best perennial chicken feed

wow! I bet if you could grow olives that would be an awesome food for them!

Just found this thread again, becasue I've discovered that pruslane (portulaca oleracea) is a good chicken feed, that chickens eat with gusto at first but don't want all that much of.  This, and its tolerance for cut-and-come-again, make me think it would be good in chicken paddocks.

Apparently, its ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 is the highest of any land plant, a good thing for egg yolks.

It's perennial if there's no frost.  It also self-seeds, and is extremely easy to propagate.  One site I found hosted an argument between a few who regarded it as a horribly invasive weed, and about four times that number who thought it was delicious.

It also strikes me as a good way to store water, and to move minerals around, in a dry climate like mine.

Apparently its seed is a staple in parts of Australia.  It must've been mentioned several times in the Designer's Manual, but I was not familiar with it, so I don't recall.

http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Portulaca+oleracea

I've read, in the Complete Herbal Handbook for Farm and Stable, to plant nettle, comfrey, lambs-quarter, goose grass, dandelion, wild vegetables of all kinds - plus a few other things.  This reminds me of Masanobu Fukuoka style of throwing a mix of seeds and allowing his chickens to feed themselves.

However, only owning 'fed' chickens means mine haven't had to scrounge up a meal.  And this makes a big difference in what a bird will eat.  So I've only seen mine eat grass, clover (avoiding the flowers - odd), lettuces and other mild greens.  Not a lot of bugs available due to my ducks. 

But your moving to the frozen winter zone Paul - so how are you going to supply get-it-yourself feed?

I would speculate that 'hungry' chickens might eat much the same as my ducks - they eat lambs-ear, all clovers (until gone), foxglove, strawberries, raspberries, garlic leaves, several flowers and not their leaves, daisy leaves and not their flowers and some violet leaves.   All of these except grass die back in my winter, so it's hard pickens. 

Have you looked at the winter salad at Plants for a Future  http://www.pfaf.org/leaflets/winsalad.php  Maybe you could grow some of these for your chickens in each paddock?

The milder the winters are in your area then the greater the variety that you will be able to grow, but the list of plants at the end of this leaflet contains plants suitable even for the coldest areas of Britain. Unless it says otherwise, all the plants are herbaceous perennials and do not need much work to maintain them once they are established. Many of them are also very ornamental and will not look at all out of place in the flower garden.   Plants for a Future

~Jami

polyparadigm wrote:
Just found this thread again, becasue I've discovered that purslane (portulaca oleracea) is a good chicken feed, that chickens eat with gusto at first but don't want all that much of.  This, and its tolerance for cut-and-come-again, make me think it would be good in chicken paddocks.

This plant is important in traditional Mediterranean agriculture (for both people and poultry).  It's a good choice for a warm and dry area.

I was going to mention comfrey -- a long time ago, TMEN had an article showing how to make a caged row of comfrey inside the chicken pen for the chickens to peck at.  The cage was to protect the plants so the chickens wouldn't totally destroy them.

Someone commented that chickens are basically seed eaters.  That's only partly true.  They are, in fact, omnivores, and eat a lot of insects (all they can catch, in fact).  We had quite an infestation of grasshoppers this summer, and our hens, for a while, were mainly eating those.  I was putting chicken feed out for them, but they weren't eating very much of it!  Any way that you can add animal protein to their diet is good -- among other possibilities are surplus milk (if you have dairy animals -- I have goats); offal from butchering (I've got rabbits, and have also fed the chickens newborn bunnies that didn't make it); and earthworms specially raised for the chickens (on my to-do list).  There are also ideas for raising fly larvae for chicken feed, which I think have been discussed here.  It's good to consider what plants you can provide to feed the chickens, but don't forget that they need quite a bit of protein if they are going to lay well.

Kathleen

But your moving to the frozen winter zone Paul - so how are you going to supply get-it-yourself feed?

The short response is "emulate the mighty sepp holzer - who is in an exceptionally similar climate"

A big one is perennial grain.  The grain will remain upright for some of the winter and then ice and snow (or chicken) will knock it down making it available.

Kathleen Sanderson wrote:
I was going to mention comfrey -- a long time ago, TMEN had an article showing how to make a caged row of comfrey inside the chicken pen for the chickens to peck at.  The cage was to protect the plants so the chickens wouldn't totally destroy them.

