Article - What to Feed Chickens – Do’s and Don’ts for a Healthy Chicken Diet

[TWP]

If you're raising chickens right now, your probably using a commercial chicken feed formula.

What will you do post-event, when you must formulate your own feeds?

The author gives some advice and includes recommendations on some hard copy books on the subject.

https://commonsensehome.com/what-to-feed-chickens/

I'll admit that when I raised a small flock (12 hens and a rooster), I would have been hard pressed to grow enough food to keep them fed.  I did, instead, let them free range during the day (locked up at night due to dogs and other predators like owls and weasels).  They still needed some calcium supplements for egg production.  I also recycled their egg shells, after roasting them in the oven.

If you have room (and safety) I recommend free range because of the much wider range of food sources in even just grass land.  They are great at keeping a garden insect "free".  For most insects, this works, but not all.

[230gr]

Sounds like you were doing it right TWP. We do use the Coop made mix (cheapest) which is corn based of course with additives. SHTF it will a struggle to provide the 60 lb of corn per hen per year to feed them. Letting the free range (in a protected area) could save up to 30% on your feed. They eat grass, many weeds, and their seeds, as well as, bugs and worms. Planting ornamental apples, mulberries, wild cherries etc also help.  Pumpkins and squash are an important part of my winter feeding too. I grow tough Indian cultivars that grow in poorer than garden soils.  Jerusalem Artichoke (leaves and tubers) fit in there too.

Cooking fish until the bones are soft makes a good protein supplement. In addition to prepared egg shells, I have dump truck load coarse crushed dolomite and, if you set some out for the chickens, the will use it for grit and absorb the calcium too.