20 Ways To Avoid Pre-Mix Feed Micro Ebook

20 Ways to avoid Pre-Mix
Commercial Feed
Justin Rhodes
20 Ways to Avoid
Pre-Mix Commercial Feed
Years ago, as the cost of commercial chicken feed skyrocketed, I found myself in search of a
more creative option. At the time, I experimented with rotating the flock on pasture and suc-
cessfully cut my feed cost in half. After that, I experimented with free ranging and cut my
costs by 90%! Finally, I ended up with a compost feeding system that cut my chicken feed
bill by 100% and gave me three cubic yards of compost a week!
My fascination with more natural (and much less expensive) feeds continues to grow and my
list of creative food sources expands.
In this chapter, I’ll share with you many alternative food sources for your flock that will dra-
matically (if not completely) reduce your dependency on commercial grain.
Before we explore the list of creative food sources, we should look at some basic principles
to reduce our need for food in the first place.
Ways to Reduce Your Need for Chicken Feed:
• Keep only the chickens that are efficiently meeting your needs. If you just want eggs,
then make sure you have a light weight, egg-producing breed like the White Leghorn. If you
have a lot of access for foraging, be sure to get pure breeds that are naturally active and on
the hunt for food. F
• Cull inefficient and unnecessary flock members. This means you’ll need to butcher, sell
or give away excess roosters, old hens (older than 2.5 years) or those that are genetically un-
desirable (low production, susceptible to disease, aggressive, etc.) to minimize your input
while maximizing yields.
• Think small. What’s the minimum amount of chickens to meet your needs? The smaller
your flock, the easier it will be to maintain from creative resources. In a recent webinar, Joel
Salatin shared a story about his first pastured layer flock. He recalled, with great excitement
how his flock of 100 sourced nearly all of their own feed off of the pasture on his daily pas-
ture rotation. He made the point that his flocks of 1,000 don’t venture any further than
www.AbundantPermaculture.com
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the flocks of 100. Larger flocks, though, do deplete the area’s food system a lot faster and
depend more on commercial feed.
• Ration. Believe it or not, you’re chickens can actually eat too much! This isn’t just a prob-
lem for the budget, it can actually decrease egg production. I encourage experimentation
with your chickens. You can stop serving their food “free choice” (all day access to their
feed) and start rationing out ⅓ of a pound a day per chicken. Begin cutting back slightly
every day until you notice a drop in egg production. At that point, return to the amount of
feed that didn’t affect egg production and go from there.
1. Soil-Building Plants/Herbs
Why not feed our chickens and the soil at the same time? Comfrey and stinging nettle are
two classic builders that many consider weeds. They can certainly be invasive, but if you
turn that “problem” into food and medicine for you and your flock, then they become a bless-
ing. Here is some info about these two amazing soil builders and how to source them as
food.
Comfrey
Comfrey is a must have plant for the sustainable homestead. Like the chicken, comfrey has
many beneficial uses. It’s edible, medicinal, a great nitrogen source for the compost pile and
it’s a low fiber, high protein feed for chickens and other livestock. It’s easy to grow as it can
be planted anytime of the year that you can work the soil, and it will stay alive in extreme
cold and heat (grows in US hardiness zones 3-9). In addition, comfrey contains high levels of
Vitamin A and B12 that can contribute to those deep yellow eggs we all desire.
How to Grow Comfrey:
1.) Acquire the root or crown cuttings. I buy my comfrey from a fellow permaculturalist,
Coe’s Comfrey.
2.) Coe’s suggests you plant Comfrey in “‘fertile holes” to get established and it will
thrive through the hottest summer or coldest winter. Comfrey needs three foot spacing for
proper root development and the highest yields. Strong, mature plants on a three foot grid
will have the larger outside leaves touching the adjacent plants after four to five weeks
growth.
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3.) Harvest the plant up to eight times a year by cutting down to two inches from the
ground.
Stinging Nettle
What many might call a noxious weed, I consider an abundant and consistent food source.
This “invasive” plant is medicinal, edible and when it’s dried it’s up to 40% protein and is a
most excellent nitrogen source for mulching or compost. Nettle grows well in US hardiness
zones 3-9. For more info on this plant click here.
How to grow Stinging Nettles:
Chances are you already have it. In that case, find it and transplant it to where you want it.
Collect the mature seed heads and drop them anywhere you want nettles to grow. If you
don’t already have the plant, you can easily buy the seeds.
As you can see, comfrey and nettle are two great resources for the homestead. Be sure to
stay on top of your management to keep them at bay. Even if you don’t need all of it’s natu-
ral bounty during the growing season for feed, you could certainly use it in the compost pile,
or even cut it and dry it out for hay!
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2. Animal Carcasses
Whether it be killed predators, fresh road kill, or even chicken offal from butchering, this can
be a creative means of providing high quality protein to your birds in one of two ways:
Feed Direct:
• You must cut the carcass open with a hatchet or something similar so the chickens can
easily access the insides.
• You may consider removing the carcass after a day or so to prevent disease.
Bucket Maggots:
• You’ll get more protein for your “buck” if you don’t feed your carcass directly to your chick-
ens, but rather feed your chickens the maggots that develop from the carcass! The flies
will utilize much more of the carcass than the chickens.
• Drill dozens of ⅜ inch holes in a food grade bucket and suspend it in the air where your
chickens will have access to it.
• The flies will do their thing and pretty soon maggots will be in search of some ground. As a
result they will crawl out of the holes and drop right into your chicken run.
Just be sure to use fresh carcasses to help prevent Clostridium botulinum that can cause a
deadly disease in your chickens called limberneck.
In his book Small Scale Poultry Flock,

