Am sure lots of folks out there have ideas for feeding their chickens cheaply. The cheapest old-timey way is letting them run loose to eat bugs and weed seeds and such....but this can be messy proposition and you don't want them in your garden for sure. My Aunt Doris let her chickens run and then gave them a couple handfuls of scratch feed...still can remember the first time this city girl saw her pick a chicken and wring its neck !! We allowed our chickens out for about 1 hour before sundown..once they are used to their chicken palace they will readily return at dark and they can't get too far in such a short time. If you don't feed alot of high protein feeds you won't get as many eggs but you will be surprized at how fast even a small flock fills the cartons..we give eggs away with 7 chickens!!.Eat more eggs in the wintertime when we bake more. Chickens can deal with any scraps you have...chop it up if its big stuff. Once we had a bunch of buggy brown rice that we sprouted over the winter and our chickens laid great. Remember--the very cheapest food is water....for any livestock. Always keep it clean and hot water in the winter will keep your chickens laying even in frigid weather. Also, if you can a lite bulb simulating summer hours will keep chickens happy...and extra lite means they wake up and eat-- so more eggs. In the past we have gleaned corn fields for the ears the picker missed....neighbor was upset at how much we got....and his picker missed! Hope some of these ideas are of use. Expensive feeds are nice if you have the dough but chickens really don't need them.

-- mutti (windance@train.missouri.org), September 28, 1999

Answers

Thanks mutti! My problem is that we have so many predators around. Our chickens have access to a dog run size fenced area, with chicken poultry wire across the top now. We lost two roosters to either a hawk or owl. Plus we have gazillion coyotes and a cougar hanging around. I want them to free range, but am afraid to lose them to predators.

-- Mumsie (Shezdremn@aol.com), September 29, 1999.

Mumsie: If you must confine your chickens, you will get much better eggs(and maintain chicken health) if you will give them chopped green stuff: alfalfa,vetch,weeds,grass, and so on. The "greenery" will make the egg yolks MUCH more orange colored. They love their "salads". We let ours out about half a day. Lost 6 to a coyote late last spring-but my sweetie sat out with rifle in late afternoon until the raider came for another chickie...He was sent to coyote heaven and we haven't had another episode yet. I did see two young coyotes crossing our creek area about a month ago. We have 5 dogs, but when they sneak "up-wind", the dogs are unaware because there's lots of trees/pines in our wind break(where the chickens love to dust themselves). Our chickens are not afraid of dogs, so that particular coyote probably just sauntered up to one and snatched it before it could even squalk. We have 43 left and I take eggs to town every day when I go in to work.

-- jeanne (jeanne@hurry.now), September 29, 1999.

Mumsie,

You might consider building one of those "tractor coops" (I believe they are called). A plan to build one about 12' X 18' for my flock of 20+ layers. Simply move it to a different spot in your yard/pasture/whatever every few days. Plans are in the archives

Gerald

-- Gerald R. Cox (grcox@internetwork.net), October 01, 1999.

I had forgotten about that, thanks Gerald, I'll search for the link later!

-- Mumsie (Shezdremn@aol.com), October 01, 1999.