Leaves stems and roots are high protein. Chickens eat the leaves and would probably eat stems if chopped. Rabbits eat leaves and stems. The roots are a diabetic friendly potato like tuber.
MAGGOTS. My free range birds attack the compost pile when i dump rabbit trays. During the summer these are loaded with larvae. I believe they are mostly soldier fly larvae.
MULLBERRIES. I take a tarp down to the field. Lay it out and shake the crap out of the branches. I collect a gallon in like a minute.
DUCKWEED. High protein, grows in still water, no special care needed.

Dry greens for winter use. If free ranging, you can train them to come by calling them with a roll of the tong when you feed them
 
#22 ·
Compost!

How to Grow Chickens Without Buying them Grain By Only Feeding them Compost - YouTube

In reality, all sorts of waste products, including manure, slaughter waste, and waste food. If you have access to rotten vegetables, this is even better, mix them with straw/woodships, and let them compost, which will attract tons of insects, and let the chickens turn the compost for you.
I was thinking of something like this as well. I know a spot where they give away free wood chips/mulch. Grab a few bags, feed it to the birds, wait a while and ill have perfect compost for the garden. Let the chickens do all the work.
 
#14 ·
We have free-ranged our chickens in the past. While free-ranging they will eat frogs, salamanders, green snakes, and all manner of insects.

In the past, each time that we have free-ranged, it has resulted in a total loss of our flock, as the forest we live in has many predators [ie, fox, fisher cat, eagle / hawk, though we are also known for bobcat/lynx].

When we lose our flock, we have to start all over from zero again.

We keep them in coops or chicken-tractors, for a couple years. Then when we feel like it is safe, we let them free-range. Twice we have lost our flocks in this manner. Fox will only take a couple, before we are out there firing at the fox. Eagle will only take one at a time. Then your 'safe' for a couple days, until they strike again. Until the flock is gone.

We have also had problems with fox and fisher cats getting into our coops. They will chew through the chicken-wire, or else dig a tunnel under-neath. In one night an entire coop will be emptied. We have lost all of our flocks from in-coop intrusions, twice.



If you can get a good broody / mothering hen, so you can get away from buying chicks; that is good.

If you can can around the predators; that is good.

The dependence on grain, is a difficult nut to crack.

Of these three, I can not say which is the hardest to conquer.

Chicken-tractors are neat, but we have found them to be very high maintenance.
 
#15 ·
Chicken-tractors are neat, but we have found them to be very high maintenance.
This is the ultimate deal in a survival situation in my opinion. The birds are protected all of the time and losing them to predators or thieves is not something that you'll want to do.

Moving it to fresh vegetation will cover 95% of their food needs. Table scraps can cover the other 5%.

I used hardware cloth in building mine and light weight cedar planks, but the darned thing is STILL too heavy for the light weight axle and wheels that I have. I don't want snakes in there!

Is this the sort of high maintenance that you're referring to FBK?



:(
 
#21 ·
Yup they'll eat bugs and grubs which will give them a nice boost to their protein and rid your garden of pests.

Grasses are particularly good for their gut which means healthy happy birds.

Just as with grain for cattle i don't think if it as a primary food, merely a supplementary food to either get through times like winter when the nutritional benefit goes out of the grass or where you want to be getting them on a high energy diet to increase stock weight.
 
#24 ·
I read thru this similar thread from last year:

http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=164274

One thing that I wouldn't have thought of was mentioned about feeding them acorns which was already mentioned in this one. I did some reading elsewhere and it said that the acid in them can poison them if you over do it. I suspect if you did the placing them in a potato sack in a stream to leach them would probably be best before feeding to them.

Also came across this last week & tried it & it worked for catching June bugs, but only got 4 or 5 in one night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvuAfANfOyk

I suspect have a light right above a kiddy pool would get a bunch every night.
 
#25 ·
I read thru this similar thread from last year:

http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=164274

One thing that I wouldn't have thought of was mentioned about feeding them acorns which was already mentioned in this one. I did some reading elsewhere and it said that the acid in them can poison them if you over do it. I suspect if you did the placing them in a potato sack in a stream to leach them would probably be best before feeding to them.


Also came across this last week & tried it & it worked for catching June bugs, but only got 4 or 5 in one night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvuAfANfOyk

I suspect have a light right above a kiddy pool would get a bunch every night.
Listened to a podcast that broke this down in great degree.
Basically if there is ANYTHING ELSE to eat they won't eat enough to hurt them.

Also, white acorns have less.... they can just eat them.


I've also read about people growing "Early domesticated" grains such as sunflowers and Amaranth. they can be saved in the heads (The seeds, minimal effort) and then just tossed in amounst the chickens... they do the work.
 
#47 ·
The study that was linked to in that thread you linked to above said that up to 20% acorn meal in the diet didn't affect the birds or egg production. But at 30% that the egg production dropped off. In a complete collapse scenario I wouldn't be that worried about egg production dropping near as much as getting the birds thru the winter alive. I suspect that if they were also free ranging & still getting bugs, etc. as well as being fed their own dried baked crushed egg shells that they wouldn't even see this affect.

Will definitely add them to the diet this fall to see how they like them & how they do.

Sidenote: I have 4 Rhode Island Reds, 7 Autralorpes & 2 Welsummers young laying hens.

From July 4th thru July 10 the Welsummers avg. 2 eggs per chicken

I'm not 100% sure on separating the other 11 birds eggs between breeds so lumped together they averaged 4.8 eggs for the same week.

Regardless 57 eggs would cover our family nicely & allow some for trading.
 
#29 ·
I can't find the site, but someone had a portable coop with a solar panel roof. They used it to power an electric perimeter fence. They also put up bird netting to stymie aerial predators.
 
#30 ·
I had a problem with a predator and added a motion sensor light battery powered, and it seems that it's working.
Free ranging seems to be the best method although I add grain to their diet .Having it there seems to help keep some on them from roaming far.
There is always the rebel. "Chicken Run"
I may set up the netting too ,there have been ravens attacking the hens and hawks as well.lost 3 this summer. and a rooster.
The disturbances shocked the free range group so badly they quit laying, so I moved them into a kennel with another group of hens and now production is back.
I wish I had some brooders.
How do you get a hen to brood ?
 
#32 ·
... I wish I had some brooders. How do you get a hen to brood ?
Many breeds you buy now as day-old chicks simply do not carry the instincts within them to ever become mother hens.

I have cycled through a bunch of different breeds so far. Posters here will pop-up saying that they once had, such and such. There are the occasional hen that will. A lot of them I have dealt with will go 'broody' for a week or two, but then they forget and walk away.

Some breeds are more known for broodiness; Silkies are one such breed.

Cochins are supposed to be good hens, but mine have not done very good, so far. This is their third year, I have two cochin hens that are acting broody, but so far no chicks have appeared.
 
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