Chicken Feed Recipes

Did you run out of chicken feed recently? Our fall order of chicken feed is running low...so I’ve been looking at chicken feed recipes to keep our girls happy. If you’re coming to the end of your chicken feed bag, and it’s not quite time to load up on your backyard chicken supplies, here’s a quick list of foods to feed to chickens when you run out of feed.

Chicken Feed Recipes for Your Backyard Flock

Before jumping into the list, here are a few things to keep in mind.

Chickens can go up to 48 hours (that's two days) without eating.
Chickens MUST have water every day.
NEVER give chickens chocolate, spoiled food, raw potato peels, or raw avocado peels. Don't use chicken feed recipes that include any of these ingredients.
If you feed your chickens beans, onions or garlic, their eggs will taste ODD.
The more natural greens (weeds, grasses, leaves) your chickens eat, the better their eggs will taste.
Cook up a warm "poultry porridge mash" chicken feed recipe in the winter. It will warm them up when the temperatures drop below zero.

What to Feed Your Chicken When You Run Out of Food

Here's what we give our cold-hardy chickens when we're low on feed.

cooked oatmeal (cooled, no seasoning)
quinoa (cooled, no seasoning)
cooked cornmeal (cooled, no seasoning)
bulgar (cooked)
cooked rice (white, brown, or wild rice)
cooked lentils
flax seeds
sunflower seeds
plain yogurt
cheese
fish guts
scrambled eggs
hardboiled eggs (chopped)
dandelion greens
chickweed
other edible weeds (plantain, chamomile, etc.)
edible leaves and grass
mosquitoes! (our bug zapper gets filled quickly)
bananas
grapes
lettuce
watermelon rinds (our chickens LOVE these)
cabbage leaves
spinach leaves
broccoli stems
kale leaves
chard
fruit peels
fruit cores
vegetable scraps (NOT onion skins, or uncooked potato peels or avocado peels)
stale homemade bread

Homemade Chicken Scratch

In addition to the regular food for chickens, we like to give them treats. Firstly, we sometimes get soaked leftover grain from our local beer brewery. We call this "drunk chicken feed" and our flock really likes it.

Secondly, we also give them homemade chicken scratch. This serves as grit to help them digest their food. Here's the homemade chicken feed recipe we use most often for scratch:

1 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup flax seeds
¾ cup pumpkin seeds
1 cup raisins
1 cup dried corn

We also sometimes put out a dish of oyster shells. And other times we'll give them crushed egg shells. These have calcium and help our layers produce eggs with thicker shells.

For more great chicken scratch recipes check out Fresh Eggs Daily. This is an awesome site and resource for new chicken owners and backyard homesteaders!

Warm Homemade Feed for Chickens

So our winters get really, really cold. And homesteading off the grid with chickens (and now turkeys) can be a challenge. Trying to keep our chickens warm and fed when it's -50 is not for the fainthearted.

Although our DIY chicken coop was very well insulated, we like to also warm up our chickens with hot meals in the cold season. So for their evening meal we'll cook up a hearty homemade chicken feed recipe like this one.

I should point out that we have 30+ chickens right now. This is a combination of meat chickens and layers. This recipe makes the right amount to fill them up at one meal.

2 cups large flake oatmeal
2 cups sunflower seeds
1 ½ cups barley
1 cup raisins
2 cup frozen corn/peas/carrots
2 cup lentils

Combine all in a large pot, add 3 ½ cups of water, bring to a boil. (If you don't use frozen veggies, add an extra ½ cup of water. Simmer until lentils are cooked (about 12 - 15 minutes) then allow to cool so the mixture is just warm.

We just scoop this into a large old cast-iron pot in the coop. In the spring, summer and fall we only give our chickens scraps and "messy" foods in the run to keep the coop cleaner.

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Chickens eating scraps in a bowl outdoors

This post is part of the Homestead Blog Hop 348!