best perennial chicken feed

We have white oaks over our driveway, as the acorns fall and we run over them with our cars the chickens will spend all day picking up the crushed acorn pieces.

Perennial ground cherries are a favorite they have a strong flavor we don't care for but the chickens love them, also the variety of creeping raspberries that run on the edge of our pastures. The only issue with those is we started losing chickens to predators that would ambush from the brush.

I also have to keep my grapes and blueberries safe or the chickens would clean them off up to 4 ft.

I'm going to be planting grapevines, siberian pea shrubs, mulberry, and the aformentioned creeping raspberries and groundcherries in a hedge along with some black locust and whatever else I can think of around the coop/run area we keep them in. I really don't need to feed them much during the summer/fall now, I may not at all if I can get this set up.

I'm also going to try a japanese beetle feeding. We have a ton of them around here, I notice the chicken will eat them if they fall down, and I think i can use those beetle traps they sell for a few bucks modified to a chicken feeder. Maybe something like using the bag provided in the trap, but extended down to the ground and then open but with a flattened landing area that forces the beetles to crawl out. I'd imagine the chickens would just sit and wait. I can get pounds of beetles in those traps.

Interesting thread, as we just brought home our first chicken coop (tractor) tonight along with 5 adult chickens. We have about a bazilion mulberry trees on our property, but I worry about foraging vs predator attacks.

I'm hoping to have healthy chickens through foraging (supplementing feed primarily in the winter only).

Here are two I do use

I am about to loose another patch of sun chokes to my turkeys. The are pushing plants over and eating leaves. As they push the plant over and feast they are eating roots that are near the surface.
So far they have eaten half of a ten foot by ten foot patch of very tall sun chokes. I will dig up sun chokes before feezeup for chicken feed.
Every sun choke patch that birds have had access to has been destroyed over a period of a few years. I have to grow them in protected areas to replant for poultry.


The second plant is Giant Ragweed. It produces tons of seeds that are 47 percent protien and high in fat. The seeds are large so chickens and turkeys can find them.
I have a large stand of giant ragweed for the fall/early winter feeding.



Canna lily is easy to grow in wet spots. I have four edible types. I harvest the tubers after first frost and feed to chickens in winter.

I think food waste is the best perennial chicken feed. It may not be a plant, but it certainly is perennial.

If you only have a few chickens, your own food scraps should get the job done. If you're in the city, there are many restaurants, markets, farmers markets, and bakeries nearby that will be happy to provide you with their waste (and may end up buying your eggs). We feed over 100 chickens this way, and Karl Hammer of Vermont Compost Company feeds thousands. If you're out in the country, a good size farm will produce ample food waste-- anything overripe, bug-damaged, split or rotten, or otherwise unfit to sell.

In addition to zero feed costs, you also get constant variety for your chickens.

alex Keenan wrote: The second plant is Giant Ragweed.

A really interesting topic and discussion. Believe it or not, some of us have never heard of ragweed. Much of the US has infiltrated Australia but not ragweed it seems. So I googled away and discovered a perfect US Gem; the Contrary Farmer.

He agrees with Alex about the value of ragweed as a chicken feed (http://thecontraryfarmer.wordpress.com/2008/09/09/the-irony-of-giant-ragweed/).

Better still, as I delved deeper, the Contrary Farmer has a suggestion for winter feed for chickens on pages 28 to 29 of http://thecontraryfarmer.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/the-contrariest-farmer1.pdf.

I love his deprecating sense of humour, quintessential American at the very best.

alex Keenan wrote: Canna lily is easy to grow in wet spots. I have four edible types.

This is on my list of perennial plants for my chicken garden (under construction). Canna Edulis is the only one in Australia to the best of my knowledge that is edible by humans and chickens.

Let's have more suggestions and celebrate the Contrary Farmer.

Druce Batstone wrote:
He agrees with Alex about the value of ragweed as a chicken feed (http://thecontraryfarmer.wordpress.com/2008/09/09/the-irony-of-giant-ragweed/).

That was an awesome article, thanks. No giant ragweed here but I do have Smartweed (Polygonum) which is also supposed to be good for wild poultry. Haven't yet found the protein content of the seeds.

Does anyone know a source for giant ragweed seed? I did a quick Google search and couldn't find any.

