Homemade feed for my hens?? Better than commercial feed? More affordable? I need the truth!

[CabritaChicks]

Could I use this for laying hens if I give them calcium?

Yes, you can use that for laying hens. So many of the simpler' recipes don't account for the micro nutrients- only macros and the fiber and digestibility are obsolete.

I have been hearing from chikcens owners in clinic and in the lab for over ten years- they always say 'I am going to free range' (and there is a difference between pasture raised, free range, and cage free).

• Pasture-Raised: Chickens live mostly outdoors with access to fresh pasture, where they can forage naturally. This is the most natural and spacious option, but it's not not often possible for 'backyard chickens'.
• Free-Range: Chickens are kept mostly indoors or in the coop but have some access to the outdoors. Outdoor time may be limited and space can vary greatly.
• Cage-Free: Chickens are not kept in cages, but they live entirely indoors or in a coop, usually in large barns. They can move around but have no outdoor access.

In short:

• Pasture-raised = outdoor life
• Free-range = limited outdoor access
• Cage-free = no cages, but indoors only

People end up building coops, that are by definition the 'cage free/free range' variety (2ish sq ft per bird of space) with the intention of allowing the birds to graze.

What ends up happening, 6ish times out of ten, is the 'free range' becomes more and more limited, especially when human life gets complicated with work, school, kids, relationships, emotional turmoil, predators, etc. My husband jokes that my chickens especially are like goats- they will mow and destroy plants to the root. Then dig up the roots for bugs. So the grazing area needs constant replenishing.

The diet I am working with above, has been put through rigorous testing, and is being implemented in three backyard chicken keepers for application. Their major complaint? To make your own feed, and follow proper protocol with replanting fodder, etc is expensive and more time consuming than picking up a back of feed. In essence, a combination is great of a simpler feed recipe (but lacking in micronutirents however, and not balanced in macros), feeding safe chicken scraps (those with good sources of magnesium like legumes (cooked or 'sprouted'), dark leafy greens etc but those are anti-nutrients.... which is a whole different story and why simple recipes are inadequate), sprinkling a little commercial feed on occasion and keeping a wide range of fodder and calcium rich grit.

Because as someone mentioned- I am complicated, because as a scientist who specializes in avian nutrition- we are perfectionists to a fault

 

[Perris]

your 'definitions' are commercial marketing labels. My flock free ranges dawn till dusk and chicks are out as soon as they leave the nest. I do not call them 'pasture-raised' because I am not trying to sell them to anyone.

 

[CabritaChicks]

your 'definitions' are commercial marketing labels. My flock free ranges dawn till dusk and chicks are out as soon as they leave the nest. I do not call them 'pasture-raised' because I am not trying to sell them to anyone.

Yes, technically, those chickens fall under the textbook definitions. But in practice, I’ve seen the fallout firsthand. In clinic, we’d regularly treat chickens suffering from severe bumblefoot, anemia, infections (respiratory and otherwise) and malnutrition—while their well-meaning owners proudly described them as “free-range.” Dig a little deeper, though, and “free-range” often meant they were confined to a cramped coop, only let out for a few hours a couple times a week—not exactly the dawn-to-dusk outdoor lifestyle you're graciously providing- which is what chickens really need if lifestyle permits.

Let’s be honest: people rely heavily on labels, even when there aren’t strict standards behind them. The terminology sticks—whether or not it's accurate. One of the most memorable cases I encountered was a man—probably 6 feet tall and barely 145 pounds—sun-leathered skin, dirty hands, and wearing a massive straw hat like something from a beachside gift shop. He walked in with three chickens and told me, “I pasture-raise them.” When I asked for details, he laughed and admitted, “Well, they sleep in the shed... but I’ve seen them under the tractor, too. I don’t really know where they go all day.” (I couldn’t help but chuckle.)

He was honest—but his birds were anemic. They’d scratched their 'pasture' (couple acres) bare and was surrounded by nothing but desert. He was feeding them a bare-bones, four-ingredient recipe he’d found online. With no balanced supplementation, they were falling apart from the inside out.

Contrast that to someone who also says 'free-range' and find out that they are 'cage free' but 5 birds live in a 80" x 20" amazon special coop and rarely come out.

And that’s why—even with their blurred edges—labels still matter. Commercial or not, people adopt them as blueprints for how to raise their birds. But without the substance behind the words, chickens can suffer in silence while wearing all the right buzzwords.

I think of it like paint colors: My husband will say 'gray'... and I will correct him and say, "no honey, that is greige- more on the beige or khaki side"

 

[Altairsky]

I don't even know what the heck my feral chicks are eating. They have chick feed in the coop but I literally never see them eating it.
The adult food is on a treadle feeder that they can't open because they're not heavy enough. Their mother abandoned them at 4 weeks so they're fully on their own.
They're growing FAST.
Chicken nutrition is not math. Chickens nutrition became math when humans pretend to keep an animal confined and it can't eat what it knows it needs.
But a chicken that is allowed to forage in the most feral way will always be healthier than a confined bird fed with "scientifically balanced feed", because processed feed still does not contain all the micronutrients that a chicken would find in the wild. Synthetic vitamins are not the same as natural vitamins. Naturally occurring molecules are more complex and more varied than synthetic molecules. Then we have anti-oxidants, tannins, flavonoids, polyphenols, all nutrients that have a huge impact on health but they are never really included in processed feed, and if they are, they degrade too fast during industrial processing to be of any benefit.

 

[Perris]

new labels for the genuine article are constantly having to be invented because commerce appropriates labels, abuses them, and destroys trust in them.

