1. Free Range
If the cost of raising chickens has got you down, maybe you want to take on a new challenge: how to feed your chickens for free. You might be surprised by all the things you can feed your chickens that won’t cost you any money.
And while it is true that chickens need a balanced diet, you can easily supply that without the expensive, commercial pelleted feed. Keep reading if you want to find out 40 ways to feed your chickens for free.
The easiest way to give your chickens a free, balanced diet is to let them free range for their food. Most breeds of chickens will do just fine foraging for their own food.
They’ll get their mix of protein from bugs, small rodents, and even frogs. They’ll find grasses, weeds, and other vegetation growing around your yard.
There are obvious risks to free-ranging your hens -that is, the potential for losing some chickens to predators. A good rooster or livestock guardian dog will help prevent that.
Keep in mind that even allowing your chickens to free range a few hours per day will cut down on your feed bill, so if you are worried about predators, just let your chickens out for a few hours in the afternoon when you’re around to keep a close watch.
Everything they eat out of your yard is free! And when it gets dark they’ll find their way back to the coop so you don’t have to worry about chasing them down and putting them back in their pen.
Chickens are omnivores – they eat both meat and vegetables. So you can feed your chickens with confidence, knowing that most of what you eat is just fine for them, too.
Even better if you stick to a whole food diet of mostly lean protein, fresh veggies, and other healthy foods and avoiding lots of processed stuff. Justin Rhodes states in one of his YouTube videos that you can feed chickens on approximately a half pound of kitchen scraps per chicken per day, so an average family can feed a few chickens just on their leftovers.
If you don’t have enough, consider asking friends and family to save you their leftovers. My friends get a kick out of feeding the chickens and often will throw some leftovers in the freezer until they plan to come over for a visit. It’s better for the environment (no rotting food in the landfills) and saves you money.
You don’t want to feed your chickens moldy or spoiled food, but anything that is still technically safe but no longer appetizing is fair game such as wilted lettuce, stale Cheerios, freezer-burned meats, and bread heels.
Another idea to garner free chook food is to make a visit to any small, local restaurants and ask them for their leftovers from their salad bars and buffets. If they can’t save it to serve the following day, they have to throw it out. You’ll be doing them a favor by saving on their dumpster costs.
Some savvy chicken keepers have figured out that you can safely feed your chickens from the compost pile, especially if you put one right in your chicken pen. Yard waste, vegetable scraps, and anything else you routinely compost can go right on the pile.
Not only can the chickens eat up the edible morsels, the pile will also attract worms and insects that will be a feast for your feathered friends. In turn, they will fertilize it, scratch it, and turn it for you so you won’t have to do the work. In the spring, just put the compost on your garden like you normally would and start a new pile in the pen.
If you have a large flock, what do you do with all those extra eggs? Or the eggs that are too dirty to eat or sell? Feed them back to your hens, of course! Scrambled, poached, or hard-boiled, they aren’t picky at all. This will give them some extra protein which will boost feather production, especially during molting season.
You may hate all those weeds popping up in your garden and flower beds, but your hens will enjoy them. Things like dandelions, purslane, crabgrass, thistles, and even plantain are delectable to your birds.
Instead of tossing them in the compost pile or the local waste collection, feed them to your chickens. It’s free and sustainable.
Yard waste, like grass, leaves, and bush clippings, is often collected and take to municipal sites. Skip this step and drop it into your chicken pen. It’s a great source of vegetable matter and home to lots of creepy-crawlies that your hens will love to munch.
If you have a compost pile in your chicken pen, just toss it there. If you don’t have yard waste of your own, chat with your neighbor or your township to see where you can get some.
Murano Chicken farms tells us to send those home-grown veggies that don’t make the cut right to your chickens. Funny-shaped veggies, split tomatoes, or even better, produce crawling with worms are perfect to use as chicken feed. See what else Murano Chicken Farms has to say, here.
Our local pumpkin patch has oodles of pumpkins adorning their fields when Halloween is over and done. Since they just turn them back into the soil for next year’s crop, they are more than happy to let us fill up our trunk with the leftover pumpkins.
If you keep them in a cool place that doesn’t freeze, they are likely to last a few months so you can feed them as needed throughout the winter. As a bonus, the kids love smashing a pumpkin or two in the chicken pen for them to devour.
Fodder is a cheap / free source of fresh food for your chickens that you can grow all winter long. Fodder is basically sprouted grains that you feed to your animals.
You can use wheat berries, sunflower seeds, oats, and even barley. Sprout it in big trays without soil, and when the sprouts get about three inches tall you can use them as feed.