author Harvey Ussery, emphasizes not to
include chicken slaughter waste that
might include grain from their crops as
this can be a likely source of Clostridium
botulinum growth. More info here.
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3. Cover Crops
Cover crops are plants used to prevent soil erosion, add nitrogen to the soil, improve/
maintain soil quality, hold moisture, prevent weeds and repel pests and diseases. Cover
crops are a great garden strategy for the soil they can be food for our chickens as well.
Here’s several ways to do it:
Cover crops to overwinter your garden:
• Plant cereal rye before your first frost date.
• This will will “die” back over the winter and come back in the spring.
• In the spring, graze your chickens over the patch with a mobile coop and electric net or cut
and carry to your flock.
Cover crops in the spring before you plant a garden bed:
• Try planting yellow mustard, red clover, grain grasses, crucifers, alfalfa, and/or cold-hardy
peas.
• A couple of weeks before you need the bed, allow the chickens in to eat, till, spread, and
fertilize.
• Once they’re done, plant your seeds.
• If your chickens didn’t have time to complete the job, just finish it by hand by loosening the
soil with a broadfork and pulling up the cover crop and laying it down in place as a mulch.
Cover crops in the garden between crops, during the growing season:
• Use a fast growing cover crop like Buckwheat as it can mature within 6 weeks.
• Once you need it tilled in, bring on the chickens!
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Cover crops for the plot after harvesting the main crop:
• Instead of the traditional cover crops, try edible cover crops like fall crucifers, mustards,
raab, kale, rape, and turnips.
• Harvest the crops throughout the fall and early winter for you and the chickens, or allow
the chickens some time directly in the garden.
Cover crops while a crop is still going (under-sowing):
• This is especially useful if you won’t have time to plant after your garden crop is done.
• Wait until your garden crop is ⅓ of the way through it’s growing cycle, then “under-sow” a
cover crop.
• Try any of the clovers (white, sweet, or red). White dutch clover is especially hardy as a liv-
ing mulch that can even be walked on!
• Once you’re done with this garden, cut and carry the produce and cover crops to your
chickens or give them direct access.
4. Weeds
What we’ve come to understand as “weeds” can also be a surprisingly good food, and even
a medicinal for both humans and chickens. Dandelion, lamb’s quarter, stinging nettle, bur-
dock, and yellow dock are some of the many weeds that can creatively feed you and your
flock.
How to do it:
Step #1: Search and identify some common edible weeds:
• Dandelion • Burdock
• Lamb’s quarter • Yellow dock
• Stinging nettle
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Step #2: Uproot with a potato fork or similar by driving the tool into the ground and loosen-
ing the soil around the roots (just enough to pull out the weeds).
Step #3: Clean them off and pitch to the chickens, roots and all. You can also put them
through a grinder or cut up if desired.
Yellow Dock Lamb’s Quarter Burdock Dandelion
5. Garden
The garden doesn’t just have to be food for you, it can sustain your flock as well.
Consider some of the following ideas:
• Toss your garden trimmings to your chickens.
• Offer your flock what’s left of your produce. Cut and carry the goods or allow them ac-
cess to the finished garden beds.
• Grow produce especially for your flock. Salad bars, squash, and crucifers are great for
your flock.
• Cooked (not raw) potatoes could served as a staples for your chickens.
• Consider growing winter squashes as they store extremely well and can be used as
winter feeds.
• Since I have my wood stove heating my house during the winter, I cook hard foods like
potatoes, broccoli stems, carrots, onion, etc., as I heat my house!
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6. Wild Seeds and Fruits
Wild seeds and fruits can serve the “grain” needs of your chickens better than store bought
grain. Gather wild seed or fruits (like berries) and plant to share the bounty with your birds.
Every summer we could easily harvest gallons upon gallons of wild autumn berries, black-
berries and wineberries.

7. Forage and Grain Crops

It’s relatively easy to plant grain crops yourself if you select varieties like dent corn, sunflow-
ers, sorghum or Amaranth. Follow the planting guides for any of these grain crops you
choose.
You could also grow great forage crops like Arrowroot, Chicory, Bok Choy, Buckwheat, Clo-
ver, Cocksfoot, Linseed, Lucerne, Millet, Forage Plantain, Silverbeet, Alfalfa, Peas, Lentils,
Chickweed, Comfrey, Dandelion, Nettles, Sunchokes, Berries (blackberries, raspberries, blue-
berries, etc.) and shrubs (siberian pea shrub, etc.).
Choose a variety of these and plan a special patch for you and your birds!
8. Nut Trees
Gathering wild nuts, planting your own trees, or giving them access to the forest can provide
a significant amount of protein and fat for your chickens.
Forage or plant: oaks, beeches, black walnuts, pecans and hickories.
Nuts from these trees are obviously not digestible as they are. I suggest one of two things,
depending on the size of your flock or harvest: if it’s a small harvest, just wrap your nuts in
some old jeans or durable cloth and smash with a small sledge hammer. For larger jobs, con-
sider running them through a feed grinder.
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9. Fruit Trees
Gather wild fruit or plant your own. Consider high-yield and easy-to-maintain trees like the
persimmon, mulberry, paw paw and of course all your favorite apples, pears, peaches, ba-
nanas, etc. Harvest the produce for your chickens or give them access to the fallen fruit.
10. Capturing Garden Pests

