How to Keep Your Chicken Feed Bill Low: 7 Expert Tips

Keeping chickens is a rewarding hobby, but expanding flocks often bring increased feed bills. Fortunately, there are several proven ways to keep your chicken feed costs down while supporting their health and happiness.

1. Free Range Your Birds Safely

Allowing chickens to free range significantly reduces feed needs by letting them forage insects, seeds, and plants naturally found outdoors. Chickens for sale with strong foraging instincts benefit most but ensure their safety by using predator-proof paddocks. Smaller breeds like bantams usually forage more and eat less feed, sometimes up to seven times less than larger ones.

2. Mix Up Your Own Chicken Feed

Creating your own poultry feed mix can save costs by buying ingredients in bulk and tailoring the mix to your flock’s nutritional needs. Adding more corn during colder months boosts energy, while during warmer seasons, reducing corn and adding varied grains like oats and barley gives your hens a balanced diet, reducing reliance on pre-mixed feeds.

3. Supplement Diet With Kitchen Scraps

Chickens love many kitchen vegetable and fruit scraps, which add valuable fibre and nutrients to their feed. Always ensure scraps are safe for chickens and gradually introduce new foods to learn their preferences. This reduces waste and feed expenses.

4. Use the Worthington Feeding Method

This method emphasises feeding vegetables, whole grains such as wheat, and protein sources like fish meal, or alternatives like soya meal, chickpeas, and cracked beans. Including fresh non-poultry meat or boiled fish heads adds valuable protein and omega-3s, helping reduce commercial feed usage while maintaining nutritional balance.

5. Create Compost Pen Runs with Balfour’s Method

Lady Eve Balfour’s feeding method involves creating compost heaps enclosed as chicken runs. Your hens can forage through vegetable scraps, garden waste, and natural bugs attracted to the compost, providing essential nutrients and protein. Rotating between two compost runs avoids over-grazing and keeps the area fresh, supporting your flock’s natural behaviour and reducing feed costs.

6. Prevent Feed Waste and Protect Storage

Protect your feed from pests like rodents and wild birds which can consume large amounts unnoticed, inflating costs. Use secure feeders and storage containers. Also, select pellet feeds over scratch mixes to minimise selective feeding and waste.

7. Maintain Chicken Health for Efficient Feed Use

Regular worming and health checks help chickens digest and absorb nutrients more efficiently, meaning less feed is needed to keep them productive and healthy. Healthy chickens convert feed more effectively, reducing overall costs.

Conclusion

By combining safe free ranging, homemade feed mixes, kitchen scraps, innovative feeding methods like Worthington’s and Balfour’s, securing feed storage, and maintaining health, you can markedly reduce your chicken feed bill without compromising your flock’s wellbeing. These strategies support responsible and sustainable chicken keeping for a happy, healthy flock.