can I feed my chickens with only food scraps?

[pradierenee2]

I'm about to be a new chicken farmer. My friends and I are getting chickens for our school's campus, and we're trying to make it a sustainable operation (i.e. as little outside inputs as possible). We plan on having about 3-4 chickens.

They'll be in empty garden beds, and will get a lot of tastiness from grit, grubs, bugs and weeds from the soil. We're gonna supplement that with food scraps from the kitchen, so will store-bought feed be necessary? if so, how much? if not, awesome!

thanks.

I'll probably be on these boards a lot in the future. i'm a total noob when it comes to chickens.

~Ben

 

[NatJ]

Okay, this isn’t exactly a ‘health benefit’ per se… but valuable nonetheless! As chicken feed grain soaks in water to ferment, it also expands in volume – so your birds will get full faster. They aren’t being cheated out of anything in the process though, like filling up on junk food.

No, that does not save money on feed.

Yes, the water causes the feed to swell. The same thing happens inside the chicken, if they eat dry feed and drink water.

But that does not mean they need less total feed. The water does not provide protein, it does not provide energy (calories), it does not provide vitamins or minerals. Water is NOT a substitute for feed.

If you like comparisons with people, adding water to the feed is like making the person drink extra glasses of water with their meal. It is not going to make them fat and unhealthy (like junk food), but it is not good food that will keep them healthy either.

Chickens can safely eat their food wet or dry, fermented or not. But they will need the same amount of food each way (meaning: the number of pounds to buy per week is going to stay the same.)

As regards the original question that was asked almost 15 years ago:

My friends and I are getting chickens for our school's campus...We plan on having about 3-4 chickens.

They'll be in empty garden beds, and will get a lot of tastiness from grit, grubs, bugs and weeds from the soil. We're gonna supplement that with food scraps from the kitchen, so will store-bought feed be necessary? if so, how much? if not, awesome!

With just 3 or 4 chickens, and access to the food scraps from an entire school cafeteria, it is probably possible to keep the chickens healthy without buying feed. That will take some research on nutrition, and will probably mean giving the chickens more scraps than they want to eat, so they can pick out the most nutritious bits for themselves.

The food scraps from a typical family are not enough for a typical backyard flock (much smaller amount of scraps, sometimes a larger flock as well.) So the previous advice about needing to buy food is correct for most flocks that people ask about. Buying a balanced feed is also easier than learning to recognize and provide what chickens need to be healthy, so that also makes it a better choice for some people. Learning about chicken nutrition might be a very good project in a school setting.

I know this is an old thread, so the answer probably does not matter to the original poster. But because other people do read old threads to learn from them, I figured I'd add something that had not been said yet.

 

[EddieSalita]

So if I pump an orange with probiotic water so you can now only eat 3/4 of an orange instead of a whole orange. Am I getting more nutrition or less?

If you want to get into the more scientific exploration of how fermenting may deactivate some anti nutrients and make it more nutritious that way. Then specificity is needed. it's highly dependent on exactly what is being fermented... ie what food? Maybe it's a pellet which has already been treated to remove most anti nutrients and you're really just adding some pro biotics?

I'm open to being shown where fermenting has measurably reduced consumption of feed while improving overall performance. If that evidence exists, i will readily eat my words.

I ferment. I like fermenting. But to claim it reduces consumption and measurably increases performance at the same time is incorrect imo.

 

[NatJ]

I'm open to being shown where fermenting has measurably reduced consumption of feed while improving overall performance. If that evidence exists, i will readily eat my words.

I ferment. I like fermenting. But to claim it reduces consumption and measurably increases performance at the same time is incorrect imo.

If the chickens spill less feed because it is wet and sticks together, that can reduce waste, so it reduces the amount of feed that it bought for the flock. If a person was not aware of the waste, this can look like a reduction in consumption while having the chickens stay healthy. People can get this same benefit with any other method of avoiding waste. This is the most obvious mechanism for saving money with wet feed (fermented or otherwise.)

Beyond that, there are studies that show some benefits (measurable at large scales) for feeding fermented feed to broilers or to laying hens. The mechanism would be that the chickens are absorbing more nutrients from the feed they do eat, which would mean less of the nutrients are eliminated in their manure.