Lisa Paulson wrote:I can also confirm that chickens will eat alfalpha and the egg yolks are a rich apricot colour .
I was surprised my free ranging hens loved privet seed when it was falling , a hedgeplant I only have near my house as I had read its greenery was toxic for horses.

https://books.google.ca/books?id=0PQvqpVnFbAC&pg=PA293&lpg=PA293&dq=w.h+mills,+privet+chicken&source=bl&ots=Y4qswuIxf2&sig=utcLsq7cc565s3jXpTTaoLMdsX0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=5x-OVJGpIsKyoQT4kIDACA&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=w.h%20mills%2C%20privet%20chicken&f=false

It was the passage in the link above that drew me to this forum and this thread in particular! Privet will hang on the bush in my (Coastal Temperate Rainforest) climate from December to March.

Tree Crops is mentioned in numerous permies threads!

Hi there,

normally quite a lurker and I found this thread in my search for a good perenial chicken feed. Another link I found in my search is one I think is important enough for the rest of the permies to find out about:

Feedipedia!
http://www.feedipedia.org/node/297

In this case lablab but it has many other feed crops described and it links to scientifc research and stuff.

Keep up the good work!

*goes back into his lurker cave*

Actually, looking through this webpage I stumbled upon the Weeping Willow. Which is just as good as lurcerne acording to this website. It also contains 16g/kg dry matter in calcium, which ought to be good for your chooks right?

I had a couple of thoughts.

First, the Kansas Forest Service (Yes, it is a pretty small agency ) sells Siberian Pea Shrub, and they mention that the bushes are especially attractive to grasshoppers. They mention it as a potential problem (though they also say that the bushes tend to withstand the damage just fine)... but in a chicken pasture this could be great! So even if the seeds or leaves aren't too palatable to the chickens, we do know they love grasshoppers.

Secondly, the Contrarian Farmer article that Druce linked to got me thinking. He mentioned chickens feeding off his haystacks. I live in town, but I do have some lawn to mow that I can't let the chickens onto directly. Now I'm thinking about making hay from grass clippings. Has anyone else done this? My thought was to spread the grass to dry then rake into a chicken-wire cylinder under a cedar tree to store it relatively dry. Then just let the chickens access it over the winter and they will pick it apart through the wire. If it doesn't work, and it turns smelly, I can always spread it out to kill the anaerobic bacteria and then toss it into the compost heap.

I was also thinking that bugs and new green growth are a great feed supplement most of the time, but in winter fresh food is harder to come by. So I looked up bushes and trees that have fruit that can hang into or through the winter. Right now I'm planning to put a hedge of coralberry (buckbrush) along the front of the chicken/duck paddocks - these last at least part-way through winter. Redbud trees have a legume pod that hangs at least into February. No idea if the chickens will like it, but at least the songbirds don't take it before we can give it to them. The other sources of fresh food will be food scraps from the house and access to compost, deep litter bedding, and the forest litter along the hedgerows.

Jerry Ward wrote:Does anyone know a source for giant ragweed seed? I did a quick Google search and couldn't find any.

Send me a private message and I can send you some seeds.

Berry Buiten wrote:Actually, looking through this webpage I stumbled upon the Weeping Willow. Which is just as good as lurcerne acording to this website. It also contains 16g/kg dry matter in calcium, which ought to be good for your chooks right?

We feed the willows to our rabbits and goats--they really like it and we understand it's a good protein source. Even cut and bundled branches last May in early leaf and dried them and have been feeding them this winter. But didn't know whether chickens would eat leaves--does anyone here know? We're also planting mulberry when/if spring ever comes. Those leaves are supposed to be very good rabbit feed, the fruits not so much, but understand the chickens eat the fruit. Wonder if they would eat those leaves too.

My vote goes to worms.

One key for you may be what "weeds" become extinct when your poultry graze.
I had a yard full of cover, dandelions, etc. I have to replant many of these because plantain took over after the poultry wiped out all the rest.
So many times if you observe your pasture or just plant a small plot in a mixture you can get an idea of not only what grows well but what is getting eaten.

Don't know what types of native grasses you have in your area but I would think a good mix of range grasses, and several types of berry bushes would go a long way toward what you want to accomplish. I've watched chickens and wild turkeys feed on many varieties of grasses and they both feed the same way, on everything from Bermuda grass to Johnson grass, I'm not familiar with locust, but out here they'll eat mesquite beans and acacia seed pods, it may take them awhile but they're perstitant enough to get a little something to eat.

We have lots of autumn olive shrubs on the property and the chickens love the ripe berries. They cleared a all the growth and berries on the bottom foot of the shrubs this year.

My Rhode Island Reds don't eat plantain.

Instead of algae you can feed your chickens Duck Weed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemnoideae
It grows very fast in an aquaponic environment.

