November 9, 2023

Care and Feeding of Chickens

If you’re going to own chickens, you’re going to need to know about feeding them.

A few points about chickens that people sometimes don’t realize:

No, you don’t need a rooster to have eggs. The hens will lay whether they’ve got a guy around or not. You only need a rooster if you want fertilized eggs.

Yes, chickens can freeze to death.

No, chickens are not very smart. You as the chicken owner will need to be smart for them.

If you start out with day-old chicks you need only supply them with basic chick starter feed which can be purchased at farm and feed stores (like Rural King or Tractor Supply Company).

They will eat chick starter until they are several weeks old. The brand you buy will give guidelines on the bag.

Chickens of all ages need a regular supply of fresh, clean water at all times. In addition, chickens and chicks should be allowed free-choice of feed. Simply keep a feeding pan or jar feeder full of feed at all times.

When the chickens are around 20 weeks old, you can start feeding them layer crumbles to help provide the necessary nutrition for egg laying.

Chickens also need to be provided with sand or small pebbles (called grit) to help them grind their food. The rocks and sand are stored in the gizzard to grind the food they eat. A dish containing sand or pebbles can be left for them to graze on.

In addition, chickens need calcium to aid the the forming of egg shells. You can provide this with crushed egg shells (recycle the eggs you get!) or oyster shells mixed in with the grit.

If you decide to let your chickens free range, you would normally let them out of their house midmorning (you need to give them enough in-house time to lay their eggs in a place that is accessible to you – if you let them out to roam too early, there’s no telling where they’ll leave the eggs), then close them back in closer to dark.

While they are roaming, they’ll eat bugs, grass, worms etc. and will pretty much take care of their feeding – except during the winter. You’ll still need to provide water, grit and layer crumbles for them. You can also give chickens cracked corn and scratch grains for extra nutrition and treats.

In the winter, the chickens will need extra supplemental feeding since they won’t find much in the way of bugs or grass.

To keep down feed costs, I feed my chickens kitchen scraps which they dearly love. Whether it’s leftover noodles, bread, scrambled eggs, old fruit or watermelon rinds, chickens will use up those leftovers that you would normally pitch in the trash (or the compost bin).

I feed my chickens scraps and give them free-choice layer crumbles and scratch grains. I don’t let my birds regularly free range because we have roaming dogs in the neighborhood. Although, I do let them out for a couple of hours at a time on occasion so they can scratch around the yard. They love that.

These are just basics on getting started with chickens. There are plenty of other factors to take into account, but those would be best addressed by starting your own exploration and reading. Check out your local library for books to help you get started.