So you have chickens but now what? Do you just keep feeding them chicken feed? Can you give them kitchen scraps? Do they need anything extra to help them grow and produce more eggs?
When I got chickens I had no idea what I was doing. But over the last few years, I have learned what to feed my chickens and what not to feed my chickens. Believe it or not, what you feed your chickens will affect your egg supply (with layers) and growth with (meat birds). So what should you feed your chickens?
- Poultry Pellets
- Grains & Corn
- Table Scraps
- Grass Clippings & Weeds
- Calcium Supplement
More on the best chicken diet…
The list I have provided above is the absolute best chicken diet. But if you are not feeding your chickens everything listed above don’t worry! Just like you and I don’t have the perfect diet all the time your chickens won’t either and that is okay. This list is just a good diet to shoot for. When you feed your chickens well you can expect better results from them.
For example, if they don’t have enough food or water their egg production will go down. Or if they don’t have enough calcium their eggshells will be very thin.
I know it seems like a lot but over time you will figure it out! I have had chickens for years now and I am still figuring out the amount of food they need and the ratio of the different types of food.
I wanted to dive a little deeper into each item and explain why its good and a little about it.
- Poultry Pellets
This will the majority of your chicken’s diet. A poultry pellet has most of the nutrients your chickens will need to lay eggs. They will get vitamins and minerals in the other things you give them but it is sometimes hard to get enough of the things they need in food scraps or clippings. A poultry pellet will guarantee the chicken gets what it needs.
2. Grains and Corn
Just like us, Chickens need a balanced diet. Grains and corn will not provide much protein but will provide your chickens with fiber which will turn into energy.
3. Table Scraps
I feel like table scraps for chickens is always such a big deal. You will read these lists of things you can feed them and things you can’t. Well, guess what? Even though chickens act pretty dumb sometimes they know what they can or cannot eat. I Have literally fed my chickens any and all table scraps and they have been perfectly fine. If it is something they can’t eat they won’t! It is that simple.
I Love feeding my chickens table scraps because I don’t feel like I am ever wasting anything! It is the best form of recycling. They get are scraps and give us fresh eggs. They also get a wider variety in their diet when you give them table scraps.
4. Grass Clippings & weeds
I would love to let my chickens totally free range but I can’t do that because they get into my neighbor’s flowers. But I make sure they whenever I weed I throw my weeds to them and my grass clippings. They love weeds and all the bugs they find in the weeds and clippings.
Grass clippings and weeds will help your chickens lay very “rich” eggs! And again how cool is it that you can take your “waste” and turn it into food!
And there are some weeds that chickens should not have but you really don’t need to worry about it because they know that and will not eat the things that are bad for them.
5. Calcium supplement
So don’t freak out! I am not going to suggest that you go and buy vitamins and supplements for your chickens. I mean you can do this but why would you when you can get it for free?
Again, I am going to share with you how you can “recycle” and get your own calcium supplement for your chickens. All you can to do it save your eggshells and ground them into a powder and put them back in their chicken feed. Sounds crazy but it works!
Now you might not need to do this but if you notice that your chicken’s eggshells are thin that is an indication that they could use some calcium in their diet.
Treats
The items I have listed above are great for a good balanced diet. But what about if you want to give your chickens a treat? I mean they do provide you with farm fresh eggs! A great little reward for you chickens would be…
- Cabbage
- Oatmeal
- Watermelon
- pumpkins
Chicken Feed Q & A
Now that we have the basics covered I want to take a second to go over a few more commonly asked questions about feeding chickens.
Can you feed chickens chicken scraps?
I already went over this question a little bit but I will expound on it a little more.
As I said from my experience and from things I have read table scraps are safe for your chickens. They are pretty good for the most part at staying away from things they should not have.
If you are super worried about giving them things that they should not have here is a small list you should stay away from feeding your chickens.
- Chocolate (But let’s be real…who has leftover chocolate?)
- Green potatoes or green tomatoes.
- Raw or dry beans
Can Table scraps be a chicken’s full diet?
I kind of already answered this question as well but let’s go over it again. Yes, it is possible for your chickens to “survive” from just table scraps but it is not the best diet for them. They need the fiber and protein from the pellets and the grains Etc.
My chickens have gone with just scraps before when I ran out of food but I do my best to give them a balanced diet. That leads to the next question…
What if you feed them wrong?
From what I have found chickens are pretty hearty little things! They can live on just about anything. I have gone days without feeding them much and they survived just fine. So if you mess up the ratio and don’t feed them “right” you will be fine!
What I have shared with you is what you are shooting for. If you don’t perfect your chicken food right away it is not a huge deal. Just know that if you are not feeding them the right things your egg production might suffer.
But you will just keep trying different ratios until you find what works for you. Remember that chickens are animals they don’t need much to survive but if you are wanting them to work for you (i.e. give you eggs you might have to take a little better care of them)
What can chickens eat list/not eat
How many times a day should I feed my chickens?
Well, the nice things about chickens are that they won’t “gorge” themselves. They eat until they are full and then move on. So really you can feed them as much as you want and they will kinda let you know how much they need. This will also depend on how many chickens you have.
Before I was using a small feeder and would have to refill it all the time. But now I have these awesome chicken feeder that will feed my 21 chickens and I only have to fill it up once a week! And it cost like nothing to make! I will show you my feeder and waterer! They are both life-savers!
