Making your own chicken feed gives you complete control over what goes into their diet and offers an educational experience as you discover various ingredients and their nutritional values.
Chickens require a diet rich in proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals in order to thrive. While their primary sources for vitamins and minerals come from greens and foraging trips, you can supplement their diet with other sources like oyster shells or fish meal.
Contents
Cost
Feeding your backyard flock can be costly. Making your own chicken food can save money per bird while giving you control over its quality – essential if you wish to avoid unhealthy fillers while supporting local businesses.
Homemade chicken feed can be relatively affordable when purchasing ingredients in bulk. A 10lb mix should cost approximately $6 and can typically be found at farm stores or bulk food shops. In addition, additional supplements such as grit and calcium may need to be provided – typically through crushed oyster shells or free-choice hay.
Assembling your own chicken feed can be both straightforward and cost-effective if you use non-GMO grains and locally produced fodder. The key to successful homemade poultry food creation lies in finding an appropriate combination of nutrients – this may require consulting a poultry nutritionist or other knowledgeable source.
Customization
Making your own chicken feed gives you complete control of its ingredients and allows you to tailor it specifically to the needs of your flock. Making homemade feed is often more cost-effective than purchasing premade commercial varieties with additives and preservatives; additionally, high-quality grains, proteins sources and supplements may lead to healthier and more productive chickens.
Add seasonal vegetables and herbs to your feed mix for optimal flavoring of their environment, as well as more balanced nutrition for your flock. This will introduce them to their environment while providing more diverse nutrition.
To make animal feed, you will require a large container and blender or grain mill for mixing, as well as organic ingredients if possible from bulk goods stores or farm shops. Furthermore, an accurate scale should also be purchased to measure out ingredients accurately.
Availability
Making your own chicken feed gives you control of the ingredients used and their freshness. This is important, since commercial feeds often sit for months in stores or warehouses before reaching consumers, significantly decreasing their nutritional value.
Making your own chicken feed allows you to experiment with various ingredients and combinations, and add supplements tailored specifically for the needs of each chicken species – be they layers and molting chicks needing protein-rich diets such as Brewer’s yeast (protein and B vitamins) or broilers needing worms as part of their feed.
Homemade chicken feed ingredients can be found at local bulk food stores, farm shops or even your garden. When selecting ingredients for homemade feed, organic products are best as this ensures your chickens remain free from pesticides. Alternatively, ask neighbors or friends to donate leftover fruits and vegetables or spent brewer’s grain that could make up part of their chicken food supply – just keep any containers with lids tightly secured to prevent rodent access!
Safety
Homemade chicken feed requires careful balancing of nutrients for your flock. The primary ingredients include grain for energy, protein, calcium and phosphorus as well as vitamins and minerals; their ratio will depend on what kind of chickens you keep; for example egg laying breeds require higher protein contents than broilers.
Add sprouted seeds and grains for extra nutrition by including sprouted seeds and grains for chickens, such as sprouted beans. These foods contain proteins, vitamins, enzymes and are low in both fat and sodium content. Just be wary when including plants toxic to chickens such as plantain leaves, clovers, dandelion flowers/leaves/chickweed etc that might not be safe.
Your chicken feed can be easily made at home using a food grinder. However, soy and fish meal are both high in phyto-estrogens and mercury respectively and should not be included. Furthermore, add other flowers like azalea, foxgloves, nightshades, or periwinkles as these may increase estrogen production in their bodies and impede reproduction.
