Feeding Our Backyard Chickens

After getting our four beautiful chickens, it was time to get their feeding in order. We had already purchased a bag of feed for Chica, when we got her at only a few weeks of age.  The feed store recommended Poultry Extreme feed. 

This feed was just a basic starter feed for chicks.  It has all of the nutrients that a chick needs.  We just used the rest of the bag after getting the additional 3 chicks and decided on switching over to an all organic feed.

We chose the Organiq layer crumble feed.  Our hens will be laying soon, so we started them on layer crumble. This feed has a lot of essential ingredients that our hens need. This organic feed has organic corn, soy, wheat, calcium and other vitamins and minerals. 

We also chose to purchase scratch. Scratch is not a complete food for our hens.  It's used more as a treat.  

I know, the bag looks identical, but in better lighting you can see that the scratch bag is a little darker brown.

Organiq Scratch is organic corn-cracked, organic wheat and organic milo.

We sprinkle this outside of the coop whenever we want to give the girls a snack. They LOVE it!

Lady was a little more interested in my finger...Ha! She got me, but it didn't hurt. 

We chose to use the galvanized feeder and waterer.  We set them on pavers just so that they were at the proper height for the hens to eat and drink. We chose not to hang them because they tend to be heavy & although I'm sure the coop would be able to hold them, I just didn't want to take the chance. It's easier for our middle son to change out the food and water everyday this way too!

 Our 4 hens are free range, meaning they are free to roam the yard from the wee hours of the morning until they go into their coop in the evening.  They feed on all sorts of bugs and worms.  They love eating the grass and the grubs that we dig up for  them.  We do keep their organic feed available to them at all times.  We also grew a special garden for our hens in a wine barrel.  

Digging up grubs.

Scarlett is the grub monger. She stands on the shovel as I dig!

We planted our greens in our organic soil and just water it.  We don't treat them for bugs because the hens eat them;) They actually just realized that this small garden exists and it looks way more sparse now a days.  I won't show you that pic;) 

The gate to our winter garden was left open and these ladies went to town on the swiss chard and collard greens. We got lucky...they  must not have been too hungry. Hence, we have been double and triple checking that gate. These ladies would mow that whole bed down in no time! 

I forgot to mention in my last post that along with our pine shavings in the coop, we add diatomaceous  earth. Diatomaceous earth is a fossilized marine plankton that is very sharp at a microscopic level. It's in the form of a very fine talc like powder.  This powder sticks to insects and causes their exoskeleton to get cut and they die. We sprinkle this powder on the bottom of the coop tray before we add the pine shavings. This keeps the bugs, fleas and ticks, etc... out of the coop and off of our hens. It is completely safe for them and even safe to eat. You can find it at your local feed store. 

So far, this chicken adventure has been fun! They are like a part of the family and we look forward to seeing them every morning! It's like a sickness. We laugh at ourselves sometimes because we catch ourselves talking about them and making up little dramatic stories about them when we watch them.  "Oh look, lady has just had it with them and just doesn't want to sit with them." Who are we? Yes, we have lives...lol...but unless you have chickens you don't understand. Like I said ...a sickness! But we love it  and we're enjoying this adventure!