Which Is Better for Your Chickens, Foraging or Feed?

For a flock that can spend most of the days foraging, they will easily find what they need while scratching for insects, plants, small lizards, and even little frogs and snakes. Those scratch/peck motions they do from the time they’re first hatched are what they need to find food during the day the way God intended, expertly drumming up their own clean, organic food and getting nutrients as they do.

For those chickens in a coop or run all day, supplementing with a nutritious feed is important. Take time to read the tag on the bag when deciding on a good feed. A lot of feed contains fillers giving them much more fat than necessary especially during summertime. Giving them scratch grains is important since they are born with that natural instinct to scratch and peck.

Chickens need 4-6oz of food per chicken per day as a baseline for feeding them. Cut that in half if they free range since they take care of most of that themselves. Our chickens are fed only when returning to the coop in the evening.

Allowing them to forage gives them good, clean, organic feed. It’s free! And it cuts down our feed bill significantly. It’s the healthiest overall option for our flock and, added bonus, takes care of pesky pests for homesteaders.

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