A couple of months ago we switched from buying chicken crumble feed for our hens to an Organic mix of bulk foods. Since we made the switch our hens have much darker yolks and they want to start eating this feed mix as soon as we bring it out to them. They are mostly free range bird and had lost interest in the crumble feed, so it seemed like a waste to keep buying it for them. This recipe is a modified
feed recipe from
Farhan Ahsan who is the owner at
The Poultry Guide blog. Farhan's original recipe also calls for corn, but we still put out a little bit of scratch grains for our birds. I am thinking to switch to Organic corn when we run out of scratch grains. Last year I had some luck growing small grained Cherokee popping corn.
Organic Chicken Feed
- 16 cups of Organic Winter Wheat
- 12 cups of Organic rolled oats
- 4 cups of whole Organic green lentils
- 1 cup Organic Sesame seeds
- 2 cups Organic brown Flaxseed
- Quarter cup kelp* granules
*I only use Sargasso sea weed from our Florida beaches. I am not comfortable using seaweed from the Pacific Ocean due to the ongoing radiation releases from the Fukushima Nuclear Plant.
The great thing about this recipe, is all these ingredients are whole foods that you can also use for the rest of your family. We buy most of these ingredients in 25-50 pound bags at our local Organic grocery store. The wheat can be made into bread, sprouted grain bread, wheat grass, or cat grass. We use the Oats for either oatmeal or no bake cookies. The lentils are great for sprouting. The sesame seeds we buy in a bit smaller quantity from Mountain Rose Herbs.
Our 2 birds take about 1/2 cup of this mixture per day, plus garden scraps, weeds and other foods that they forage in our backyard.
