If you’ve ever looked over the cost analysis for our homestead you’ll see that we haven’t been able to raise laying hens for eggs any cheaper than buying a carton from the store. One of our perpetual goals is to figure out how to decrease the cost to keep laying hens and find sources of free chicken food. It’s one of the reasons why we keep homesteading records on our phones with the SmartSteader homestead management app.
And do you want to know what the kicker is? We don’t feed our chickens most of the year.
There, I said it. I prefer free chicken food.
My Free Chicken Food Experience
I guess you might think poorly of our animal husbandry skills now, that’s a risk that I’m just going to have to take.
But the fact is that I haven’t fed my chickens in several years now and it turns out that not one of them has died as a result! In fact, we deal with very few of the chicken health problems you’ll read out about if any.
As it stands now, we withdraw their winter feed ration somewhere around April 1st. It all depends on the weather and when the grass starts to green up. By then, I know that there is an abundance of free chicken food to be found for our expert foragers. They have greens, worms, and sundry bugs for them to choose from, not to mention the bits of grain they are able to glean daily while working on scattering cow pies throughout our pasture. It’s actually the diet they prefer. Then we’ll reintroduce it sometime around when the first blanket of snow covers the ground or when we stop noticing the melody of nighttime summer insects.
This has worked wonderfully for us for years! I love observing the richness of the eggs in the deep and vibrant orange color of their yolks. In fact, I can tell which breeds are better foragers and which aren’t and won’t be joining my flock again just by looking at the yolks! (*ahem*leghorns)
And what love, even more, is watching our cost per dozen keep dropping on the SmartSteader app! Especially when they’re eating free chicken food!
What I Love Most About This?
I love that I can allow my faithful hens to live longer lives. I can cull out lower-production hens in the fall instead of spring giving them 6 more months of life after I realize they aren’t really producing any longer. Why not? It’s not like I’m feeding them.
It feels really good knowing that I can’t feed my family a more nutrient-dense egg and that it isn’t costing me a dime half the year.
Are there drawbacks to free-ranging your hens? Sure there are a few, but for the most part, we’ve learned to either deal with them or accept them as part of the deal. Whether you want to share your garden harvest with your gals is a decision only you can make for yourself. Most of the time I grow enough surplus that I don’t mind, but as we head into the new year, we’ve decided that it’s time to coop our gals up to curb their appetite for our garden’s goodies, but I don’t want to do so at the sacrifice of the healthiest eggs possible, and those gorgeous golden yolks you simply won’t find in hens with a primarily grain-fed diet.
We’re still in the planning stages of how we will provide them with that varied diet during the warmer months while still keeping them contained, but definitely in the plans will be growing edible landscaping that will create free chicken food, shade, and shelter from overhead predators.
If you’re interested in other ways of putting your gals to work and reducing your feed costs exponentially (maybe even down to almost nothing!) then check out the Permaculture Chickens documentary. There are a ton of innovative ideas in the video for free chicken food! You watch Permaculture Chickens and you’re gonna Rock Raising Chickens for sure!
12 Plants for Free Chicken Food
(Remember to check if these plants are invasive in your area before adding them to your landscape. Click photos for credit.)
1. Elderberries
Fruiting Season – Mid-summer
Other Uses – Shade, Shelter, Medicinal, Pollinators
2. Mulberries
Fruiting Season – Early Summer
Other Uses – Fruit for Jams, Baked Goods, and Wine
3. Siberian Pea Shrub
Fruiting Season – Summer
Other Uses – Nitrogen Fixation, Windbreak, Dye, Pollinators
(More on growing Peashrub here: Siberian Peashrub Plant Profile)
4. Crabapple
Fruiting Season – Autumn
Other Uses – Pollinators, Edible Fruit for Jelly, Pickles, High Source of Pectin
5. Russian Olive
Fruiting Season – Autumn
Other Uses – Nitrogen Fixation
6. Sea Buckthorn
Fruiting Season – Autumn
Other Uses – Nitrogen Fixation, Dye, Medicinal, Nutritious Food, Windbreak
7. Buffaloberry
Fruiting Season – Mid-summer
Other Uses – Nitrogen Fixing, Dye, Nutritious Food, Windbreak, Pollinators
8. Chokeberry
Fruiting Season – Late Summer
Other Uses – Pollinators, Dye, Fruit for Jams & Wine
9. Hackberry
Fruiting Season – Autumn
Other Uses – Dye, Windbreak
10. Currants
Fruiting Season – Summer
Other Uses – Hedgerow, Nutritious Food, Pollinators
11. Gooseberry
Fruiting Season – Early Summer
Other Uses – Other Uses- Hedgerow, Nutritious Fruit, Pollinators
12. Serviceberry
Fruiting Season – Early Summer
Other Uses – Pollinators, Nutritious Fruit, Windbreak
Final Thoughts
If I had to start my own chicken farm, free ranged or caged, there’s no chance that I will not cling to an opportunity to get completely free food for my livestock. Aside from the fact that it will be an ultimate pocket-saving technique, the chicken’s diet also will be mostly improvised.