Garden pests like Japanese beetles and slugs are an amazing feed source for your flock
whether you do controlled/timed grazing, or you are catching them yourself.
How to catch and feed garden pests:
1. Go out in the morning with a bucket of water while the bugs are lethargic.
2. Locate the bugs and hold your bucket underneath them while you flick or shake the
bugs off of the plant and into the bucket of water.
3. Throw the bug to your chickens, water and all.
How to debug the garden with the chickens:
• Allow your chickens supervised time in the garden.
• Allow your chickens in the garden for a limited time towards evening. They will natu-
rally go home at dark, and won’t have time to turn their attention from the bugs to your
produce.
• Generally, chickens like bugs more than they like produce, so with timed grazing, most
of your veggies should be safe.
• It’s almost guaranteed that your chickens will get some of your produce with this
method. In my experience the debugging has been well worth the cost of a few veg-
gies.
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• If your garden is small enough, you could protect your produce with chicken wire or
similar and allow the chickens constant access for bug control! Lisa, from Fresh Eggs
Daily, does this beautifully.
11. Pond
You can use a pond to grow both fish and aquatic plants to sustain your flock. In return, your
chickens provide fertilizer for the pond.
Duckweed – Duckweed is an aquatic plant that is easy to grow and can provide as much as
40% protein content for your flock (if dried).
How to use Duckweed:
• Acquire duckweed specimen from another pond or order online.
• If acquiring specimen from a farm, you might want to ease its transition before setting
it out in the “wild”. Duck Weed Gardening put out a great resource on transitioning
duckweed here.
• Fertilize the pond with some chicken manure and/or stock the pond with fish.
• Harvest as needed, but try to maintain 1.5 to 2 pounds per square yard on the entire
surface. If there’s not enough, algae could grow and suppress it, and if there’s too
much it will self mulch.
• Dry out the duckweed, as it’s 95% water. What’s left is up to 40% protein!
How to use fish:
• Stock fish for yourself and be sure to give them all your leftovers and butchering
“wastes” .
• Fertilize the pond by throwing in chicken manure. If you want to get extremely effi-
cient you could arrange your chicken house (with a slotted floor) and allow your
chicken manure and any spilt feed to fall directly into the pond.
• Grow fish specifically for your chickens. Harvest, cut them up for easier access, and
serve them to your chickens fresh (raw or cooked).
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• Great pond fish include catfish, bluegill, carp, bass, etc. If you’re going to have duck-
weed and fish, be sure not to have too many fish or they’ll eat your duckweed faster
than the plant can grow.
12. Soldier Flies

Soldier flies look more like black wasps that flies, but they have a interesting life cycle that
can create a protein rich source of food for our flock. You can grow your own soldier fly
grubs (up to 40% protein) out of kitchen wastes and get a high protein feed for your flock
and rich compost in just a matter of days.
Here’s how it works:
• Soldier flies are naturally found in US hardiness zones seven and higher, but can be in-
troduced in cooler regions as well.
• The female sets out in search of a nice place to lay her eggs. Her ideal location is rot-
ting vegetables or manure.
• The eggs hatch as soon as four days, but no more than three weeks.
• These fat larvae immediately begin to consume the vegetables and turn it into soil.
• Before these grubs turn into flies (about 10 days) they search for higher ground outside
of their feeding ground.
• As adults, their sole purpose is to breed and then lay eggs. They don’t have much
time, as they’ll only live 2-8 days! They don’t even have mouths and will not eat during
this period.
• They die and the cycle starts over again.
• You can build or purchase soldier fly bins that hold your vegetable matter, attracting fe-
male soldier flies. Many designs even includes a ramp which the grubs naturally climb,
then fall into a collecting container…brilliant!
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How to do it:
• Buy a BioPod. According to their website, “this can easily handle the daily food scraps pro-
duced by a large family – up to 5 lbs per day. It can even digest pet feces and most kinds
of manure. For every 100 lbs of kitchen scraps you will get 5 lbs of friable compost, a few
quarts of nutritious compost tea, and approx. 15-20 lbs of self-harvesting grubs – which are
the freshest fish, herp, and bird food.”
• Build one yourself from plans on the internet. Here’s a relatively large bin, that looks rea-
sonable.
13. Sprouting
By simply sprouting the grains/legumes you’re already feeding your chickens, you can in-
crease protein digestibility up to 30%. Not only do you increase protein, you up the vitamin,
mineral and enzyme levels! You can sprout seeds within 2-4 days using a bucket or bowl
method or let them go a bit longer if you want some green material.
How to do the bucket or bowl method:
1. Purchase your grains/legumes like peas, corn, oats, wheat, etc., whole instead of
ground.
2. Soak the desired amount of seeds for 24 hours in a food grade bucket or bowl.
3. Pour out the seeds through a strainer or a bucket filled with holes and rinse thoroughly.
4. Set your newly rinsed seeds in another bucket and bowl and leave for another 24 hours.
If it’s warm enough (60 degrees Fahrenheit or higher), they will have already begun to
sprout.
5. Try to use a fairly warm room like a spot near the furnace in the basement. The colder it
is, the longer the seeds will take to sprout.
6. Rinse your seeds every 24 hours until all of your seeds have sprouted. This shouldn’t
take more than four days.
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7. For a continual supply, use four buckets in rotation – one for soaking and the other three
for the rinsed seeds.
How to do the greening method:
1. Soak the desired amount of seeds for at least 24 hours.
2. Spread over a tray in a thin layer.
3. Cover with some organic matter like straw, dry leaves, etc., to prevent the seeds from
drying out.
4. Water everyday and harvest when they’ve reached the desire length.
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14. Compost
This has got to be one of my favorite creative feed sources! Just last summer, I cut my com-
mercial feed cost 100% through an amazing compost system. I detailed the entire process
and outlined how to do it here.
15. Vermicomposting
Vermicomposting is the process of using worms to create compost. Worms can be grown all
year and they’re a great source of protein and compost. Depending on the size of your flock
and your ambition you can practically grow as much as you like.
General instructions on how to vermicompost:
1. Get a bin. DIY from plans online or purchase one. You can use wood, plastic bins or
similar.
2. Make sure the bin is ventilated. If you’re using plastic or rubber, drill ⅛” holes through-
out.
3. Estimate one pound of worms per square foot (surface area).
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4. Use a cover for the bin as the worms don’t like light and it keeps your moisture level
regulated.
5. Place the worm bin in a cool, shaded area.
6. Temperatures should be maintained from 30 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit for optimization
7. Keep at least four inches of moist material in the bin at all times.
8. Establish bedding for the worms of shredded cardboard, paper, straw and/or something
similar, then sprinkle with dirt and moisten.
9. Make sure you don’t add much (if any) carbon to the mix, as you don’t want your mate-
rial to heat up.
10. You’re pile should remain as moist as a wet sponge. If you were to grab it, you should
be able to squeeze out a few drops of water.
11. Get your worms! Red Wrigglers work best and can be purchased online.
12. Add food scraps all at once, or at least once a week. Mix it in with your bedding if possi-
ble. The worms will continually break this down. Don’t use too much citrus, meat, dairy,
or pet poop as it will be difficult to break down or toxic (in the case of the poo).
13. If your bin starts to smell, ease off the material for a bit and let the worms catch up.
14. After 3-6 months it’s time to harvest both the compost and the worms. Scrape the
newer, unfinished material out of the way and dig out the compost. You can sift out your
worms from the compost and send them on their way (to the chickens) or you could
throw it all to the chickens (especially if your chickens are in an area like a garden bed
or pasture that could benefit from the compost).
How I do it:
1. I dig a large pit my basement that is 4 x 8 feet and 16 inches deep.
2. I lay cinder blocks around the edges as an edge.
3. I use a non pressure treated 4/8 piece of plywood for the cover.
4. On one side of the pit I lay manure and/or food scraps and water as I go.
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5. Given our one pound per square foot surface area I could put in as much as 16 pounds!
6. I put cardboard over this and dampen, then close the lid and check regularly to add
moisture as needed.
7. When the worms are finished (3 – 6 months), I fill up the other side of the bin and the
worms naturally migrate.
8. Once the population of worms has grown enough for a worm harvest, I’ll actually harvest
the unfinished material (about half way).
9. Since my chickens are always on future garden beds, pasture, or compost I can throw
them all of the material (worms and compost).
16. Solar Cooker

