Commercial chicken feed contains cheap fillers that won’t do much for the health of your flock, while making highly nutritious homemade feed is one way to sidestep middlemen and save money.
Chickens enjoy eating many garden plants and perennial weeds, such as plantain leaves, clovers, chickweed, dandelion flowers and leaves, among many others.
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Fodder
Most homesteaders have access to plenty of kitchen scraps they can feed their flock – and chickens love them! From leafy greens, fruit, vegetables and other forms of leftover food waste – which provides essential nutrition at no additional cost – chickens enjoy snacking on these leftovers! Homesteading means having access to an endless supply of waste that you can use as chicken feed if necessary!
Fodder can be an excellent way to supplement your chicken’s winter diet, providing fresh food they cannot forage themselves in cold or snowy environments. Furthermore, fodder provides essential vitamins and minerals not available through foraged plants or table scraps alone.
Fodder can be made easily using seeds sprouted without soil. Once these sprouts reach several inches tall, they’re cut into 4 inch squares and fed to your chickens as an additional nutritional source in their regular feed. Fodder can be created from any grain such as wheat, barley, or oats; and is easy to make on both a large or small scale–even indoors!
Sunflower Seeds
Sunflower seeds provide chickens with protein, vitamins, and minerals they need for healthy feather insulation against cold weather. But it is important that their diet includes other grains, vegetables, and fruits too – or else sunflower seeds could become their sole source of nutrition!
Watermelons and cantaloupe seeds make an excellent source of nutrients, providing specific proteins, vitamin E and phytochemicals such as helianthin which serve to combat free radicals as well as block angiotensin-I converting enzyme, thereby lowering blood pressure levels.
Chickens don’t require you to remove the shells of these seeds before feeding them to them; their digestion takes care of that themselves! Spread them around their enclosure or add them as an ingredient for homemade flock blocks for them to snack on or scatter as treats for wild birds! Be sure to select black oil sunflower seeds with thinner hulls so they are easier for songbirds to open and consume!
Mealworms
Grasshoppers, beetles, crickets and other insects play an essential part of a chicken’s diet, providing protein and essential nutrients essential to its development and health. Furthermore, insects provide entertainment among flock members as they provide entertainment that reduces boredom.
Many are surprised to learn that chickens’ natural diet includes an abundance of insects and larvae which can be purchased at most bait shops or raised using home vermicompost systems.
Kitchen scraps can also provide cheap chicken feed. Many grocery stores, restaurants and bakeries discard plenty of stale or overripe food that could serve as high-quality feed for your flock, providing additional nutrition while decreasing household waste! Eggshells provide another good source of calcium.
Weeds
People often struggle to allow their gardens to become overgrown, yet weeds can actually be an invaluable source of low-cost chicken feed. Packed full of essential vitamins and nutrients, they’re easy to grow at minimal costs.
Chickweed, plantain, clover, dandelion greens and violets are among the best weeds for feeding chickens. Not only are these high in protein content; they’re also full of calcium, iron, riboflavin and other important minerals essential to their wellbeing.
Free range chickens will naturally seek out these weeds when foraging for food. But if your space for roaming chickens is limited, adding some weeds into their homemade feed may be an easy solution. Just be sure to test out different kinds of weeds and monitor for any adverse reactions; some can be toxic in large doses so be mindful.
