Chicken scratch is a mixture of seeds, grains and other ingredients designed specifically to nourish chickens and can often be purchased premixed in feed bags for easy distribution to your flock.
As part of your flock training sessions, using food as a training aid and as a motivational treat for training sessions can be very useful in training your roosters to return home each night.
Contents
Protein
Chicken scratch is a simple and inexpensive treat for your flock that provides extra protein during the winter when grass and insects may not be readily available to provide distraction.
Scratch mix for chickens can be easily prepared at home, although premixed feed bags make life simpler and contain ingredients such as millet, barley, rolled corn, oats, wheat and sunflower seeds for easier mixing.
Chicken scratch should not be fed to young chicks due to its high protein content which could prove detrimental. However, using it as part of training methods or rewarding for an unpleasant treatment such as delousing is permissible and should be seen as beneficial to both you and your hens!
Fat
Chicken scratch is often made up of cracked corn and other grains that hens adore grazing on, but it should not be relied on solely as nutrition for your flock. According to guidelines, no more than 10% of their diet should consist of scratch grain; the rest should come from pellet feed pellets.
Scratch blend is typically sold pre-mixed in feed bags and typically includes millet, rolled barley, wheat, oats, sunflower seeds and legumes as its core ingredients. Commercial chicken feed may also include additional supplements like amino acids, copper sulfate iron sulfate selenium to promote strong eggshells; an supplementary feeder of chicken scratch may contain these vitamins and minerals too.
Fiber
Chicken scratch is a mix of whole grains and seeds such as wheat, barley, corn, oats, legumes, sunflower seeds and millet. Homesteaders often mix their own feed to reduce costs associated with commercial chicken feed; alternatively add garlic-infused olive oil for extra antioxidants and nutrition!
Scratch can be an enjoyable treat for your flock and may help keep them occupied on cold, snowy winter days. It can also serve as a training tool, helping chickens associate you with food or as an incentive for enduring unpleasant treatments like delousing. But this shouldn’t become their main source of protein, fat and fiber; limit its consumption to around 10% of their daily diet so they can enjoy this treat safely.
Vitamins
Scratch mixes aren’t nutritionally balanced for chickens; they contain mostly high amounts of calories and sugars which quickly turn to fat, while not providing sufficient amounts of protein or calcium – so their use should only be restricted as much as possible, if at all.
Feeding treats should only be included as occasional rewards and should not become part of a flock’s regular feeding regime. A poorly balanced diet can have adverse consequences on egg and meat production as well as leading to health issues like tatty feathers, changes in demeanor or even cannibalism in your flock. If necessary, limit any daily scratch feedings to only several teaspoons, especially during winter when foraging opportunities are scarcer.
Minerals
Scratch grains containing corn should not form part of an animal’s balanced diet, and should instead be offered only occasionally as treats and bribes–no more than 10% of a flock’s daily food intake should include this food source.
Regular chicken feed such as pellet, mash and crumble blends is scientifically designed to provide your flock with exactly the right mix of fats, fibers, proteins and trace elements like amino acids, copper sulfate and selenium that they require for optimal health. Scratch mixes do not provide this exact nutrition.
Before commercial chicken feed became widely available, homesteaders would feed their flock leftover grain, old straw and other kitchen scraps as treats during colder weather months. While such mixed meals didn’t contain as many precise nutrients as commercially produced feeds do now, they did provide vital vitamins and minerals.