Someone commented that chickens are basically seed eaters.  That's only partly true.  They are, in fact, omnivores, and eat a lot of insects (all they can catch, in fact).  We had quite an infestation of grasshoppers this summer, and our hens, for a while, were mainly eating those.  I was putting chicken feed out for them, but they weren't eating very much of it!  Any way that you can add animal protein to their diet is good -- among other possibilities are surplus milk (if you have dairy animals -- I have goats); offal from butchering (I've got rabbits, and have also fed the chickens newborn bunnies that didn't make it); and earthworms specially raised for the chickens (on my to-do list).  There are also ideas for raising fly larvae for chicken feed, which I think have been discussed here.  It's good to consider what plants you can provide to feed the chickens, but don't forget that they need quite a bit of protein if they are going to lay well.

Kathleen

I gave my daughter the task of 'dissecting' the full crop of the last hen we butchered. it was full of insects and grass with a bit of corn that it stole right before we butchered it. I don't think chickens are primarily seed eaters either. they are seed/grain eaters in domestic situations because that what people feed them.

Has anyone mentioned partridgeberry?

I just heard about them in an herbal remedy context, but it seems the fruit stays on the vine without spoiling until late winter, and they do great as a forest understory.

leah, Do i remember right that you said that chickens need lots of protein . I remembered yesterday and thought to say what i have probably said already  i hope in relation to something else, That might be usefull, vegetarian wisdom is mix grains and pulses and you will get all our amino acids, all the proteins you would get eating meat.  so lentils and grains, or chick peas and grains.

  One thing that suprises me is how hens do for all the vegetation in places they are loose in. Maybe hens leave areas so bare of vegetation because they do for the seeds, eating them as well as eating the grasses. In pig farming books here they say grass is proteinic. They did not do for the grass at my grandmothers, does it depend on the type of chicken? agri rose macaskie.

I say moringa! It is a drought resistant, hgh protein, high vitamin A, high calcium tree-turned hedge that has been used extensively in human malnutition only issue  suppose would hinder this is its love of heat and dryness (and seeing that ths is a mostly northwestern oriented site it'd be an issue). Its a die back perrenial to zone 8 & 9.

Can't you grow olives it would be one way of having a tree that also serves as food for your animals , i thought you were in a hot weather state.
i know how you grow maggots you hang up a peice of meat and the flies laqy their eggs in it.
. I saw a documenary that said that animals eat dead animals till the flies lay eggs in the meat when they stop because hte larvae protect their food source making such an awful smell the other meat eaters stop eating the meat. That is a big dsadvantage.
I have mentioned in another bit of this forum portulaca oleracea and it is already mentioned here by joel hollingsworth. Before i knew it by the name of, verdolaga, i think it was .agri rose macaskie

I have opend the crop of a pidgeon and it was full of acorns so acorns and chestnuts what about juniper berries. beech nuts,. if a pidgeon or pheaseant can eat acorns a hen should be able to swallow a chestnut. Chestnut trees produce an incredible amount of fruit. agri rose macaskie.

Anybody seen chickens eating nettle?

Hey everyone,

Gary Koch here from Bellingham (NW) WA.  Just joined this morning.

As I understand it, nettles are high in protein.  When wilted/dried to take the sting out, they make good food for people, rabbits and about any critter.  And they certainly are perennial.  Still waiting on mine to come up this spring.  (Hmmm.)

I have rabbits at the moment, but had chickens and other larger critters while in N. FL several years ago.  Orpingtons are wonderful birds.  Quiet, docile, too big to get far off the ground.  My all around fave is Black Australorps.  Bred in OZ from orpingtons, I would suppose from the name.  They foraged well in NFL, were quiet, ate less than their larger cousins and laid brown eggs well.

Here in the PNW I discovered nettles.  They dry and powder well for soups and (probably) smoothies.  They should cure as hay for use later in the year.  Tie a clump together to dry and hanging it with the birds should be a good idea for storable winter protein.

Yes Paul, they will eat nettle, but what I don't know is if you have to introduce it when they are young to get this behavior or not. 

The ones I've seen eating it had been introduced while just peeps.  And I've read that to get chickens to eat certain weeds one should feed the weeds to them at a early age.

Gary,

If you check around, I think you will find a LOT about eating nettles here.  I even made a video about it!  Take a look at the wild harvesting forum ...

Jami - that's good news.  I was thinking that they might like it more cuz they probably don't get stung!