I've mentioned stuff that being run white by oysters right? I used rye and they loved it. And the bugs. The bugs that come in with the oyster mushrooms. Chickens will eat many insects.

nicollas McCoy 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)

my goats loved the bamboo shoots---Japanese knotweed actually.

I've always fed our chickens table scraps--well I threw them on the manure pile and the birds gobbled them all right up. We always had a few horses and goats and pigs, between the manure and table scraps we didn't need to add grain.

My teenage son and his friends thought it absolutely hilarious when the horses's tail would lift the hens would come running and wait for the steaming pile full of goodies. My vet told me that chickens are also my best defense against worms in the rest of the livestock as well.

They loved leftover yogurt, meat, veg and fruit and any wheat stuff----also sour milk and even old oatmeal. (not onions)
The pigs and horses contributed tons of seeds and bugs in the manure, and the girls spent most of the winter days on the pile.
At night they'd roost in the pony and goat fur--nice except for the chicken crap in the fur the next day, lol.

Has the garden giant mushroom.. King Stropharia been mentioned? Rockin feed and extremely forgiving/gratifying to grow.

As it ages past prime eating fly larvae move in.. creating a perfect meal for our little dinosaurs

How about buckwheat? I grew that one year in my garden, as a cover crop. It was full of seeds. It also grows very quickly and easily. It's highly nutritious.

I've got some siberian pea shrub and our chickens will just destroy anything within their reach, will even fly onto a branch to bring it down to the ground. I had to protect my younger ones from them or they would have eaten everything. I also have some Tree Lucerne (tagsaste) growing that is supposed be good for livestock just not sure about chickens yet

How about amaranth?

It is nutritious, in both seed and foliage.
It isn't perennial, but is self seeding with zillions of tiny seeds.
The taller varieties offer excellent vertical shelter and shade.
It grows in the worst soil and is tolerant of drought.

Dave Doyle wrote:How about amaranth?

It is nutritious, in both seed and foliage.
It isn't perennial, but is self seeding with zillions of tiny seeds.
The taller varieties offer excellent vertical shelter and shade.
It grows in the worst soil and is tolerant of drought.

Sounds like a good choice. We'll try that. We've got buckwheat and millet so far, but it hasn't yet gone to seed.

Buckwheat is kind of a "standard" and millet is similar to Amaranth
Thick and tall with edible seed.

I chose Amaranth because it is also an edible plant, eaten around the world as a green.

This reminds me, I've been meaning to harvest amaranth. and lambsquarters. and other weeds that make a good storable chicken feed. BTW, Millet doesn't really belong in this thread anyway, being an annual.

It was mentioned very early in this thread but stinging nettle makes tons of sense, especially if it's already growing on your property.

In its peak season, nettle contains up to 25% protein, dry weight, which is high for a leafy green vegetable.

Has anyone here harvested, dried, and stored it for your chickens?

"...BTW, Millet doesn't really belong in this thread anyway, being an annual."

Neither does Amaranth, but I mentioned it because it's self seeding.
Here in the SOUTH, one of its many versions is known as "pigweed" and is considered an invasive nuisance.

Dave, I thought Amaranth was an annual too but apparently there are some types which are perennial!

Cj Verde wrote:Dave, I thought Amaranth was an annual too but apparently there are some types which are perennial!

It is an annual.
But its self seeding qualities bring into the realm of perennial, or more rightly, "re-appearing annual."

Dave Doyle wrote:

Cj Verde wrote:Dave, I thought Amaranth was an annual too but apparently there are some types which are perennial!

It is an annual.
But its self seeding qualities bring into the realm of perennial, or more rightly, "re-appearing annual."

Sounds like tumbleweed, which I understand is an annual. Wow, does it ever have reseeding qualities

Dave Doyle wrote:

Cj Verde wrote:Dave, I thought Amaranth was an annual too but apparently there are some types which are perennial!

It is an annual.
But its self seeding qualities bring into the realm of perennial, or more rightly, "re-appearing annual."

According to Wikipedia, it's both.

Amaranthus, collectively known as amaranth, is a cosmopolitan genus of annual or short-lived perennial plants.

In temperate zones, as found through 90% of the US, its best considered an annual.
A hardy and persistent one, to be sure.
I made this on PREDICTABILITY more than anything
Its my first year actually growing it, so we'll see.
I'll have have three "seed" varieties next year.

