Enjoy your chickens! :) What kind are you getting, and are they going to be for meat, eggs or as pets? Good advice on what to feed from shelly & fanci. Avoid layer ration for youngsters of course, and remember that chickens are omnivores--they can eat practically anything, just like you and I. For goodies you can offer raw corn on the cob, diced tomatos, diced grapes, raisins, leftover pasta (cut up into non-chokable lengths), scrambled eggs, that last bite of two of your cheesburger, etc. Really the only non-nos are raw meat (can carry harmful bacteria) and chocolate (toxic to birds). Everything else in moderation is good. Cat food is high in ash and salt and so can damage the birds kidneys, so offer it as a rare treat and in very small amounts. Chickens LOVE live mealworms, you can get some at your pet store (kept refrigerated, so ask at the counter). Make sure to keep your chicks very well protected in the tractor, predators are VERY patient and clever about getting a chicken dinner, especially at night. They are adept at tunneling under wire and reaching through it, or just plain ripping through things like chicken wire, which is NOT designing to keep chickens safe (it's not strong enough). If you click on my 'My Page' link, there is a link there to my chicken info site, which has tons of chicken information (and pictures finally, yay!) that may help also. :) Velvet ~:>

I agree about the omnivore thing - but a lot of species (including us humans!) can process vegetable proteins so they don't necessarily require animal (including insect) proteins. (This is how people who eat only vegetables and fruits are able to survive, their bodies can process the vegetable proteins - which can be harder to get in the amounts that humans need to survive, but, it can be done.) I don't know about chickens, though. (Cats and ferrets are obligate carnivores, meaning that their bodies are absolutely incapable of processing vegetable proteins so they require animal proteins...which is why cats and ferrets should never, ever be on vegetarian diets. EVER.)

I was a manager at a thrift store bakery until Hostess Brands shut down & we sold out of date bread as hog feed. Just never know if its available. Also, before planting & then when the garden is done for the season, first let the chickens & then the pigs have free rein. The chickens will get the bugs & weed seeds & the pigs will help 'plow' your garden & get whatever the chickens leave.

Here in W. WA, 50lbs of oyster shell costs $12, and it’s very stable, not subject to problems of dampness, not susceptible to aging. Cheap insurance. Calcium in the soil is good, but it often isn’t enough for a hen to produce 200+ eggs per year. I live in a high-rainfall area, and it leaches calcium from the soil badly, so without adding lime in fall, grass and crops will be calcium-deficient. Get hold of Gene Logsdon’s book “Small-scale Grain Raising” for a LOT of info on growing smaller amounts of grains at home, for your own use and your livestock. Greens: alfalfa, clover, cowpeas, field peas, kale, chard and other people greens. Whole dried corn isn’t great for chickens unless they have an adequate source of grit. Otherwise, they will eat it, but they can’t break it down enough to receive much nutrition from it. Fresh or cooked corn is okay. Seeds: cowpeas, English peas (plus tendrils and flowers), flax seed, pigeon pea. Not beans unless they’re cooked. Grow sunflowers and let them pick the heads clean. Some grains to consider for poultry: buckwheat, amaranth, barley, wheat (including the old wheats: kamut, emmer, einkorn), millet, oats (on the stem or rolled), quinoa, rye, sorghum (don’t use for sprouts), spelt, teff, triticale. Many of these grains can be harvested by cutting the stalks or stems, and bundling them together, and hanging them in a warm, dry place. But beware of mice. If you miss some, or even if you don’t want to harvest it, you can knock the plants down and let the chickens in to the self-serve buffet. While eating these high-quality feeds, the chickens will help till in the cover crops with their scratching, improving the soil with both plant residues and their droppings. Comfrey has quite a bit of protein and minerals, some chickens will eat it, some won’t. Cooked cull potatoes (no green parts), pumpkins, squashes, sweet potatoes can help to fill them up. You might even consider growing some mangels or fodder beets for them – they’re nutritious, and can be nailed or clamped to a post for pecking at, or grated. All these crops store well in the proper conditions. Wild nuts, acorns, black walnuts, etc, can be smashed with a hammer on a rock or brick Any berry you can eat, chickens can eat. Consider planting some just for them: mulberries, aronia (they prefer black over red), currents, bilberries, elderberries, saskatoon/serviceberry, sea-buckthorn or huckleberries. Protect the roots from those big, scratching feet with some large rocks or wire mesh, and you can grow them where they can harvest them on their own. Run them under your fruit trees to eat the fallen fruits and insects. If you live near a beach, collect some fresh seaweed and bring it home to them. Rinse it off and nail it to a post. There are thousands of varieties of kelp and seaweed and none are poisonous. You can even dry it for extended storage. Grow duckweed in a kid’s wading pool. Scoop out part of it and give to the chickens (or ducks), let the rest grow a day or two and then scoop out some more. It multiplies very fast. Soybeans must be cooked or roasted for any creature to eat, including us, or it causes bleeding of the stomach. I wouldn’t recommend genetically-modified kinds (about 90% of the U.S. crop) for any creature. Grow your own earthworms, nightcrawlers, mealworms or black soldier fly larvae, but don't let them be more than 25% of the diet. Black Soldier Fly larvae contain about 42% protein, 35% fat, 5% calcium, 19 amino acids, and 13 minerals, a real powerhouse of nutrition. They produce much faster than earthworms. They can quickly reduce 100 lbs of garbage or manure down to 5 lbs, which could be composted or continue finishing via earthworms. They can be frozen in containers for winter feeding. Boil those cracked, dirty eggs. Cool, then just chop them in quarters (shell and all) and toss them to the girls. The birds don’t seem to associate eating the shells with shell-eating of raw eggs. If you’ve got a grocery store, farmers market, juice bar or restaurant nearby, ask for their produce waste (lettuce trimmings, juice pulp, etc). Use chickens to clean up after feeding grain to larger livestock and to pick eggs and parasites out of the manure. It is recommended that you don’t feed chickens avocado skins or pits, rhubarb, citrus, salt, green potato skins, garlic or onions (causes Heinz anemia) or uncooked beans (contains toxic hemaglutin). But they aren’t likely to eat them unless they’re starving, anyway. Don’t go crazy trying to poison-proof your property for your animals. Pat Coleby, Australia’s expert on natural health for animals, says that if animals are getting a good diet, they won’t overeat on toxic plants. Yes, they may take a taste or two, but she says that seems to fall into the “medicinal” category. The creatures know what they can eat and what they can’t. Farmers extol the horrors of tansy, but only starving cattle will eat it, well-fed cattle won’t. And I’ve found that she is right. I have quite a few poisonous plants around, and my girls may nibble a bit, but they don’t overload.