I put in a mullberry last spring - it only had three berries last year, but it grew from 3 feet to over 8 in one season. It is leafing out now, and there are about 300 berries!! Got a few cuttings I hope will grow into new plants, and dreaming that some of those seeds will make it to a flat, where I can get more newbies going.

honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos) and American persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) would both provide a lot of winter food for your chickens.  and you.

I've seen birds chew up chestnuts (Castanea spp.), so I bet chickens could handle them.  mature chestnut trees are extremely productive.  I've got access to a lot of American chestnut (Castanea dentata) seedlings if anybody in Southwest Washington wants some.

I would think that planting a lot of nectary plants would bring a lot of critters around that chickens would like to eat.  maybe a nasty trick to play on some of our allies, but it would be a glorious death their offspring could be proud of.

we had an exceptionally wily chicken who eluded capture for an entire winter.  in that time, she seemed to focus her destructive adventures on my strawberry patch.  there wasn't any fruit at that point, but that didn't seem to bother her.

I bet chickens would like stone pine and monkey puzzle (Araucaria araucana) seeds.  long lag until production, but easy to grow.  when you're ready, they make good building material.

there's a small tree called yellowhorn (Xanthocerus sorbifolia) that I bet chickens would go for.  makes pea-sized seeds that taste a little like macadamia nuts.  hardy to -10 Fahrenheit.

vetches grow well and are nutritious.  so long as the seeds aren't ground up, I don't think they can hurt chickens.

have brooms been mentioned?  your neighbors might give you dirty looks, but I think chickens would prevent brooms from spreading by seed.

I would think that lupines, Lupinus perennis among them, would work well.  there are varieties that are safe for humans to eat that I assume would be fine for chickens.  others need to be leached before humans can eat them, but I have know idea whether chickens could eat them or not.  they would be high in protein and fairly productive.  nice to look at, too.

Caragana species might not be terribly productive of seed, but they double as browse for goats.  might make them more attractive than they would be as chicken feed alone.  I believe the little-leaf pea shrub (Caragana microphylla) performs well in both those capacities.  I've also read that the Siberian pea shrub (Caragana arborescens) can be very productive of seeds, but I don't have any mature plants yet.  I believe most Caragana seeds are passable human food as well.

is using the bold annoying or helpful?  the idea was to make a skim of the post more productive.

I thought I heard that honey locust seeds were inedible:  designed to pass through an animal. 

I suppose since a chicken has a gullet, a chicken can break it up. 

Have you seen chickens eating them?

  paul wheaton thats an interesting theme, i have wanted chickens to feed them th esort of seed that is meant to germinate better if it goes through the digestive system of an animal.
        i hhought something that someone wrote here meant could chickens eat some poison seed that would simply just pass through them though now i wonder if i read it right. Anyway i thought but the stones in their gizzard will mash the seeds up they can't eat it. So i have two attitudes all at once that the gizzards of birds deal with any thing and the other that birds are usefull becauase seeds they pass have been scarified and treated to acids and things so they are more likely to germinate if they are the sort that is hard to germinate when they have not gone through an animal. obviously if they are to germinate they have not been completely broken into by the action of the birds digestive system. It seems there are  ins an douts to the issue.
Paul wheaton you also put in the name of a nursery that sells american oaks with sweet acorns with less tannins didn't  you. I suppose that means a nursery that knows how to tell you which are sweet and which aren't. agri rose macaskie.

paul wheaton wrote:
I thought I heard that honey locust seeds were inedible:  designed to pass through an animal. 

I suppose since a chicken has a gullet, a chicken can break it up. 

Have you seen chickens eating them?

I haven't seen chickens eating them.  I've got some started though, so I'll let you know in ten years or so.

there have been quite a few folks growing honey locust scattered in pasture for cattle and sheep.  I was in contact with a fellow who was involved with extension research along these lines a while back, so I'll see if I can find him again.

J. Russell Smith also mentions honey locust for stock feed in Tree Crops, but I don't have a copy of that handy to find the information.

the pulp of the pod is also good food for critters and human critters, wholey apart from the seed.  may get bitter by the time it drops, though.

We should start a thread in the woodland care forum for honey locusts.  And then ask about what animals can eat what parts.  I can then email a few folks to see if they can pop in and help us figure it out.

paul wheaton wrote:
We should start a thread in the woodland care forum for honey locusts.  And then ask about what animals can eat what parts.  I can then email a few folks to see if they can pop in and help us figure it out.

what's this "we"?  you got a mouse in your pocket?

anyhow, I started such a thread.