Commercial or not, people adopt [labels] as blueprints for how to raise their birds. But without the substance behind the words, chickens can suffer in silence while wearing all the right buzzwords.

which is exactly what commerce does when it uses them. Letting their sophistry determine your usage is letting the tail wag the dog. Stand up for plain speaking; call out false usage of the term 'free range'.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Chicken nutrition is not math. Chickens nutrition became math when humans pretend to keep an animal confined and it can't eat what it knows it needs.

Only if those things are consistently available to it in its environment.

and for many, either caged or contained in a very small space (measured in a couple hundred sq ft or less) for reasons of zoning, convenience, or resources, those things are NOT available. For those, chicken nutrion IS math - because the birds can't effectively suppliment in their environment.

 

[Shadrach]

Free range, the most abused term in chicken keeping.
Foraging nutrition calcs, rarely sees past what grows on the surface.
Commercial feeds, designed for high production fully confined birds.

Free range = No physical boundries. Chicken limits its own freedom of movement.
Ranging = Some unspecified time on natural ground within a set boundry or under supervision.
Confined = Never leave the coop and run.

Very very few keepers on this site free range thier chickens. The majority range their chickens for an unspecified time.

Letting chickens range on a fenced few hundred square feet is not free ranging.

A ranging bird that lays 300 plus eggs a year at their most productive needs different nutrition to a free ranging bird that lays 100 to 150 eggs a year.

 

[Sic]

Yes, you can use that for laying hens. So many of the simpler' recipes don't account for the micro nutrients- only macros and the fiber and digestibility are obsolete.

I have been hearing from chikcens owners in clinic and in the lab for over ten years- they always say 'I am going to free range' (and there is a difference between pasture raised, free range, and cage free).

• Pasture-Raised: Chickens live mostly outdoors with access to fresh pasture, where they can forage naturally. This is the most natural and spacious option, but it's not not often possible for 'backyard chickens'.
• Free-Range: Chickens are kept mostly indoors or in the coop but have some access to the outdoors. Outdoor time may be limited and space can vary greatly.
• Cage-Free: Chickens are not kept in cages, but they live entirely indoors or in a coop, usually in large barns. They can move around but have no outdoor access.

In short:

• Pasture-raised = outdoor life
• Free-range = limited outdoor access
• Cage-free = no cages, but indoors only

People end up building coops, that are by definition the 'cage free/free range' variety (2ish sq ft per bird of space) with the intention of allowing the birds to graze.

What ends up happening, 6ish times out of ten, is the 'free range' becomes more and more limited, especially when human life gets complicated with work, school, kids, relationships, emotional turmoil, predators, etc. My husband jokes that my chickens especially are like goats- they will mow and destroy plants to the root. Then dig up the roots for bugs. So the grazing area needs constant replenishing.

The diet I am working with above, has been put through rigorous testing, and is being implemented in three backyard chicken keepers for application. Their major complaint? To make your own feed, and follow proper protocol with replanting fodder, etc is expensive and more time consuming than picking up a back of feed. In essence, a combination is great of a simpler feed recipe (but lacking in micronutirents however, and not balanced in macros), feeding safe chicken scraps (those with good sources of magnesium like legumes (cooked or 'sprouted'), dark leafy greens etc but those are anti-nutrients.... which is a whole different story and why simple recipes are inadequate), sprinkling a little commercial feed on occasion and keeping a wide range of fodder and calcium rich grit.

Because as someone mentioned- I am complicated, because as a scientist who specializes in avian nutrition- we are perfectionists to a fault

Let's be honest though, "pasture-raised" often refers to chickens confined to a chicken tractor for the entirety of their lives. A moveable coop/run isn't the epitome of natural outdoor living. I agree that many people use the term free-range loosely, they let them roam their backyard and call that free-range. Mine aren't pasture raised, we don't have pasture. We have a secure coop, a mildly secure roofed run with a door that's almost always open to the wilderness of the great outdoors on a remote island, there are no borders, no boundaries, aside from the ocean itself. They are free-range, not feral, they go out in the morning and come and go throughout the day, returning to their coop in the evening to roost. Free-range, to me, means there is nothing restricting their movement, to go where they please, to escape predation, etc. My poultry are free-range, the "free" being a very descriptive word.

 

[Shadrach]

Let's be honest though, "pasture-raised" often refers to chickens confined to a chicken tractor for the entirety of their lives. A moveable coop/run isn't the epitome of natural outdoor living. I agree that many people use the term free-range loosely, they let them roam their backyard and call that free-range. Mine aren't pasture raised, we don't have pasture. We have a secure coop, a mildly secure roofed run with a door that's almost always open to the wilderness of the great outdoors on a remote island, there are no borders, no boundaries, aside from the ocean itself. They are free-range, not feral, they go out in the morning and come and go throughout the day, returning to their coop in the evening to roost. Free-range, to me, means there is nothing restricting their movement, to go where they please, to escape predation, etc. My poultry are free-range, the "free" being a very descriptive word.

Beach Beaks.

 

[HollowOfWisps]

Let's be honest though, "pasture-raised" often refers to chickens confined to a chicken tractor for the entirety of their lives. A moveable coop/run isn't the epitome of natural outdoor living. I agree that many people use the term free-range loosely, they let them roam their backyard and call that free-range. Mine aren't pasture raised, we don't have pasture. We have a secure coop, a mildly secure roofed run with a door that's almost always open to the wilderness of the great outdoors on a remote island, there are no borders, no boundaries, aside from the ocean itself. They are free-range, not feral, they go out in the morning and come and go throughout the day, returning to their coop in the evening to roost. Free-range, to me, means there is nothing restricting their movement, to go where they please, to escape predation, etc. My poultry are free-range, the "free" being a very descriptive word.

Have you submitted this picture for the BYC chicken calendar? That’s probably the prettiest chicken picture I have ever seen. Sorry to go off track…