How to Keep Your Chickens Full and Healthy

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How to Keep Your Chickens Full and Healthy

Those little birds we have in our backyards can sometimes act like a teenage boy…they try and eat you out of house and home! They  love to peck around at everything and anything all day long.

And let’s face it…chicken feed is expensive! Even if you make it yourself, sometimes the cost involved with feeding chickens can be rather prohibitive.

So what is something that we can do to help combat these rising costs? Have a great chicken feed that will keep your chickens full and healthy is a great way to stretch your feed dollars, plus there are many extras that chickens enjoy can be a great way to keep your ladies happy. Here are some different ideas that you can try with your chickens now.

Fodder

I love feeding my chickens fodder, especially in the winter when greens are non-existent. Fodder is easy to grow when you follow a few simple steps and it will help give your flock the nutrients they crave. It’s not something that is going to completely keep your chicken full but they will have a good time pecking at it and enjoying the treat. Here’s my step by step article on how to grow fodder.

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Grit

Some kind of grit is important in an egg-laying chicken’s diet because it will help to keep your eggs from cracking or breaking too easily by toughening up the shells. Chickens also need grit to help them digest their food properly. If your chickens are free range they will pick up some grit out in the yard, this will be the kind that aids in their digestion, but they will still need a supplement calcium type of grit to help with the egg shells. If you keep lots of leftover egg shells you can clean them off, dry them, and crush them up and add into your chicken food. If you don’t want to do that you can also feed your chickens oyster shell which you can find near the chicken feed in most feed stores.

Table Scraps

My chickens absolutely love their scraps! While table scraps won’t be enough to completely feed your chickens, they are a fun treat for them to have and peck on, plus it will help you combat food waste within your own home. Win win! Chickens will enjoy most scraps but you should not feed them chocolate, candy, avocado (the pit and peel), and dried beans. Some websites advise against citrus also but that just really seems to be more of something that chickens don’t like rather than something toxic to them.

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Scratch Grains

Scratch Grains are a great way to extend your chicken feed. Chickens love to peck on scratch grains just like they do their feed. Purina® Organic Chicken Feeds has a great scratch grain product that is free from GMOS, animal by-products, has no fillers, and no preservatives. You can get these scratch grains and any of the Purina® Organic Chicken Feeds at your local Purina® feed store, our chickens seem to love them!

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One lucky Little House Living reader will win a bag of Purina® Organic Chicken Feed to try with their flock! To enter the giveaway, simply fill out the Rafflecopter form below. Good luck!

Everyone can also grab a coupon worth $5 off their net bag of Purina® Organic Chicken Feed by going here and printing the coupon.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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This post has been sponsored by Purina Animal Nutrition, as such I received free product from Purina to share my opinion with my readers. However, my opinions are based on my individual and unique experience. Based on my experience in 2016 I believe this line of feed has been amazing for my flock and I encourage you to try it too!
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11 Comments

  1. I have never known anyone with chickens before, so I had no idea what they even ate. How neat 🙂

  2. We wanted to get chicks this year. But we found out our city has an ordinance against them. Boo…

    1. Our local 4-H club just got the city of St Maries to pass an ordinance to allow them. The kids researched cities all over the country and found out that many major cities including New York City allow chickens. So cool!
      It was a great long term community service project for the 4-H poultry club.

  3. I wish we could have chickens in our neighborhood but there is a 100yd ordinance. So fun to see people doing it though.

  4. I’ve been raising chickens for nearly 40 years. I feed scraps..they come running when they see the bucket in my hand!! We get our feed from an Amish mill.

  5. I love my chickens! Unfortunately so do the foxes, owls, and other animals. It’s constant battle to keep them safe.