What are your tips for getting free chicken food?
Be careful with some of the plants on that list. Russion Olive is an invasive species – https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/plants/russolive.shtml
And a couple others are similar in name to invasive Species like sea buckthorn is fine to my understanding, you just don't want to use common buckthorn – https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/plants/buckthorn.shtml
that depends on where you are. Russian Olive is used as a shelterbelt and ornamental in Saskatchewan, because our climate is almost identical to that of most of Russia. It is far from invasive here.
What breeds of chickens tend to be the best foragers, in your opinion?
Most of the hens we’ve raised are good foragers. I can think of 2 exceptions which are the leghorns and Anaconas. When we replenish our flock we tend to get Barred Rocks, Speckled Sussex, Sex-Links, Wyandottes, and Brahamas (the latter of which might just be because I think they’re pretty 🙂
Good to know. We got one of those chick-ordering brochures, and I don’t think we’re going towards Leghorns (we live in too cold a climate, according to the brochure…) and I really liked… well, everything else. 😉
Our araucana’s were great foragers, maybe they were Ameracauna. I understand they are a breed that have been domesticated ‘recently’ so they have foraging still in their breed. Our leghorns were also terrible foragers; they have been domesticated and bred for their reliable laying gene.
I put a fence around my garden so I can keep free ranging my chickens. I agree when you free range, you have to "be prepared" for what comes with that….sigh….sometimes the circle of life requires a live trap 🙂
you obviously don’t have coyotes…or eagles, hawks, etc. Yotes here have been known to try dragging small children off, and are extremely bold. They come almost into town in rural areas, and are sometimes seen in the outer areas of cities. Cougars are not unheard of now in Saskatchewan either, they have been expanding ranges for decades now.
I put a fence around my garden so I can keep free ranging my chickens. I agree when you free range, you have to "be prepared" for what comes with that….sigh….sometimes the circle of life requires a live trap 🙂
Gooseberry can be very invasive also
Only took about 3 seconds to drop the dreaded "I" words *rolls eyes*
This is awesome. Would you like to share it on our homestead blog hop?
Essentialhomestead.com
Yeah, sure, some of these can be invasive, but honestly the whole reason we're cooping our hens up is becase I can't get a darn thing to grow wherever they've been foraging. The whole purpose here is so that they eat the fruit (which is how the plants propogate obviously) and in my experience any seedling that pops up where the hens are scratching isn't going to make it very long so I'm not worried about it.
Thanks for the warning 🙂 My thought is that if the chickens are eating the fruit as intended and scratching through the ground where the plants are, there aren't going to be too many seedlings popping up. (I know I sure can't get anything to grow where the chickens like to scratch! 🙂 )
We tried fencing but had such a rough timing getting people here to keep the gates closed or when our heifers blew threw the electric fencing they liked to visit the garden. They would run their bodies alongside the deer netting till it gave way and they were inside the garden. We were were constanly having to chase the chickens out anyway. :/ Hopefully, we'll come up with a good system for containing the hens and keeping them on that varied diet that makes such awesome eggs!
Blane Jonas You say it like it's a bad thing, invasive plants are a pain in the ass. In Michigan there is so much autumn olive and buckthorn it's actually taken over in some forests and turns open fields into thickets. The woods turn red around where I am, not because of leaves, but because of invasive bittersweet which kills and chokes out native species. It's really nothing to roll your eyes at, but it's probably too late anyway. I know it's ironic that humans complain about invasive species, but yeah, it's sad to try and walk through the woods which used to be open and is now just choked out. That's just my two cents on the manner.
you need goatsts
Nah. It’s much easier to complain than to manage forest undergrowth
Which is probably the real problem, not the invasive. Since “we” (as in non-natives) first came to this land we’ve been bringing in species that weren’t here to begin with. The difference between then and now is that folks actually worked the land and kept them from getting out of control. Who has time for that these days. Americans are too busy watching tv and recreating.
