making own feed

[Mary Ann's Rabbitry]

I am looking for a good balance recipe for chickens.. I know this is for rabbits.. but I am sure there someone that doesn't feed commercial to there chickens.. Does anyone here make there own feed and if so , can you share your recipe

 

[MaggieJ]

Do your hens free-range? I find that mine do well from May to October with just grain and scraps. They forage all day long and are producing lots of eggs, which they wouldn't do if they weren't getting enough nutrients.The rest of the year I do use some commercial feed for them, but they really don't enjoy it and I am looking at alternatives too.

Fodder, sprouted grain and worm bins are promising ideas.

This site has a lot of information for natural chicken feed.
http://www.lionsgrip.com/recipes.html

 

[Mary Ann's Rabbitry]

thanks Maggie.. Yes I seen that site.. Not to happy about it. Yes , my birds do free range.. but I also have meat birds .. I don't like the soy in the feed. After 8 weeks they can grind there own feed. . Just I am looking for a recipe that has at least 18 to 20 percent of protein.. If they don't have that ,, they don't lay as good .. as I need it in the winter... I really hate the commercial feeds.

 

[MaggieJ]

I forgot about the soy. There has to be an alternative. I buy alfalfa hay for the rabbits and in winter I give a flake to the hens as well. It gives them something to do and provides good natural protein as well.

Hope some other people will come along and give us more ideas. I'll post again if I come up with any good ideas. I plan to feed the hens more meat this winter. There's some in the bottom of the freezer that is freezer burned, but could be cooked up for the hens. They don't need it this time of year.

Edited to add:
I Googled chicken feed recipe without soy and there is lots of information. Here's a few links... I haven't done more than glance at them, but it is somewhere to get started. Thanks for bringing up this topic. I'm glad to be feeding the rabbits naturally and it would be nice to be able to extend this to the chickens.

http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/livest ... ecipe.html
http://www.wellfedhomestead.com/homemad ... oy-or-corn
http://www.gardenbetty.com/2012/06/gard ... cken-feed/
http://forum.beeyoutiful.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=349

 

[Frecs]

I have chickens, ducks, and rabbits. I had been feeding the chickens layer feed but they didn't seem to care for it. Every now and again, they will let me know they want a bit of it and I toss them some and they will eat a bit. But, for the most part they eat leftover rabbit food, leftover human food, and what they forage (bugs and grass and weeds and such). I am working the rabbits toward pelletless so their food is mostly sprouted grains/fodder and forage....and the chickens demand some of the sprouted grains plus what they eat that the rabbits left over. The ducks clean up after the rabbits as well.

 

[Dood]

Why dont you use other beans?

You can get 50lb bags of untreated bean seeds that are used for planting, make sure they aren't a variety that is toxic (ie Lima, kidney, others?) and feed these to your birds. They can have 25-40% protein depending on variety.

The adult birds can digest them whole and you can use a coffee grinder to chop into smaller bits for chicks.

 

[Mary Ann's Rabbitry]

Thanks for bringing up this topic. I'm glad to be feeding the rabbits naturally and it would be nice to be able to extend this to the chickens.

No problem Maggie... yes I agree if we can feed rabbit naturally and we can do that same to our birds.. thanks for the links.. I am checking it out and see if I can get some of the ingred and see what the cost is. If someone else has a recipe with out soya... Please jump in.