Growing your own chicken food.

We live in frost-free coastal NSW USDA zone 10.
We try to get away from commercial chicken food. So far, we get fish heads at our local coop and cook them, the chicken love it!
I have yet to try to cook QLD arrowroot (canna edulis), they don't like it raw.
I know that chickens hate cooked potatoes.
I will try azolla, and BSF and grow more pumpkin.
I planted some sunflowers (I'll see if the birds get them all) and some barley over winter (same with the birds).
I tried to free range but they are a nuissance in the garden and dig too much.
How much of the sunflower and grain can I substitute with alternative feed? How much grain would I still need? How much m2 per chicken would that be?

If I wanted to grow my own chicken food I would do sprouts.

Here are some links that will give you ideas for what others have grown:

https://permies.com/t/366544/grow-chickens-feed

https://permies.com/t/178499/alternative-feeds-chickens

https://permies.com/t/162433/reduce-chicken-feed-consumption

Most things green that we tend to think of as weeds get chickens excited.  See what they peck at most.  We used to grow trays of sprouted wheat or barley when all the green feed dried up over summer.  Tray, couple of layers of paper towel, seed, water and wait.  Serve when about 5 cm tall. Repeat as necessary for a continuous supply.

I have generally heard that sunflower seeds should not be more than 15% of a chickens diet.

I would also consider some kind of black soldier fly or other insect "farm". Chickens needs protien, and that can be a great source.

Shocked to hear your chooks disdain cooked potatoes, ours fight over them.  We frequently get plate scrapings from a restaurant nearby, and the veg-rice-shrimp tails are welcomed with open arms......er, wings.  
Have you tried using chicken tractors?  That way they get insects and fresh greens, with no damage to the garden. You can try a simple version, just 2 x 2 wooden frame with wire covering, these have served us well. Primitive but super lightweight, moved easily by one person, easy to follow them with cover crop if you wish.  A great way to enrich soil and expand your garden.  

If you have a old, scrap piece of plywood, wet an area of ground around where the chickens are, and lay the plywood over it.  Each morning, turn over the plywood to expose the worms/bugs that collect under the wood.  You might scrape them all off into a tray, or simply allow your chickens to scramble over the plywood, collecting what they will.

Another option for your fishheads is to string them up above ground a couple of feet above your chickens, and let the flys lay their eggs on them.  The developing maggots then fall into the chicken pen.

I have some light weight "chicken tractors" that can be used for daytime rotation. Chickens can learn to run from a coop to a tractor in the morning and back to their secure coop in the evening without too much training - following an known "treat bucket" can help.

I have also used Dog Exercise pen fencing for a daytime run, but it takes longer to move and still requires some sort of support for bird fencing over the top due to both aerial predators and the fact that motivated chickens can fly!

The stimulation that gives the birds even if only done 2-3 times per week should not be underestimated - they *like* fresh territory to forage.

I have also observed that Chickens are omnivores with astrong leaning towards insectivores, so finding ways to grow worms or soldier fly larvae for them would be worth it if you are in an ecosystem that can do that.

Jay Angler wrote:The stimulation that gives the birds even if only done 2-3 times per week should not be underestimated - they *like* fresh territory to forage.

I would like to emphasis this! In inclimate weather or in predator heavy seasons, I restrict my hens access to pasture and you can see a noticeable difference in laying even with access to feed/water/supplements.

There is something about the act of foraging that gets a chicken productive. Nature is neat!

One chicken per member of the house hold can nearly be fed with kitchen/butcher scraps  if you are processing foods that you have grown.  I also give mine a bucket of well rotted wood chips per day to scratch through and get bugs from.  I keep the chickens in a tractor in my orchard, so the wood chips and manure become compost for the trees. I still buy some feed to supplement, but it has been very little the past few months since we butchered our pig, the usual recipient of kitchen scraps.

I'm very interested in this topic as I have a flock of 20 and I'm very worried about what this manufactured fertilizer/fuel crisis is going to do to feed costs in the fall and beyond; I'm just getting started this year for the first time so I have no real experience yet, but wanted to share a great video I found on the subject (don't know them/not affiliated but appreciate the effort they made putting it together for us lol)  

I’ve had good luck mixing a few protein sources rather than leaning on just one, since my birds get picky fast. Sprouted grains plus any fish scraps I can get have kept their feathers looking sharp, and azolla fills the gaps on busy weeks. Moving a chicken tractor over spots where I dump kitchen scraps has also boosted the bugs they find, which takes some pressure off the feed bucket.

Some good points all over the board here.  One question for those of you that grow azolla, what is your method?  I was told just add some chicken poop to the water and give it partial sun.  Mine has dies on three separate tries.  Not sure what I am doing wrong.