Chicken Feed

This article is an interesting read. I've been thinking that I need to grow my own feed so the chickens will be healthier but according to this if we feed the chickens the appropriate bought feed they still will be healthy. At least that's what I gathered from it.

That's what I got from it too. I want to learn how to make our own feed because of the way things are going, I want to be able to raise everything ourselves.

I agree with your thinking, Sonshine. I'm glad though that what we're feeding our chickens now is not damaging to them. I hope we can raise some feed for them next spring/summer. William thinks it will cost more but I'm not too sure of that.

I'm going to try to do some research on what the best mixture would be and see what we can come up with. I want to make sure they get all the nutrients they need.

We have cut down our feed consumption by 50% by having portable coops that can be moved daily or turning our chickens out each day to free range. Grass, weed seed, bugs, worms (which can be raised easily) and grit can provide everything chickens need (plus a few kitchen scraps).

We've talked about trying to come up with some sort of chicken tractor for ours, but never got one made due to health issues. I would love to let ours out to free range, but I'm afraid the dogs and cats in the area would get them. Our neighborhood is all 2 acre lots, so our neighbors are fairly close to us, but because of the economy in this area we've had a lot of homes abandoned, along with their pets.