Selfsufficientish.com

Can chickens survive without commercial feed?

Obviously they did a century ago, so how was it done?

Thanks for any help.

mine eat ground corn, ground wheat, green leftovers from the garden, and spend most of the day freeranging - they are healthy and lay plenty

so, in my case, the answer is yes!

Thanks

When I was a kid I can remember my mother mixing up a mixture called pollard and warm water. This was for winter time. Plus all the kitchen stuff and free-ranging. They seemed healthy enough. Not sure what was in the pollard. Have a look at this site and scroll down to a recipe for feed.

http://scarecrowsgarden.blogspot.com/se ... bel/chooks

Hey Wombat! are you on this site?

Robin

Great - Thanks

We have a few chickens that free range all summer, but one old rooster we leave out all winter too. He roosts in the garage where our woodboiler is at night in winter. We have cattle and horses and he eats their spilled grain (and grain that spills from the big grain bins them selves) so gets plenty to eat all winter.

We also feed our chickens scraps from the kitchen, even noodles and bread and such, the dogs get the meat scraps.