"I have also read that they love to eat olives." - Joel Hollingsworth wrote this, 16 August 2009

Here in South Australia, my chickens (though fussy eaters for many things) go crazy for OLIVES. I've never allowed them to have the olive seeds (to date, because they spread rampantly in this climate) but will now do a test (inspired by someone in this thread) to check out whether the seeds definitely get ground up (in crock), digested and poo-ed out as 'no longer olive seed'.

Susan Monroe wrote:For grass seeds, the seedheads tend to be over the chickens' heads, so you either have to mow them or knock them down (the grass heads, not the chickens) so they can get to them.

Sue

Funny that. I have noticed my flock, they know to look up for aerial predators but give not one whit to looking a the grass heads above them. Knock a bunch down to ground level and they are all over it. Lazy bums....

I have black locust on my list to plant this year.
we already have a couple of Mulberries

I love the notion of letting the pumpkins rot some and then giving them to the chickens. Winter is the hardest time to keep them fed. I would also suggest dried nettle, although that may be more work than the pumpkins. This would probably work on any other squash also.

I kept chickens for several years and the question should be "what don't they eat". If they were 12 feet tall, they would definitely be eating us! I'm pretty sure my chickens don't eat wood, and they don't care a lot for grass stems, but other than that they aren't really fussy. My chickens really hammered my clover patch in the spring and early summer every year. Made their egg yolks a beautiful deep orange (clover has lots of omega 3 and I'm sure those spring eggs are a lot better for us). My observation was that my chickens preferred their food moving, bugs, worms, grubs, small frogs, mice, they go after it all. Our first year we had ticks really bad. After introducing 20 Comets (a hybrid variety that lays well all winter, even in Alaska) we never saw another tick.

Our chickens always seemed most content working the leaf litter just inside our woods. Unfortunately, when I let them hang around there too long they tended to turn into some critters dinner more often than I was willing to put up with. They are forest birds by origin and prefer not to have a bare sky above them.

My chickens and ducks also clean up any left overs. Mine don't get much in the way of meat, but they do get rid of old rice and potatoes. Any old tomatoes or garden refuse don't last long. Reduces my feeling of guilt for the sin of wasting good food.

To me, the real question about what to feed chickens isn't what they'll eat, it's figuring it out so that the have something to eat all year. During the dry, hot dog days there is less food available. During the winter they are really scrounging and need some help. I would recommend a mix of bushes, some trees, clover, weeds and let them sort it out.

On a side note, we eventually figured out that my wife is allergic to all things chicken (especially eggs). It only took us 25 years of married life to figure out why she had constant sinus infections. (Further evidence that I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed). We tried the home grown chickens to see if it was something in the commercial feed, but it made no difference. She can eat duck eggs though, which I think is a little odd, but I don't argue with success. Now we keep ducks with just a few chickens that have been looking out for themselves all year. ( I use the chickens as rototillers. If I want an area really cleaned out I fence the chickens in there for a week or so. They take it right down to bare dirt.)

suggestions:
Variety in your plantings. leave it messy. It provides more variety in microclimates and give the chickens places to hide, explore, and scratch. You want to have less than what you think is the maximum carrying capacity of your ground. There should always be at least some excess in the system to feed growth and biodiversity.

Chickens prefer to eat bugs before anything else. They also seem to like fungi. Anything you can do to increase the amount of bugs they can get at will be good, whether your actively growing mealworms or soldier worms or just creating a healthy biosystem. Additionally, bugs are a great source of Omega 3 fat. While I'm not a bug eater myself, the chickens that eat lots of bugs will have healthier fat in their bodies and in their eggs. By giving them more Omega 3s, I will get more Omega 3s when I eat their meat or eggs. I have realized that the quality of the food we eat is very dependant on what we fed our food.

the greens lin the list below would benefit from some kind of hardware cloth protection so that the chickens can't destroy it right of and it can keep producing.

Spring: Clover
Chickweed
Purslane
Peas
Mushrooms
summer:Blackberries (I will have my own patch, I don't like them well enough to let them have all the blackberries or any of the strawberries)
Mulberries (they yield for a long time and start way before most apples)
Mushrooms
Kale
Early apples
any tomatoes you don't want (split, half rotten) as well as most garden reject material.
Fall: Fruit (apples, plums) let them have the windfall
autumn olive
Kale
Winter: Pumpkins, dried nettle, boiled bulk oats

all year long: kitchen scraps. No food should go back into the ground without passing through a gut

If you have dogs that can be trusted with the chickens, let them mix. The dogs will keep (most) of the predators away, especially if they have the "guarding" instinct and see the chickens as "theirs".