Chicken feeder
My husband and I have tried many different things to feed our chickens. It does not seem like a chicken feeder would be that big of a deal but it really is. If you get to small of a feeder you will have to refill it all the time. If you get an open style feeder the chickens will tip it over and poop in the food. And so on. We have finally found one that works extremely well! And the best part about this feeder is that you can build it yourself with just 2 items.
Here is a picture of our chicken feeder
All you need to build this feeder is
- Rubbermaid container
- PVC
Supplies
- Sharpie
- Drywall Saw
You can use one Rubbermaid container but if you layer them it will be stronger. I just cleaned out my basement and found some Rubbermaid containers down there. So that worked out well.
As far as the PVC goes you can just buy a 4″ PVC pipe and cut it down. Or you can buy the Pvc pieces that are curved like we did. Our feeder has a lot of feeding holes but you really don’t need that many. The amount of feeding holes will depend on how many chickens you have.
Once you have your supplies you will need to draw on the Rubbermaid containers where you want your PVC pipe to go. Once you figure out where you want your feeders you will take a drywall saw and cut them out.
After this step, you will put your cut PVC pipe pieces into the hole.
The inside will look like this.
Place your lid on and you have your chicken feeder!
Chicken Waterer
So I know this article is about what to feed chickens but my husband came up with a great way to water the chickens so I just have to share that real fast.
Here is what our chicken waterer looks like.
Here is how my husband built it…
It is basically the same as the chicken feeder.
- Get your container
- Buy the little water pieces here
- Cut out holes
- place lid on top
What to feed chickens to lay eggs?
Another issue I have had is my chickens not laying eggs. Usually, if you are feeding your chickens the diet we talked about your chickens should lay pretty well. If your chickens are not laying you might have other issues.
Your chickens might not be laying because it is too cold or they are molting etc. But again this article is about feeding chickens so I won’t go into those topics right now.
If you are feeding your chickens a balanced diet of…
- Poultry Pellets
- Grains & Corn
- Table Scraps
- Grass Clippings & Weeds
- Calcium Supplement
And still, feel like they need something more I would try one of the following ideas.
- Bugs and Worms
I mentioned this already but chickens love bugs! You can purchase mealworms but that can get expensive. If you have little kids have them look for worms and throw them to the chickens! They will love it.
- Fruit
If you have some extra fruit that is on the verge of going bad to go ahead and give it to your chickens. This is a special treat for them but might also encourage them to lay some extra eggs.
- Eggshells or oyster shells
You can Recycle your eggshells and give them back to the chickens and this will help with your egg production as well. But if you are not getting any eggs you don’t have any eggshells right? If this is the case for you head up to your local farm store and pick up some oyster shells.
How to naturally feed your chickens
If you are like me you want to feed your chickens as naturally as possible. At first, I hardly bought any chicken feed because I wanted them to just eat scraps. And I will say that if you are really into it you can do mostly scraps but you have to have scraps with a wide verity in it to make sure your chickens are getting there grains and corn and proper nutrients.
This is kind of hard to answer because what “natural” means to me and what “natural” means to you might be two different things. I Feel that the list I talked about it pretty natural. Here is the list again for reference.
- Poultry Pellets
- Grains & Corn
- Table Scraps
- Grass Clippings & Weeds
- Calcium Supplement
Grower feed for chickens
So far we have been talking mostly about layer chickens. But what about meat birds? We can’t forget about them!
A mistake I made with meat birds is trying to feed them on just grass and food scraps. This, unfortunately, did not work because with meat birds you need them to get nice and fat! So I would recommend getting a good grower feed. If you click on the picture below it will send you to amazon for some good grower feed.
What to feed chickens if you are out of food?
I run out of food more often then I would like to admit thankfully the store I get our chicken food is close. But I know for some of you its not as easy to get food. So what do you do until you can replenish your chicken food? Well, get your kids to work! If you don’t have kids I guess you will have to do it! This is pretty much a repeat from the above list but a few creative ways to get the food.
- Grass clippings
Mow the yard and rake up the clippings!
- Food scraps
Clean out the fridge and dump all the food that is about to be bad to the chickens. Do the same thing with the pantry and freezer.
- Worms and bugs
I just talked about this one but have your kids go hunting for bugs and worms. If you have little kids they will think this is so much fun! My kids are always wanting to help with the chickens and this is a great way for them to help.
- Weeds
Ya know that flower bed that is in dire need of a good weed? GO weed it and give the weeds to the chickens. I did that this summer and was so embarrassed at how many weeds I had. But again I love recycling and it worked out great! The chickens munched on it for a few days!
- Weed whip
This is pretty much the same thing. But get your weed whipping done and give the chickens what was weed whipped! I have done this a number of times as well!
- Free Range
This might not work for everyone. But if you are able to free-range your chickens this is a way that they can get the food they need as well.
Conclusion
Who knew there was so much to talk about when it came to feeding chickens! When I first got chickens I just assumed you bought chicken feed and you were done. I had no idea what a balanced chicken diet looked like.
I now know that for my chickens to have a balanced diet they need the following…
- Poultry Pellets
- Grains & Corn
- Table Scraps
- Grass Clippings & Weeds
- Calcium Supplement
As always I hope this was helpful to you and if it was you might be interested in these other posts.