We just moved to 42 acres… our invasive species (that I’ve found so far) are wild grapes, barberry, multi flora rose, honeysuckle. We aren’t going to just let them go but take the time to go out and DO something about it.
And goats very well be a part of that management system 😀
barberry is a very important medicinal, it contains berberene which is known to treat and cure many serious problems and diseases. It and the others are native to North America, or relatives of them are.
Consider placing pallet in chicken pen fill open areas will soil, plant seads cover with chicken wire so they can’t scratch up and plant your seed, , as they grow the chickens can graze, I’m planting black berry bushes around the chicken pens, as welas gardenias to help with rlthe smell, chickens can have the berries they can reach I get the berries on the outside …
Reformation Acres If you free range your birds they could spread them throughout your property, also flying birds can come and eat them and spread them. Lots of seeds aren't digested and will be spread through their droppings. I'd just do a little research and try to choose the most native fruiting plants you can find before you decide to plant anything. I'm betting some of these are native to whichever state you're in, elderberry probably is for sure.
I found this list very informative as I do with most posts on this blog. In my defense, I wasn't trying to take away the good information that is provided, but rather I was just adding that there is 1 in particular on the federal invasive species list(https://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=ELAN) that has been banned in a couple states and another that was similar sounding so a heads up to avoid confusion. As Luke mentions, here in Michigan, planting Autumn Olive can actually be a felony with steep fines and imprisonment (https://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2013-2014/billanalysis/senate/pdf/2013-SFA-4038-L.pdf) So be wary of what plants you introduce to your property.
I'm all for doing what you can to cut costs on feeding your chickens, but my suggestion would be to use a native plant(which depending on where you live, may include Russion Olive). -Another great resource: https://www.misin.msu.edu/
Good luck with your chickens!
We're not going to be free-ranging anymore because they destroy our gardens which is why I'm looking at supplementing their summertime feed costs since they're expensive enough to keep now when we've only been feeding them in the winter.
This is my first visit. Your social media buttons cover your text. After you work so hard to pass on information, why obscure it?
Hi Rachel, I’m so sorry you’re having troubles here. I’m not sure what the problem could be… could you maybe share what type of device & browser you’re using? This is what I see. Thanks!
Quinn, I have the same problem Rachel mentioned in your blog comments with my monitor (desktop running IE, and my laptop, also using IE) I have ever since you changed to this new site/added the tags! I can only read the first five letters on each line in the bottom or top inch of the screen, annoying, but I've learned to live with it by now, lol 🙂 Actually, I have this issue with every site that has the buttons running along the left side of the screen, I wish everyone would move them to the bottom or right hand side!
I would have to add nettles to your list.
I thought free ranging would help with feed costs. Mostly I ended up with chickens on the cars, in the garage, begging at the doors, figuring out how to get over the fences into the gardens. Then I ended up with a lot of soup. The turkeys could certainly kill a garden but they also roamed far and wide eating acres and acres of sweet clover. Turkeys were cheap!
Reformation Acres Other birds will come in, eat berries, and poop the seeds out way beyond your acreage, It's boring, but it's a fact.
Reformation Acres locate free pallets for you fence for the garden it keeps mine out as long as there aren't any broken boards they can squeeze through
Everywhere I am looking does not allow Gooseberries & Currents to be shipped to Maine.
Everywhere I am looking does not allow Gooseberries & Currents to be shipped to Maine.
How many of the plants do you recommend planting? How many do you have and approx how many chickens?
Thanks for the tip 🙂
fire thorn – pyrecantus (or something like that)
How large are you planning to make your chicken “habitat”? It looks like you are planning for a few trees or larger bushes so I’m wondering how you will keep the chicks from flying out. I’m interested in adding some perennials to our chicken run as well. They were free ranging up until a few months ago when we started planting again and wanted to keep them out of the garden. Sound familiar? My husband has sprouted some alfalfa to put in their run and I want to put some climbing roses on the outside of their run to cover the chicken wire. That’s as far as I’ve gotten with planning.
Reformation Acres field fencing with a single line of electric fencing (to keep the cows from rubbing on it) works too. We free range our chickens in our back yard, with access to our 5 acre horse/goat pasture. We use electric netting fences to separate paddocks for rotation grazing, but the chickens go right through which is what we want
I would add Tagasaste, comfrey and perhaps even sunflowers to your list. The sunflowers can be a seasonal thing or harvest the heads whole and throw some to the crew during winter. 🙂
Kei apples are another too.
