Set the table
Almost everything is on the menu
In their natural habitat, chickens eat grass, herbs, flowers, grains, fruit, vegetables, worms, snails, insects, slow worms and even mice – so they are true omnivores and hunters. They will try everything they find in your garden, many things will taste good to them and serve as food. However, you will also have the one or other chicken in your flock that is a special treat: “Eww, I don’t like that” and “Eww, you can eat that yourself” – just little personalities.
Chickens are very vigilant when foraging and like to stay in areas with plenty of cover. They scratch the ground with their feet to find something to eat.
Small stones crush the hard food in the stomach, you should offer your chickens so-called stomach pebbles.
A balanced diet is not only important in terms of laying performance, but also particularly for the health of your chickens. Just like us humans – or rather all living creatures – poultry also need vitamins, minerals and trace elements to maintain their metabolism. In addition to fats, carbohydrates and proteins, iron, calcium, sodium, magnesium and potassium are also very important.
Wild chickens cover most of their nutritional requirements with the treats they find in nature. Our domestic chickens, on the other hand, cannot always do this. Be it because the garden is too small or they live on an “English lawn” and don’t find enough wild plants and insects. We have to make sure that the animals don’t lack anything. In short: the more natural green space available to the animals, the less additional food they need.
Buy chicken feed
There are numerous suppliers of chicken feed on the internet. Whether laying meal, pellets or in grain form, whether organic or non-organic… You have to decide how you want to feed them. The slightly more expensive option is of course to feed your poultry with organic feed. But it’s also nice to know that your chickens have not been fed genetically modified soy or maize! Many farmers still sell some of their harvest. However, this grain must first be dried if you want to store it for longer. Maybe you have a mill nearby and you buy the feed grain directly from the miller. This is then already dried.
If you would like to put together the food for your feathered friends yourself, you will find a nutritional table here to help you do so, so that the birds don’t lack anything.
Chickens are NOT litter garbage cans
It used to be common practice that everything left over from the table went to the pigs and chickens. Nowadays we no longer have pigs and the quantities left over are too much for the chickens. They would get too fat and this not only affects their health, but also their laying performance. Overweight chickens lay fewer eggs or, in the worst case, no eggs at all. In addition, it is now forbidden for chickens to eat meat, sausage and bone meal in order to avoid diseases. Fish meal as an alternative turned out to be unsuitable, as the eggs tasted slightly of fish. In the past, soy was not needed because the chickens got the protein they needed from animal products. This is why today they need a vegetable protein supplier to achieve optimum laying performance. However, if you don’t want this, you have to reckon with fewer eggs.
You can of course give your poultry the handfuls of pasta or rice that are left over, but everything in moderation. Very salty or sugary things are not advisable. Sauces on the side dishes or on salad that no longer looks good can simply be rinsed off in a sieve. Also over "garden waste". For example, burst tomatoes or cucumbers that have ugly spots and you don't want to eat are very welcome. They just don't want them to be moldy or rotten. Of course, they don't want tomato stalks or other poisonous plants from your garden such as ivy or angel trumpets.