Here is a page that talks about one study, and cites a number of others:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751731122002336

This is a discussion of an experiment where someone fed dry feed, fermented feed, or wet feed to groups of laying hens, and observed the results:
https://projects.sare.org/wp-content/uploads/Foothills-Farm-study_Full-report.pdf
This exact one found that feed consumption was pretty similar between the groups (they collected up leftover feed every week or so and weighed it, but they stated that was not a very precise way to measure.) They did get a few more eggs from the group on fermented feed, but not by an amount that would be noticeable in a typical small backyard flock (something like 2 extra eggs per month per hen, if I'm reading it correctly.)

I don't think it is accurate to say that fermenting feed has NO measurable benefits, but it seems very common for the benefits be over-stated or misrepresented.

 

[pixie74943]

I doubt it...

it is possible if they have enough free range space, but just think, would you be happy and healthy if all you got were scraps and never got anything especially for you? You'd survive, but you wouldnt be plump and cheerful (and laying eggs everyday).

Chickens need a proper balanced diet to stay happy and healthy (dont we all). You can supplement their proper feed with table scraps and free ranging, and they will eat alot less of it, but they should still have 24hour access to real food.

Edited to Add: I sell my eggs for $3 a dozen and it just covers the food costs and leaves me some extra eggs of my own to eat as well

 

[EddieSalita]

If a domestic breed of chicken.... no it won't be enough for ethical well-being and optimum health.
Providing them commercial feed won't stop them scratching and hunting for goodies and consuming all the scraps you can provide. There is no downside to offering a complete feed on top of scraps. There is a potential downside to trying to make your domestic bred chooks revert to a self sufficient way of survival.

Your feed won't magically go further if you ferment it. It won't magically increase significantly in protien, calories or nutrients. It can provide additional well-being through pro biotics and palatability. Don't ferment to make food go further, it's a myth.

Chickens will always consume animal based scraps first. They will tend to faculative carnivore/insectivore if given the chance. Grains and plants on their own don't have adequate levels of certain aminos Chickens really need to thrive as a general rule.
If you're feeding lots of meat and dairy scraps it's certainly possible to do without commercial processed feed. It's helps to have a more advanced knowledge of their requirements however imo. There is a long thread by perris somewhere worth reading on this subject.

 

[EddieSalita]

I don't think it is accurate to say that fermenting feed has NO measurable benefits, but it seems very common for the benefits be over-stated or misrepresented.

That's exactly basically what I was trying to say. It's was stated that the food would go further. It's just not the case. I should have clarified that by measurable I meant statistically significant.
There are several variables the studies don't account for. But that's not really the aim is it. The aim was to find of there was a statistically significant difference. Which there really wasn't.
I ferment to reduce waste as you mentioned. But also because the chickens enjoy it. Happy chickens make me happy.
2-3 times a week they get a nice fermented batch of 28% game bird crumble with some meat and bone meal. They are extremely healthy, and it's not because it's fermented.
Maybe when you cut things back to very fine nutritional margins a more significant difference between fermented and non fermented can be seen. But there isn't a huge amount of quality data is available.

 

[Beekissed]

I'd offer feed at the end of the day. Food scraps are not a real good option, especially if you want them to lay well or end up in the freezer?
If you are just keeping them for lawn ornaments, food scraps might help them survive but it would have to be some pretty good scraps!

If you offer feed at the end of the day, they will have foraged all day and have found all the feed they can on their own and the extra feed will send them to bed with a full belly. If you have some left in the morning, you are feeding too much. If not, you might kick it up a notch, especially in the winter.

If you want birds who produce eggs for the family, you definitely need some feed. You can try whole grains, grow supplemental feed sources such as sunflower seeds, meal worms, earth worms, veggies and fruits if you want to be sustainable as possible.

Try clicking on the links for sister sites at the bottom of each page and visit next door at the SufficientSelf.com site. Look up Freemotion, she feeds her flock on whole grains only with some home grown supplementation. She can steer you in the right direction!

Welcome to the forum!

 

[cockadoodle]

You're going to get a lot of different opinions on this one (probably). Mine is that while feeding them completely off of scraps and garden bugs works and they will survive if you do it right, your chickens will almost certainly get much better nutrition from a good commercial feed mixed in. Especially because you admit you are new to this... it's the doing it right part that would scare me. Someone with a lot more experience would have better odds. You could probably get a bag of 8 dollar feed to last you 2 months. Secondly, if you plan on getting eggs from these chickens (didn't specify hen's or roosters) you are going to have additional nutritional concerns (calcium, additional protein, etc) Me personally I would supplement with commercial feed. It's worth the peace of mind. As your experience grows, venture off the commercial feed when you really know what they need (how to tell when they aren't getting it), etc..

good luck
Mark

 

[Big Chicken Little]

in a word ......NO