Reduce your Chicken feed bill

I like to keep things more natural with my chickens when I can. So I am a big fan of free ranging my chickens. They get to eat all sorts of vegetation and bugs this way, and it saves a bit on feed. But this only works for the summer months. So I wanted to try and figure out ways to continue to save by using less feed, and chickens who eat a variety are just happier and healthier.

(pics coming soon)

Increase growing around your property to increase the foraging not only in summer but also you can pick and preserve, freeze or dry many types of herbs and plants for winter use.

Indoor growing is worth it when you have chickens. Even if you keep a few pots on a window sil. You can go all out in this area and have a grow area with lights and you could grow as much as you like.

Another good grow is making your own fodder. (link page about fodder)

Consider breeding meal worms yourself to cut down on costs of feed consumption even more. (link page about meal worms)

Some people also make their own feed and/or scratch, so if you have the time this may be worth doing too. (recipes or links)

Feeding your table scraps to your chickens will also bring them joy a they go through and taste the different tidbits and will also cut down on feed consumption. Just remember not to feed potatoes,avocados or seed pits from your scraps.

Marijuana leaves are a new interest with recent legalization, it is now out in the open how healthy and beneficial the fan leaves are, of the plant. The leaves contain all sorts of good things that are currently being studied, people are juicing it even. There is no THC in the leaves and they are generally discarded once the plant is harvested so if you know anyone who grows, ask them to save you their trimmed leaves, even a single plant produces a lot of leaves so this is well worth the time to collect from friends. Your feeding your chickens and helping the growers find something to do with all those leaves.