Take advantage of the sun to cook harder-to-consume feeds like squash, pumpkins, pota-
toes, etc.
How to do it:
• Build your own or purchase your cooker. Wiki how has 3 promising design options here
and a quick search on Amazon revealed several cookers starting at about $100.
• Get a recipe for what you want to cook. Solar Cooker has several that include corn on the
cob, eggs, potatoes, and even bacon!
• Cooking times will vary depending on your setup, sun exposure, temperature, and the
amount you’re trying to cook. I suggest starting small and learning as you go.
17. Food Scraps

This has got to be my second most favorite feeding method as it’s one of the easiest. We
eat a lot of whole foods, so we have tons of food wastes. We keep a five gallon, food grade
bucket in the kitchen at all times for our food wastes.
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How to do it:
• Source a food grade container appropriate in size for your food wastes. This could be as
simple as a jar, food grade bucket, or as elaborate as a store bought option.
• Feed the scraps to your chickens everyday!
• What not to feed? I believe chickens have a sense of what they shouldn’t eat. I encourage
experimentation here. Offer it to them and see what happens. Obviously too much of any
one thing is a bad idea, if it’s their only source of feed. If they have other options, they’ll
just leave the excess of what they don’t need.
18. Grass
Just having access to fresh grass can be 15-20% of a chicken’s entire diet. Throw in access
to wild seeds, bugs, and worms and you could sustain your flock entirely on pasture/yard if
your flock is small enough and you have enough pasture/yard to rotate them on.
How to do it:
• One option is to totally free range, but you’ll have to consider your predator threats, neigh-
bors, and having chicken poop everywhere. I once grew Black Australorps for 16 weeks to
consume as meat grown on free range (I only fed the 25 birds two 50 Ibs. bags of feed
over the first eight weeks of their lives). The free ranging birds thrived and weighed out
more than others I had grain fed free choice the entire time.
• It’s best if you can rotate your chickens over pasture or yard to new ground every day, or at
least every week. You can use a chicken tractor for this or mobile pasture system with an
electric net. I pastured 15 birds one summer enclosed in a 1,700 square foot electric net
that I moved daily. I was able to get their feed consumption down to less than a 1/10 of a
pound of commercial feed before the lack of feed affected their egg production.
• It’s even better if you can rotate your birds three days behind livestock. Flies will lay their
eggs in the manure and at about the three day mark, you’ll have larvae for your chickens to
consume. Not only have you provided chicken food at this point, the chickens naturally
spread the manure by scratching through it and they help control the fly population for the
livestock.
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• If your chickens can’t have access to grass, bring it to them in the form of lawn clippings (if
it hasn’t been treated).
• You can also cut and store hay for winter feeding. Mother Earth News published a nice arti-
cle about how to cut hay by “hand”. You can see it here.
19. Other Farm Products

