Growing food for Chickens

Mary Larham explores some crops to grow on your holding…

I love my chickens to be as free range as possible. Helping themselves to wind-falls in the orchard, scratching around wherever we let them (or can restrict them to), the hens are happy and they reward us with plenty of eggs.

But with the constant threat of visits from Mr Fox they often have to be restricted from full blown free-range, particularly in the short days of winter. The way in which a large grassy area can then be turned into a barren waste-land can be quite frightening. This also increases the need for supplying them with extra feed – at the time when their output all but dries up!

In ‘days of old’, it was commonplace to feed kitchen scraps to chickens, and in fact was publicly encouraged as an economical way to convert kitchen by-products into eggs and meat (and manure!). Raw vegetables would often be minced first before being used, whilst others, such as potato peelings would be cooked or steamed first in order to make them more palatable. Even the water from this cooking would be given to the flock (often mixed in with the feed to create a ‘mash’) as it contained valuable vitamins and minerals. It was clearly understood that this waste should not contain meat products or have been in contact with the same.

Current legislation is very clear that the feeding of kitchen scraps to livestock is regulated, with strict guidance being provided on what can and cannot be fed to animals that sit within our food chain. In a nutshell, kitchen scraps are now a no-no unless the ‘food preparation area’ is registered or vegan.