I've never raised chickens but lived on a farm as a youngster where they were.  The farmer believed a lot in self sufficiency.  He culled his 2 flocks at the beginning of winter every year, one was meat birds and the other layers, to about 10% and kept the most robust of both groups.  He grew 1 small field of amaranth, not sure what variety but I remember the seed heads were red, and used that as his winter feed along with some grains and dandelion that were pulled from his yard and ours all year and dried.  This overwintered his starter flocks in Matheson Ontario, very harsh winters Nov-Apr.  By helping with cleaning the birds we also had some of the best chicken dinners ever compared to the tasteless store variety.  I'm creating a list of all the plants mentioned and will try to group them based on hardiness to give a better idea of application to peoples area's.

Wow Max, that would be great.....

I've wanted to somehow compile this on-going list of suggestions, but I'm so busy just now.  This would be a great list to have.

Let me know when you have it completed and I'll post a copy in the wiki as an article so it doesn't get pushed aside as new threads are created.

~Jami

Remember - anyone who has a resource list, how-to or other such article materials can have them added to the wiki for publishing.  Just submit them to myself or Paul ♥

Steve Nicolini wrote:
I wonder if the chickens will eat anything that is already in the pasture, like the dock or some of the grasses.

my chicken's favorite was giant ragweed. they also ate chickory, ox-eye daisys, smartweed, thistle and dude! my 6 month old hen caught, killed, and ferociosly ATE a foot long black snake.

I have not purchased the second edition of Toby's book, but my impression is that this aspect is the same as the first edition:  I wish that the tables that show which plants are good for chickens had a number that could represent HOW good.  I just can't help but think that siberian pea shrub doesn't produce a lot of feed, although it does produce some.

My chickens really go crazy wild when the acorns are falling.  I have five types of Oaks on my property and they love them all.  What I didn't know is how much they love our Hickory nuts.  Now, Hicks are a whole lot bigger than acorns!  I would never have believed you if you'd told me that they could fit those suckers down their throats!  Not only that, the shells of all these nuts are really hard, yet, they break them down and digest them very well.  I've never seen one come through at all.

which kind of hickory? which kind of acorn? what kind of chicken!
That's amazing, doesn't seem like you got many troubles to worry about!

what part of the dandalion were the chickens eating? The greens or the root?

could chickens eat comfrey root? what about evening primrose?

SunChokes!!

the pictures of siberian pea shrub i have seen seemed to indicate that they bear at least pretty heavily, the plants were covered in the pods

Chickens are little Tyrannosaurus Rex's. I've seen them swallow mice.

Haven't seen elderberries mentioned here yet. Ours love to eat them, roost in them, and scratch underneath them.

Tropicdude wrote:
I say moringa! It is a drought resistant, hgh protein, high vitamin A, high calcium tree-turned hedge that has been used extensively in human malnutition only issue  suppose would hinder this is its love of heat and dryness (and seeing that ths is a mostly northwestern oriented site it'd be an issue). Its a die back perrenial to zone 8 & 9.

+1 TD.

One of my primary choices too in the right climate. Easy to dry the leaves for winter too.... excellent health benefits to both human and livestock. I am building my whole food forest system around Moringa and Mulberry. Other trees too.... but even fruit trees have less to offer than the Moringa.

For me and the family I powder the dried leaves and add to whatever I think suitable.

Chelle

I was wondering if one can do a chicken/bamboo connection : will chicken eat young shoots and therefore contain bamboo expansion ?

if someone can make the experimentation, its worth doing. I'll test this when i'll got bamboos, chicken and a land ...

Nicollas
(first post here, hello to all, and excuse my lame english i'm french)

nicollas wrote:
I was wondering if one can do a chicken/bamboo connection : will chicken eat young shoots and therefore contain bamboo expansion ?

if someone can make the experimentation, its worth doing. I'll test this when i'll got bamboos, chicken and a land ...

Nicollas
(first post here, hello to all, and excuse my lame english i'm french)

Hello Nicollas -

We have bamboo planted near our chicken coop. I've never seen them eat it.

paul wheaton wrote:
I definitely plan on raising a bunch as meat birds and another bunch as egg birds. 