You could spend thousands of dollars setting up an extensive fodder system or you could just items that you have laying around the house. The Prairie Homestead shares how they built a fodder system for their livestock here.
Don’t let the thought gross you out too much. My chickens love to scratch through the ground under the rabbit pens and wherever we’ve dumped out the guinea pig waste. Yeah, it’s gross. But they’ll eat the leftover feed and any bugs or delectable bits that are mixed in with the waste.
Put your sunflowers to good use! If you grow them but don’t eat the seeds, save them for your chickens. Allow the heads to dry by putting them in a paper bag and then put them whole dried sunflower head right in the chicken pen to serve as a meal and entertainment.
Mealworms are easy to raise. They multiply quickly and are an easy and abundant source of protein. A simple Tupperware container with a mesh lid makes an adequate home and they rarely escape like crickets do.
A layer of oats or bran in the bottom makes great bedding and feed, too. Some homesteaders have mentioned raising their mealworms right in the chicken feed, although I’ve never tried this myself.
When your garden is done for the season, let your chickens in! They’ll find lots of leftover produce, bugs, edible blossoms, and weeds to munch. They’ll turn the soil and take care of the weeds, getting it ready for next year.
If you have a chicken tractor, you can move it right into your garden for the winter. Dump in some mulch and they’ll even spread it for you. They’ll get free food and you’ll get free labor.
If you don’t like the idea of letting the chickens into your garden, grow one just for them. Take your leftover seeds and plant them right in the chicken pen or adjacent area.
You may want to block off access until your chicken garden gets established or they’ll eat up the tender little shoots. Once the garden starts producing, let your birds have access to the feast.
Don’t spend money on extra calcium for your hens. Instead, dry out your eggshells and crush them up. It’s easy and saves all those shells from going into the landfill. See what Fresh Eggs Daily has to say about feeding eggshells here.
When a feed store receives packages that are damaged or become damaged in the store, they may sell the broken bags at a deep discount or just throw them away. Speak up and ask if they have any damaged bags of chicken feed that you can have (it helps if you are a regular customer).
If you have any local farmer friends, they may let you scoop up the bits of corn or grain lying in the bottom of their bins. Bring it home and store it clean metal trash cans so rodents can’t get to it.
Grow a few extra winter squash plants if you have the space in your garden. Think of butternut, acorn, hubbard, and even some pumpkins or any type of winter squash that you grow for yourself.
Winter squash stores well due to its thick rind. There is no need to spend time and energy to cook them, though, your chickens will gladly eat them raw if you slice them in half.
A grazing box is a great way to use up your leftover seeds. A grazing box is a small raised bed with chicken wire stretched over top. The plants grow up through the chicken wire.
Your chickens can snack on the leaves and shoots and vegetables without digging up the soil or the root systems. This works especially well with lettuces, kale, and spinach that will regrow from the stems.
Grocery stores often have to throw away wilted lettuce, old produce, and even meat products past their sell-by date. Rather than have to throw them in the dumpster, ask a manager if you can take the trash food home.
Make sure they know it’s going to your chickens and not to you, or they may not let you have it. You’ll have the best luck with small town grocery stores rather than large chain stores, but it never hurts to ask.
If you butcher your own animals, whether they are chickens, hogs, or deer, you can save the wasted bits to feed your chickens. Throw all those little bits of fat, meat, or scraps into a big stock pot and cook it up. From there, you can feed it to your birds after it cools or freeze it to serve a little bit at a time.
Hit up the farmer’s markets at the end of the weekend, and you’ll find some of the vendors tossing their wares so they don’t have to take them home.
It helps if you frequent the farmer’s market and they know you are a valued customer, but don’t be afraid to ask if you can take home the leftover bread and produce. You might even say thanks by sharing a few of your eggs.
Do you make your own cheese? Soak your stale cereal or bread in the byproducts, like whey, and give it right to your birds.
If you make preserves, jellies, or can other delicious fresh foods, you can give all the leftover bits and pieces to your chickens. Strawberry tops from strawberry jam, slightly mushy peaches, and apple peels are great chicken foods.
If you find the very thought of maggots repulsing, have no fear. Your chickens will love them and you won’t have to touch them at all. All it takes is a simple five-gallon bucket with holes drilled in the bottom.
Suspend the bucket a few feet over the chicken pen, and put something in it like road kill, deceased livestock pieces, or raw butchering leftovers. The rotting carcass will attract flies which lay eggs that turn into maggots.
The maggots will fall out of the holes in the bucket and feed your chickens. Gross, but effective. See Justin Rhodes’ version here:
These are different than your ordinary maggots. They also don’t carry diseases, don’t bite, and don’t sting. They take a little work to raise, but if you simply love to treat your chickens, it’s worth the effort for the free treats.