You can certainly feed other farm products like cow’s milk and excess eggs. I personally
make an effort to feed our chickens milk from our family cow during the winter when “live”
protein foods are harder to come buy. During the early spring, when egg production kicks
back in but the greens and bugs haven’t returned yet, I feed those eggs to the birds.
Farm product ideas:
• Milk from anything (cows, goats, etc.).
• Offal from farm slaughter (things you might not want to consume like beef tongue, heart,
liver, etc.). Check with your butcher and see if they’ll provide “pet food” packaging of the
less desirable products that are edible.
• Bones from farm slaughter. They won’t eat the bones themselves, but they’ll pick them
clean of their meat. Make sure you ask the butcher for the bones (they might not give them
to you automatically). You could also make bone broth over your wood stove or with a
slow cooker. You could then feed this to your flock in a feed pan or pour it over some
bread to soak in.
• Eggs from your chickens or other poultry. I scramble mine and throw it directly on the
ground, but you could certainly feed it raw in a feed pan.
• Offer feathers from your slaughters as the chickens may consume them to improve gut
function.
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20. Fermenting Feed
Just soaking feed for a day can break down the anti-nutrients (natural compounds that inter-
fere with the absorption of nutrients) and will make your food more digestible, therefore mak-
ing it a more efficient feed. Alex Lewin, in his book, Real Food Fermentation says, “the proc-
ess of fermentation can actually create new vitamins, specifically B vitamins and Vitamin K2,
as well as some types of enzymes.”
How to do it:
• Put 2 – 3 days worth of feed in an adequately sized, food grade container.
• Add water until you have at least two inches above the feed. You should check back
in an hour to make sure your grain hasn’t soaked it up. You’ll ultimately need at least
an inch above the grain. It’s important to have the water layer as fermenting is an an-
aerobic process, which means it doesn’t need oxygen. Oxygen could cause mold
growth.
• If you want, throw in a starter or add some pickle juice or similar to speed up the proc-
ess.
• Cover your container loosely with a towel or lid.
• Just 24 hours of soaking will break down anti-nutrient properties, making them more
digestible, but you’ll start to get the full effect of fermentation within three days.
• You can start harvesting your

grain with a strainer daily. As
long as you add dry grain and
water to replace it you’ll have a
continual flow.
• The fermented feed should

