How to Grow Supplemental Feed for Your Chickens

If you are a chicken owner, you know that feed can get rather costly. Especially if you are trying to feed with what’s good and healthy for your laying hens. We keep laying hens for the eggs, but also need to think about how we feed them to keep them healthy and producing. To do this, we end up growing a lot of things around our home and garden as supplemental feed. Read on for what you can grow to supplement your chickens.

Things might look a bit different if you have 5 hens compared to 50, but the ideas below are meant to get you thinking about how you can be a bit more self sufficient with growing things your chickens can eat without having to buy all their feed from the feed store. It isn’t an all or nothing either. Take a few ideas this year and try them out. Find out what works for your flock and then add a few more in each year. Supplemental feed is good for you and your chickens.

Free-Range Access

Right now we let our chickens free-range at our farm. We are working at getting some fencing in so they aren’t everywhere, but they are ok for now. I like that they get to get out and access the bugs and worms and all the green things growing here. We actually feed them very little in the summer due to them getting out and free-ranging all day long.

But we do have our garden fenced in and at this point they don’t come up to the driveway area or front steps too much. So we are all good with them roaming around.

At our other house, I liked to let them out also, but they pooped all over the patio and would get into the garden area if we weren’t careful. This was not ideal so we ended up feeding more and free-ranging less.

You will have to decide if free-range is good for you and your flock. If you have a lot of predator pressure, it may not be a good idea.

What you do NOT want to do though, is give them free-range access to your garden. They will destroy what you are growing and you will be dismayed. Even if they are getting supplemental food, you will not be happy.

Access to Your Compost Pile

Even if you keep your chickens out of your garden, they can reap many of its benefits through having access to your compost pile.

We keep a bin in the kitchen that we throw any food scraps into – mostly for the chickens, but we throw them into the compost pile since they can get into that at any time. They dig through and eat the foods they want and then dig up other parts to keep it composting.

Beyond the food scraps, they should be getting access to bugs and worms in the compost bin. This protein is a good supplement for your chickens.

Growing Supplemental Chicken Feed

There are so many different foods you can be growing for your chickens. If you have the space to grow these items, your chickens will be getting healthy food supplements. You will also save a lot of money since the seeds for these foods are fairly inexpensive compared to buying chicken feed from the feed store.

Growing Greens

We grow a lot of extra greens in the garden for both our chickens and rabbits. They grow fairly quick and a lot of them are cool weather crops that I can tuck in an early spring garden and have out by the time the summer garden is ready to plant.

Here is a list of the greens we grow:

• Lettuce
• Kale
• Spinach
• Swiss chard
• Mustard Greens
• Radish and carrot tops (not greens, but the tops go to the animals so they aren’t wasted)
• Comfrey (so many benefits to comfrey in the garden and for animals)

Garden Veggies for Chickens

All the following are things we grow in our garden. When we have veggies that have gotten overripe or damaged or we have a lot of extra, we throw them to the chickens. This year we are growing a lot of extra for this purpose since we have a larger garden space.

• Cabbage
• Tomateos
• Melons
• Squash (summer and winter squash – crack open the winter squash)
• Pumpkins (seeds are said to be a natural dewormer)
• Cucumbers (seeds can also help be a natural dewormer and its a good hydrator)
• Watermelon (also a good hydrator)

Grains and Seeds

If you have a lot more growing space, this list of grains and seeds is a good next step for supplemental chicken feed.

• Sunflowers (they will eat any, but the black oil sunflower seeds provide good protein. We dry and save them to feed in the evening when it’s really cold in the winter)
• Amaranth – we haven’t grown this yet, but it’s on our list. You can hang it on the fence in the chicken run and they can eat the greens too.
• Sorghum for the grains
• Corn – any type of corn – can dry it out and grind it or feed it fresh on the cob
• Alfalfa – can grow as a cover crop in your garden and then chop for the chickens or let them in the space it is growing when ready to harvest
• Buckwheat for the greens and seeds

Herbs

My chickens love fresh and dried herbs both. There are so many ways you can use herbs with chickens, but I usually pick when I have extra and throw in the chicken run or put some in the nesting boxes. Here are the herbs my chickens love to eat.

• Parsley
• Oregano
• Basil
• Mint
• Thyme
• Cilantro

Flowers in the Garden

Usually I do not want my chickens to eat the flowers I am growing, but there are a few I will feed them. I grow extra of these for this purpose. The list of flowers below is mostly the same as what I plant in my garden to help with pest control and pollinators.

• Calendula
• Marigolds
• Nasturiums
• Borage
• Sunflowers

Perennial Bushes and Trees

You might actually have some fruiting bushes or trees on your property that your chickens would love to eat from. Depending on where you live, they might just be growing wild or been planted. Some could even be invasive to your area. Be aware of what grows well in your area and what might take over if given the chance. Most of my life I have lived where it is dry and not much grows invasively, but living in Wisconsin, there is a lot of invasive trees and bushes. Be cautious of what will do well in your area without becoming a problem.

• Crabapple Trees
• Fruiting Shrubs like blueberries, serviceberries, hackberries, chokeberries, gooseberries, currants
• Lilacs
• Elderberries
• Mulberries

Other Ideas For Supplemental Feed

Nettle grows like wildfire on our property and our chickens have full access to it. It is hard to tell if they eat it much, but it is a great source of food if they do. Nettle is a good immune boost and blood booster. It is also good for bone health and also can improve eggshell quality.

We also have a ton a berries growing on our property and while I would not normally “waste” any berries on chickens, we should have more than enough to share with what is growing wild. I think the chickens will happily agree.

What other ideas have you used for feeding your flock? I would love to hear in the comments.

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