Thefrugalchicken.com provides step by step directions on why they’re great for chickens, how to raise them, and where to get them to start your farm. Check it out here.
If you have Japanese Beetle Traps that don’t use poison or toxic bait, you can feed the live beetles to your chickens for a free source of protein.
Early in the morning, you’ll find squash bugs, tomato bugs, and caterpillars prowling your plants for their breakfast. Just flick them into a bucket with a little water in the bottom. You’ll save your veggies and feed your hens.
My property is edged with wild raspberries, which are delicious to humans and hens alike. If you don’t have any berries growing wild, ask a friend who has berry bushes if you can take a few cuttings to cultivate your own (for free!).
Rasberries, blackberries, and blueberries all work well. You’ll get hours of entertainment watching your chickens jump up for those just-out-of-reach berries.
If you have fruit trees growing on your property, or you would like to, the fruit that falls to the ground is a great free food for your chickens. Mulberry trees will drop berries for about 3 months, and while they are messy, if you grow one over your chicken pen, they’ll be able to eat any of the berries that fall to the ground and the rest on the tree are for you.
Other fruit trees work just as well – apples that fall to the ground will attract worms, giving your hens both fresh fruit and protein.
Do you have an avid fisherman in your life? Feed your chickens for free with the leftover fish parts, fishy heads and all. If you’re feeding a whole fish you’ll want to slice it open first so they get to the good stuff inside.
If you dig worms for fishing, you can dig them for your chickens. Or wait until after a good rainstorm and just pick them up off the driveway.
In some areas, it isn’t uncommon to pick up fresh road kill and dress it for dinner, especially deer. You can cut open a fresh carcass and feed it to your chickens.
You’ll want to remove any leftovers after a couple of days to make sure there isn’t any unsafe food. Better yet, drop it into your maggot bucket to keep the free feedings flowing.
You may think foxes are especially cute until you watch one carry off your prized rooster. Don’t get mad, make it chicken food! After you have made sure you predator is deceased, you can cut it open and feed it to your chickens.
Make Thanksgiving Day a good one for your chickens. After you’ve picked all the good stuff off your turkey bones, toss the carcass in the chicken pen. They’ll clean off any leftover bits and leave the bones behind. You can do this with the Thanksgiving turkey, rotisserie chicken, or other fowl.
In the hot summer days, you’ll want to entice your hens to stay cool and eat some protein. Have no worries! Raise some guppies or feeder fish for your chickens. Release them into a baby pool with a few inches of water and watch the hilarious feast begin.
If your kids raise crickets for their pet lizards, you’re already in business. Raising crickets is fairly easy and chickens will get some exercise and entertainment by chasing them around.
If you need help starting your cricket farm, Kathryn Lin tells you how to get it going for less than $3.00. See her post here.
If you are going to spread mulch in the garden when there aren’t any plants growing, why not let the chickens do the work? Dump your mulch in a large pile, and let the chickens go to town.
They’ll scratch through it looking for bugs and other tasty morsels, while doing the bulk of the mulching for you.
Do you grow any cover crops in the fall and winter? Cover crops such as alfalfa, clover, buckwheat, and other grasses can be fed to your chickens.
You can cut some down and carry it to their pen, or better yet, if you have a chicken tractor, just move it right where the cover crops are. The chickens can forage for their food from the crops and leave behind rich fertilizer for the next year’s plants.
If you’re worried about feeding your hens the wrong thing, you can see what Morning Chores has to say about that here. Things like potato peels, avocado skins, and green tomatoes just aren’t good for your chickens and should be avoided.
Justin Rhodes points out that if you give your chickens plenty of variety and enough to eat, they’ll just avoid the things that aren’t good for them. It’s only when they don’t have enough to eat that they will go for those things that aren’t healthy.
You can see what Justin Rhodes feeds his chickens for free right here, including onions and garlic:
Of course, you’ll want to use good judgment when feeding your chickens for free. Don’t give them food that is moldy, spoiled, or that has been tainted with chemicals or poisonous substances.
Remember that if you’re going to eat the eggs or the chickens themselves, anything that goes into the chicken eventually gets consumed by you. But with a little effort and some creative thinking you’ll be able to find ways to feed your chickens for free.
Amanda is a homesteader and a Jesus-loving, mother of 6 toddlers. She’s raising lots of fancy chickens and goats on her small homestead (among other things).
Thank you!! This is wonderful information!!
Wow! I learned a lot from this ! Thank you so very much.
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1. Free Range
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