Our hens live a pretty cushy life. They get lots of goodies, including garden goodies, kitchen veggie scraps, and fresh ground to forage. And, though, we've always made an effort to use feed that is antibiotic free, we've never taken it the extra step and gone full-out organic for their feed. This is for two main reasons, I guess:
1. It's VERY expensive. We're talking 3 to 4 times as expensive as the feed we use now.
2. It's not readily available to us, so to add to the already high feed cost, we'd have to pay for shipping.
I did, though, find a recipe for homemade organic chicken feed that I wanted to try out. I was able to get all ingredients but two from my food coop (which means that this feed is actually human food!). The last two ingredients came via Amazon. You gottta love Prime!
The recipe is a mix of 10 different ingredients, so we had to use shovels and our hands to mix it all up in our giant feed bin. I was a little bit afraid that Girl 2 might fall in, but she was a big help in getting it all mixed together.
The recipe calls for the following wholesome ingredients:
oat groats
sunflower seeds
hard red wheat berries
soft white wheat berries
hulled millet
sesame seed
flax seed
rye berries
brewer's yeast
kelp granules
And, of course, all ingredients are organic.
It just looks like a bunch of seeds -- which, if you think about it, is what chicken feed ought to look like. They are birds, after all.
The gals are absolutely loving their new feed. So far, I can't tell that they're picking around any of the ingredients, so I assume they like it all. How it will affect their laying habits remains to be seen.
This particular mix cost us a pretty penny to put together and is just intended to be an experiment for now. I would have to figure out a more economical way to source the ingredients before I could entertain continuing with this recipe in the long-term.
http://www.gardenbetty.com/2012/06/garden-bettys-homemade-whole-grain-chicken-feed/
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