smell sour, but never moldy. If
it gets moldy you’ll need to
throw it out and start a new.
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Conclusion …
That concludes my list of creative ways to feed your chickens on something other than com-
mercial feeds, but I’m sure there’s more!
Some of these food sources mentioned can single handedly eliminate your food bill forever.
I suggest starting small, then implementing as many of these as possible to create lots of re-
dundancy in your operation.
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Creative Feed Worksheet
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Soil Building Plants/Herbs
How to grow Comfrey:
Acquire the root or crown cuttings. I buy my comfrey from a fellow permaculturalist, Coe’s
Comfrey.
Coe’s suggests you plant Comfrey in “‘fertile holes” to get established and it will thrive
through the hottest summer or coldest winter. Comfrey needs three foot spacing for proper
root development and the highest yields. Strong, mature plants on a three foot grid will have
the larger outside leaves touching the adjacent plants after four to five weeks growth.
Harvest the plant up to eight times a year by cutting down to two inches from the ground.
How to grow Stinging Nettles:
Chances are you already have it. In that case, find it and transplant it to where you want it.
Collect the mature seed heads and drop them anywhere you want nettles to grow. If you
don’t already have the plant, you can easily buy the seeds.
As you can see, comfrey and nettle are two great resources for the homestead. Be sure to
stay on top of your management to keep them at bay. Even if you don’t need all of it’s natu-
ral bounty during the growing season for feed, you could certainly use it in the compost pile,
or even cut it and dry it out for hay!
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Animal Carcasses
Feed direct
You must cut the carcass open with a hatchet or something similar so the chickens can easily
access the insides.
You may consider removing the carcass after a day or so to prevent disease.
Bucket Maggots
You’ll get more protein for your “bucket” if you don’t feed your carcass directly to your chick-
ens, but rather feed your chickens the maggots that develop from the carcass! The flies will
utilize much more of the carcass than the chickens.
Drill dozens of ⅜ inch holes in a food grade bucket and suspend it in the air where your
chickens will have access to it.
The flies will do their thing and pretty soon maggots will be in search of some ground. As a
result they will crawl out of the holes and drop right into your chicken run.
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Cover Crops
Cover crops to overwinter your garden:
Plant cereal rye before your first frost date.
This will will “die” back over the winter and come back in the spring.
In the spring, graze your chickens over the patch with a mobile coop and electric net or cut
and carry to your flock.
Cover crops in the spring before you plant a garden bed:
Try planting yellow mustard, red clover, grain grasses, crucifers, alfalfa, and/or cold-hardy
peas.
A couple of weeks before you need the bed, allow the chickens in to eat, till, spread, and fer-
tilize.
Once they’re done, plant your seeds.
If your chickens didn’t have time to complete the job, just finish it by hand by loosening the
soil with a broadfork and pulling up the cover crop and laying it down in place as a mulch.
Cover crops in the garden between crops, during the growing season:
Use a fast growing cover crop like Buckwheat as it can mature within 6 weeks.
Once you need it tilled in, bring on the chickens!
24
Cover crops for the plot after harvesting the main crop:
Instead of the traditional cover crops, try edible cover crops like fall crucifers, mustards, raab,
kale, rape, and turnips.
Harvest the crops throughout the fall and early winter for you and the chickens, or allow the
chickens some time directly in the garden.
Cover Crops while a crop is still going (under-sowing):
This is especially useful if you won’t have time to plant after your garden crop is done.
Wait until your garden crop is ⅓ of the way through it’s growing cycle, then “under-sow” a
cover crop.
Try any of the clovers (white, sweet, or red). White dutch clover is especially hardy as a living
mulch that can even be walked on!
Once you’re done with this garden, cut and carry the produce and cover crops to your chick-
ens or give them direct access.
25
Weeds
Step #1: Search and identify some common edible weeds:
Dandelion Lamb’s quarter Stinging nettle
Burdock Yellow dock
Step #2: Uproot with a potato fork or similar by driving the tool into the ground and loosening
the soil around the roots (just enough to pull out the weeds).
Clean them off and pitch to the chickens, roots and all. You can also put them
Step #3:
through a grinder or cut up, if desired.
26
Garden
Consider some of the following ideas:
Toss your garden trimmings to your chickens.
Offer your flock what’s left of your produce. Cut and carry the goods or allow them access
to the finished garden beds.
Grow produce especially for your flock. Mangal and chard beet are great feeds, as well as
salad bars, squash, and crucifers.
Cooked (not raw) potatoes could served as a staples for your chickens.
Consider growing winter squashes as they store extremely well and can be used as winter
feeds.
Since I have my wood stove heating my house during the winter, I cook hard foods like pota-
toes, broccoli stems, carrots, onion, etc., as I heat my house!
27
Wild Seeds and Fruits
Wild seeds and fruits can serve the “grain” needs of your chickens better than store bought
grain. Gather wild seed or fruits (like berries) and plant to share the bounty with your birds.
Every summer we could easily harvest gallons upon gallons of wild autumn berries, blackber-
ries and wineberries.
Forage and Grain Crops
It’s relatively easy to plant grain crops yourself if you select varieties like dent corn, sunflow-
ers, sorghum or Amaranth. Follow the planting guides for any of these grain crops you
choose.
You could also grow great forage crops like Arrowroot, Chicory, Bok Choy, Buckwheat, Clo-
ver, Cocksfoot, Linseed, Lucerne, Millet, Forage Plantain, silverbeet, Alfalfa, Peas, Lentils,
Chickweed, Comfrey, Dandelion, Nettles, Sunchokes, Berries (blackberries, raspberries, blue-
berries, etc.) and shrubs (siberian pea shrub, etc.).
Choose a variety of these and plan a special patch for you and your birds!
28
Nut Trees
Gathering wild nuts, planting your own trees, or giving them access to the forest can provide
a significant amount of protein and fat for your chickens.
Forage or plant: oaks, beeches, black walnuts, pecans and hickories.
Nuts from these trees are obviously not digestible as they are. I suggest one of two things,
depending on the size of your flock or harvest: if it’s a small harvest, just wrap your nuts in
some old jeans or durable cloth and smash with a small sledge hammer. For larger jobs, con-
sider running them through a feed grinder.
Fruit Trees
Gather wild fruit or plant your own. Consider high-yield and easy-to-maintain trees like the
persimmon, mulberry, paw paw and of course all your favorite apples, pears, peaches, ba-
nanas, etc. Harvest the produce for your chickens or give them access to the fallen fruit.
29
Capturing Garden Pests
How to catch and feed garden pests:
Go out in the morning with a bucket of water while the bugs are lethargic.
Locate the bugs and hold your bucket underneath them while you flick or shake the bugs off
of the plant and into the bucket of water.
Throw the bug to your chickens, water and all.
How to debug the garden with the chickens:
Allow your chickens supervised time in the garden.
Allow your chickens in the garden for a limited time towards evening. They will naturally go
home at dark, and won’t have time to turn their attention from the bugs to your produce.
Generally, chickens like bugs more than they like produce, so with timed grazing, most of
your veggies should be safe.
It’s almost guaranteed that your chickens will get some of your produce with this method. In
my experience the debugging has been well worth the cost of a few veggies.
If your garden is small enough, you could protect your produce with chicken wire or similar
and allow the chickens constant access for bug control! Lisa, from Fresh Eggs Daily, does
this beautifully.
30
Pond
How to use Duckweed:
Acquire duckweed specimen from another pond or order online.
If acquiring specimen from a farm, you might want to ease its transition before setting it out
in the “wild”. Duck Weed Gardening put out a great resource on transitioning duckweed
here.
Fertilize the pond with some chicken manure and/or stock the pond with fish.
Harvest as needed, but try to maintain 1.5 to 2 pounds per square yard on the entire surface.
If there’s not enough, algae could grow and suppress it, and if there’s too much it will self
mulch.
Dry out the duckweed, as it’s 95% water. What’s left is up to 40% protein!
How to use Fish:
Stock fish for yourself and be sure to give them all your leftovers and butchering “wastes”.
Fertilize the pond by throwing in chicken manure. If you want to get extremely efficient you
could arrange your chicken house (with a slotted floor) and allow your chicken manure and
any spilt feed to fall directly into the pond.
Grow fish specifically for your chickens. Harvest, cut them up for easier access, and serve
them to your chickens fresh (raw or cooked).
Great pond fish include catfish, bluegill, carp, bass, etc. If you’re going to have duckweed
and fish, be sure not to have too many fish or they’ll eat your duckweed faster than the plant
can grow.
31
Soldier Flies
How to do it:
Buy a BioPod. According to their website, “this can easily handle the daily food scraps pro-
duced by a large family – up to 5 lbs per day. It can even digest pet feces and most kinds of
manure. For every 100 lbs of kitchen scraps you will get 5 lbs of friable compost, a few
quarts of nutritious compost tea, and approx. 15-20 lbs of self-harvesting grubs - which are
the freshest fish, herp, and bird food.”
Build one yourself from plans on the internet. Here’s a relatively large bin, that looks reason-
able.
32
Sprouting
How to do the bucket or bowl method:
Purchase your grains/legumes like peas, corn, oats, wheat, etc., whole instead of ground.
Soak the desired amount of seeds for 24 hours in a food grade bucket or bowl.
Pour out the seeds through a strainer or a bucket filled with holes and rinse thoroughly.