For meat, nothing comes close to cornish/rock cross.  I just have to find a way to teach them to forage better.

As for egg layers, I plan on getting six different egg laying breeds, having them intermix a lot, and then trying to come up with my own strain that has a good feed-to-egg ratio in a forage situation.

But, both of these topics are best for another thread.

Ive never raised a cornish cross but i have raised freedom rangers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Ranger_chickens).  i liked em well enough.  you butcher them so young (9 to 11 weeks) they dont get to do much foraging but i did let them out with the rest of my chickens when they got old enough not to become cat food.  I think the 14 birds we butchered probably weight average 7 lbs.  They walked around the yard but they really didnt scratch nearly as much as my hens.

I tried feeding my chickens some alfalfa but they didn't seem to go for it. That was only one try though. Maybe my chickens are just picky because they get spoiled with granular feed.

Even if they don't eat the leaves, they'd probably eat the sprouted seeds. I'm going to harvest alfalfa seeds, give it a try, and report on how it goes.

Partial Chicken pasture plant list:

■Nanking cherry
■Sand Cherry
■Siberian Pea Shrub
■Day Lily
■Apple
■Plum
■Raspberry
■Mulberry
■Black Locust
■Sea Buckthorn
■Pasture Grass
■Alfalfa
■Apricot
■Strawberry clover
■Brassicas
■Hairy Vetch
■Comfrey

from http://www.permaculture.org/nm/index.php/site/Heirloom-Poultry-Pasture/

Maybe you could ask questions of these guys and get them on the list.

paul wheaton wrote:
Anybody seen chickens eating nettle?

Not fresh, no. But: https://permies.com/bb/index.php?topic=2808.msg27885#msg27885

So far this summer I've fed my gang (37 hens, 5 cocks, c. 70 chicks) about 14kg of fresh nettle turned into nettle spinach. It's a tiny amount of their total feed, but it's highly nutritious and comes free.
Also, in their runs, the wee chicks seem to hoover up the tiny fallen seeds, which are also very nutritious.

Here are some quotes from the literature:

Nettle is nutritionally high in vitamins A, C and D, also minerals iron, manganese, potassium and calcium. It contains 21-23% crude protein and 9-21% crude fibre. As a feed component the quality of nettle plants is valuable. At the vegetative stage plants contain 4% protein and fibre, 50 microg/g carotene, 4 microg/g riboflavin and 10 microg/g vitamin E. By incorporating nettle into poultry feed it is possible to increase protein intake by 15-20% and vitamin intake by 60-70%, also green feed requirements can be reduced by 30%.

Urtica leaves have a relatively high level of protein (Hughes et al., 1980), which is better quality in comparison with the proteins of many other green leafy vegetables.

Wetherilt (1992) found the fresh leaves to contain 76.9% water, 1.6% fat, 6.5% protein, 4.1% nitrogen free extract, 5.3% fibre and 5.6% ash. This protein level corresponds to 28% on a dry matter basis. [...]Wetherilt (1982) found 100 g fresh leaves (as is) to contain 0.015 mg thiamin, 0.23 mg riboflavin, 0.62 mg niacin and 0.068 mg vitamin B6. Analyses also revealed 238 mg vitamin C, 5 mg  -carotene and 14.4 mg  -tocopherol in 100 g of leaves. These are remarkably high values for these antioxidants with vitamin activities.

Nutrient analyses showed the leaves to be rich in minerals as well, especially with respect to the nutritionally important ones such as iron, calcium and potassium: iron (13 mg/100 g); zinc (0.9 mg/100 g); copper (0.52 mg/100 g); calcium (853 mg/100 g); phosphorus (75 mg/100 g); magnesium (96 mg/100 g); manganese (3 mg/100 mg); sodium (16 mg/100 g); potassium (532 mg/100 g); and selenium (2.7  g/100 g) (Wetherilt, 1992). The high potassium to sodium ratio (33.2) is another indicator of the protective powers of the U. dioica foliage against cardiovascular and neoplastic diseases.

There is an article in BackHome Magazine (July/Aug 2010) issu on growing your own chicken feed. 

Did you mean Backwoods Home magazine?

I couldn't find the link to the article, but I found some other stuff on growing your own chicken feed there.

Here's a link to get started:  http://www.backwoodshome.com

No, the magazine is called BackHome Magazine.  It is the July/August 2010 issue.