Marianne has been raising chickens for a few years now and has picked up quite a few great tips for reducing chicken feed costs. She shares them in Episode 42 of the podcast. But for brevity and accessibility, here is her list:
- Mix your own grains for feed.
-
Rocky and some of her freshly hatched chicks
Order from a co-op like Azure Standard.
- Take advantage of grain sales.
- Soak feed grain to improve digestibility and nutrition.
- Plant things in the chicken run with cages over them – let them eat what they can get through the cage and/or take the cages off when plants get big.
- Include a compost pile in your chicken run (Be careful not to include anything toxic to chickens such as avocado.)
- Deep mulch the coop and the run.
- Add manure to the compost area.
- Water the compost and the deep mulch in the run to attract insects.
- Plant things just outside of the run so that when plant branches grow through the fence, chickens can eat it but the plant can still recover.
- Collect food waste from grocery stores, restaurants and more to supplement your chicken feed.