Great suggestions! Thanks 🙂
I was thinking the exact thing. I bought some mammoth sunflower seeds and have the idea to grow a bunch of them and when the seeds are ready to harvest, just throw the flower pods over to the chickens so they can eat them right from the flower. Plus I also have the goal to get a bee hive and I’ve heard sunflowers are a great source of pollen for bees.
I didn’t manage to plant sunflowers this last year but had one grow in the old hen house which grew a dinner-plate sized seed head. It was COVERED in bees! 🙂
Sunflower honey… sounds delicious. I feel like that could be a nice niche honey 🙂
We have tried free ranging, and we usually have a few loose but they really do make a mess even though we have the garden fenced. They like the easy food around the barn, roost on stall dividers and poop on the wall below them. They poop all over our sidewalk and porch and scratch out our wood chips from our landscaping. This year, my husband is going to build them a coop up by the garden and we are making little habitral type tunnels for them to go around the whole garden, keeping weeds down and pest eaten that cross their paths. Then we are going to make lightweight cages to fit over our raised boxes, just tall enough for the chickens to walk under and 'gates' we can open to let them in from their habitrails. This way, they can dig up weeds and bugs ahead of planting the boxes and be let into boxes like the asparagus after it gets tall. I like the idea of the berry bushes and maybe we could incorporate a row of bushes that once established, we could fence as well for the hens using the same concept and let them into those rows after we have harvested what we wanted for ourselves. Great ideas, keep em coming.
This is what we're planning on doing too! I'm planning on working them as a tilther for seedbed prep. Hope it works well for both of us and that we have nice, clean, poop-free front porches this summer 😀
I cut cost by giving them the veggies that are just past prime we get from the local food bank. They can't give it to the people who NEED the food because it's considered inedible
What a shame! I'm glad you're able to redeem that waste and convert it into fresh eggs for your family at least 🙂
One of the simplest and fastest growing plants for chicken feed (my hens love it!) is Azolla – a plant similar to duckweed – that grows on a pond. Studies have found it to be around 15% protien and high in other nutrients as well. In the summer it will double it's mass every three days. Anything extra can be put on a compost pile or spread around plants as mulch or put in a planting hole. Just do a google search on Azolla and you will find lots of info. My girls really love swiss chard and comfrey and miners lettuce (which is native here in OR) too, so I grow lots of those along with all the other greens. I also dump lots of leaves in their run in the fall which encourages lots of worms and other creepy crawlies that the hens love…
Another thing I have done that has cut down on the amount of feed I need to give them is sprouting it. I mix whole grains and seeds in half gallon jars and soak them one day and then rinse them once a day for two more days. It brings them just to the point of little sprouts sticking out – and it more than doubles the bulk of the seed as well as the nutrition value. It's a minor chore – takes about 4 min. a day to do – but the girls love it and my feed bill is half what it would be otherwise.
I agree. I use custom mixed organic whole grain feed. Fermenting and/or sprouting does indeed decrease the demand which pays for the extra cost of the feed. Also the wet feed is not scattered about and wasted. For day old chicks I have it ground and feed wet mash for 2 weeks. Out of 27 chicks I lost zero. I am
planting comfrey for feed and to dry leaves in bundles for winter treats. I never thought about chickens on the cars and porches. Should be an interesting summer! Glad to have our Great Pyrenees (thanks to Big Ollie and Belle!) for a guardian too!
We've been trying soaking feed more this spring and have noticed how much longer the feed lasts. Our chicks just came today and I'll have to soak theirs too as you suggested. (There are 4 ducklings in the mix too and they are such messy eaters. I'm looking forward to seeing if it will work for them.) Did you check out the Permaculture Chickens video I posted about a couple weeks ago? I think you would really enjoy gleaning from it. Scratch those "puppy" ears for me! I'll bet he's getting so big! 😀
I have to laugh: at least half of your list is regularly part of our local/traditional people diet. I'm trying to keep the chooks away from those plants! Guess I'll plant a chicken garden closer to them and farther from my people food. : )
<3 THANK YOU <3
My only warning with the list above is Russian Olive Plants (also known as Autumn Olive). They are an invasive species that are almost impossible to remove from your property once they get started. My old farm was full of them and they are not fun when making new pastures or clearing woods. Please consider this before planting! The chickens do love the berries, but I don’t think they’re worth the hassle later on.
Trees & fruit bearing bushes take a while to grow.