Set your newly rinsed seeds in another bucket and bowl and leave for another 24 hours. If
it’s warm enough (60 degrees Fahrenheit or higher), they will have already begun to sprout.
Try to use a fairly warm room like a spot near the furnace in the basement. The colder it is,
the longer the seeds will take to sprout.
Rinse your seeds every 24 hours until all of your seeds have sprouted. This shouldn’t take
more than four days.
For a continual supply, use four buckets in rotation - one for soaking and the other three for
the rinsed seeds.
How to do the greening method:
Soak the desired amount of seeds for at least 24 hours.
Spread over a tray in a thin layer.
Cover with some organic matter like straw, dry leaves, etc., to prevent the seeds from drying
out.
Water everyday and harvest when they’ve reached the desire length.
33
Composting
Week #1
Have your compost material assembled near the entrance of your run so it’s easily accessi-
ble. Better yet, put it just outside the fence where your pile will be, if you can throw it over.
If you’re using a temporary electric net for your fencing you can bring in the corner where
you’ll be working to keep the chickens out of your way.
You can check the temperature of the pile throughout the week with a compost thermome-
ter. Your ideal heat is between 130-160 fahrenheit. If it’s not getting hot enough within 24
hours it’s probably not wet enough and/or you have too much carbon brown material and
need to mix in some more green material when you turn the pile next week.
Fill the bin with your compost material, being sure to mix and water along the way. This
week, as you feed your chickens your food scraps, just add it to the top of the pile. They’ll
add their manure and eat all the edibles on top. Be sure to provide a ladder or ramp to help
the birds get up and down safely.
Week #2
Remove your pallets from your week #1 pile and assemble the pallets in your next corner.
You can rotate clockwise or counterclockwise, just go the same way each time. Now fill the
bin with new compost material and flip your week #1 compost. If done right your birds will be
extremely interested in the biota.
Week #3
Remove your pallets from week #2 pile and assemble them in your next corner and fill. Now,
turn your 1st and 2nd piles. You’ll start to notice the progression of your piles. The chickens
will eventually start showing less and less interest in the older, less active piles. The pile tem-
peratures will start to drop. However, your piles shouldn’t shrink too much, nor should they
smell bad. If this is happening, you’re losing nitrogen to the atmosphere as you don’t have
enough carbon to capture it properly. If that’s your case, add more carbonatious brown mate-
34
rial next week when you turn your pile. Here’s a picture of us turning a pile. Notice the steam
coming from the heated pile!
Week #4
Remove your pallets from week #3 pile and assemble them in your 4th and final corner.
Fill the bin and turn your 1st, 2nd and 3rd week piles.
Week #5
Harvest your finished compost from your first week and apply where needed! Start over by
removing your pallets from corner #4 and assemble them in your 1st corner. Flip the 3 remain-
ing piles. Now, you’ll be on a four week cycle.
35
Vermicomposting
General Instructions on How to Vermicompost:
Get a bin. DIY from plans online or purchase one. You can use wood, plastic bins or similar.
Make sure the bin is ventilated. If you’re using plastic or rubber, drill ⅛” holes throughout.
Estimate one pound of worms per square foot (surface area).
Use a cover for the bin as the worms don’t like light and it keeps your moisture level regu-
lated.
Place the worm bin in a cool, shaded area.
Temperatures should be maintained from 30 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit for optimization
Keep at least four inches of moist material in the bin at all times.
Establish bedding for the worms of shredded cardboard, paper, straw and/or something simi-
lar, then sprinkle with dirt and moisten.
Make sure you don’t add much (if any) carbon to the mix, as you don’t want your material to
heat up.
You’re pile should remain as moist as a wet sponge. If you were to grab it, you should be
able to squeeze out a few drops of water.
Get your worms! Red Wrigglers work best and can be purchased online.
Add food scraps all at once, or at least once a week. Mix it in with your bedding if possible.
The worms will continually break this down. Don’t use too much citrus, meat, dairy, or pet
poop as it will be difficult to break down or toxic (in the case of the poo).
If your bin starts to smell, ease off the material for a bit and let the worms catch up.
After 3-6 months it’s time to harvest both the compost and the worms. Scrape the newer, un-
finished material out of the way and dig out the compost. You can sift out your worms from
the compost and send them on their way (to the chickens) or you could throw it all to the
chickens (especially if your chickens are in an area like a garden bed or pasture that could
benefit from the compost).
36
How I do it:
I dig a large pit my basement that is 4 x 8 feet and 16 inches deep.
I lay cinder blocks around the edges as an edge.
I use a non pressure treated 4/8 piece of plywood for the cover.
On one side of the pit I lay manure and/or food scraps and water as I go.
Given our one pound per square foot surface area I could put in as much as 16 pounds!
I put cardboard over this and dampen, then close the lid and check regularly to add moisture
as needed.
When the worms are finished (3 - 6 months), I fill up the other side of the bin and the worms
naturally migrate.
Once the population of worms has grown enough for a worm harvest, I’ll actually harvest the
unfinished material (about half way).
Since my chickens are always on future garden beds, pasture, or compost I can throw them
all of the material (worms and compost).
37
Solar Cooker
How to do it:
Build your own or purchase your cooker. Wiki how has 3 promising design options here and
a quick search on Amazon revealed several cookers starting at about $100.
Get a recipe for what you want to cook. Solar Cooker has several that include corn on the
cob, eggs, potatoes, and even bacon!
Cooking times will vary depending on your setup, sun exposure, temperature, and the
amount you’re trying to cook. I suggest starting small and learning as you go.
Food Scraps
How to do it:
Source a food grade container appropriate in size for your food wastes. This could be as
simple as a jar, food grade bucket, or as elaborate as a store bought option.
Feed the scraps to your chickens everyday!
What not to feed? I believe chickens have a sense of what they shouldn’t eat. I encourage
experimentation here. Offer it to them and see what happens. Obviously too much of any
one thing is a bad idea, if it’s their only source of feed. If they have other options, they’ll just
leave the excess of what they don’t need.
38
Grass
How to do it:
One option is to totally free range, but you’ll have to consider your predator threats, neigh-
bors, and having chicken poop everywhere. I once grew Black Australorps for 16 weeks to
consume as meat grown on free range (I only fed the 25 birds two 50 Ibs. bags of feed over
the first eight weeks of their lives). The free ranging birds thrived and weighed out more
than others I had grain fed free choice the entire time.
It’s best if you can rotate your chickens over pasture or yard to new ground every day, or at
least every week. You can use a chicken tractor for this or mobile pasture system with an
electric net. I pastured 15 birds one summer enclosed in a 1,700 square foot electric net that
I moved daily. I was able to get their feed consumption down to less than a 1/10 of a pound
of commercial feed before the lack of feed affected their egg production.
It’s even better if you can rotate your birds three days behind livestock. Flies will lay their
eggs in the manure and at about the three day mark, you’ll have larvae for your chickens to
consume. Not only have you provided chicken food at this point, the chickens naturally
spread the manure by scratching through it and they help control the fly population for the
livestock.
If your chickens can’t have access to grass, bring it to them in the form of lawn clippings (if it
hasn’t been treated).
You can also cut and store hay for winter feeding. Mother Earth News published a nice arti-
cle about how to cut hay by “hand”. You can see it here.
39
Other Farm Products
Farm product ideas:
Milk from anything (cows, goats, etc.).
Offal from farm slaughter (things you might not want to consume like beef tongue, heart,
liver, etc.). Check with your butcher and see if they’ll provide “pet food” packaging of the
less desirable products that are edible.
Bones from farm slaughter. They won’t eat the bones themselves, but they’ll pick them clean
of their meat. Make sure you ask the butcher for the bones (they might not give them to you
automatically). You could also make bone broth over your wood stove or with a slow cooker.
You could then feed this to your flock in a feed pan or pour it over some bread to soak in.
Eggs from your chickens or other poultry. I scramble mine and throw it directly on the
ground, but you could certainly feed it raw in a feed pan.
Offer feathers from your slaughters as the chickens may consume them to improve gut func-
tion.
40
Fermenting Feed
How to do it:
Put 2 - 3 days worth of feed in an adequately sized, food grade container.
Add water until you have at least two inches above the feed. You should check back in an
hour to make sure your grain hasn’t soaked it up. You’ll ultimately need at least an inch
above the grain. It’s important to have the water layer as fermenting is an anaerobic proc-
ess, which means it doesn’t need oxygen. Oxygen could cause mold growth.
If you want, throw in a starter or add some pickle juice or similar to speed up the process.
Cover your container loosely with a towel or lid.
Just 24 hours of soaking will break down anti-nutrient properties, making them more digesti-
ble, but you’ll start to get the full effect of fermentation within three days.
You can start harvesting your grain with a strainer daily. As long as you add dry grain and wa-
ter to replace it you’ll have a continual flow.
The fermented feed should smell sour, but never moldy. If it gets moldy you’ll need to throw
it out and start a new.
41
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Ways to Reduce Your Need for Chicken Feed:

How to Grow Comfrey:

How to grow Stinging Nettles:

In his book Small Scale Poultry Flock,

Here’s several ways to do it:

Cover crops to overwinter your garden:

• Plant cereal rye before your first frost date.

Cover crops in the spring before you plant a garden bed:

• Once they’re done, plant your seeds.

• Once you need it tilled in, bring on the chickens!

Cover crops while a crop is still going (under-sowing):

Step #1: Search and identify some common edible weeds:

• Lamb’s quarter • Yellow dock

Yellow Dock Lamb’s Quarter Burdock Dandelion

Consider some of the following ideas:

• Toss your garden trimmings to your chickens.

7. Forage and Grain Crops

Forage or plant: oaks, beeches, black walnuts, pecans and hickories.

10. Capturing Garden Pests

How to catch and feed garden pests:

3. Throw the bug to your chickens, water and all.

How to debug the garden with the chickens:

• Allow your chickens supervised time in the garden.

How to use Duckweed:

• Acquire duckweed specimen from another pond or order online.

How to use fish:

12. Soldier Flies

Here’s how it works:

• They die and the cycle starts over again.

How to do the bucket or bowl method:

How to do the greening method:

1. Soak the desired amount of seeds for at least 24 hours.

2. Spread over a tray in a thin layer.

General instructions on how to vermicompost:

3. Estimate one pound of worms per square foot (surface area).

5. Place the worm bin in a cool, shaded area.

6. Temperatures should be maintained from 30 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit for optimization

1. I dig a large pit my basement that is 4 x 8 feet and 16 inches deep.

2. I lay cinder blocks around the edges as an edge.

16. Solar Cooker

17. Food Scraps

• Feed the scraps to your chickens everyday!

19. Other Farm Products

Farm product ideas:

• Milk from anything (cows, goats, etc.).

• Put 2 – 3 days worth of feed in an adequately sized, food grade container.

• Cover your container loosely with a towel or lid.

• You can start harvesting your

• The fermented feed should

How to grow Comfrey:

How to grow Stinging Nettles:

Cover crops to overwinter your garden:

Plant cereal rye before your first frost date.

Cover crops in the spring before you plant a garden bed:

Once they’re done, plant your seeds.

Once you need it tilled in, bring on the chickens!

Cover Crops while a crop is still going (under-sowing):

Step #1: Search and identify some common edible weeds:

Dandelion Lamb’s quarter Stinging nettle

Burdock Yellow dock

Consider some of the following ideas:

Toss your garden trimmings to your chickens.