Homemade Chicken Feed Recipe

You may recall that a couple of years ago my friend Penny gave me a few buckets of her 55-year-old food storage—pinto beans, powdered milk, and wheat.  I tested out the powdered milk in several recipes.  It passed the taste tests in Magic Mix, which was then turned into cream of chicken soup, yogurt, and puddings, but I’m not convinced that there’s much nutrition left in it. So I didn’t use the rest of it.  It’s now in the basement with the rest of our food storage, waiting its day to be shared with those who chose not to prepare.  The beans?  They got pressure canned and I think they’re just about gone now. But the wheat had weevil skins in it.  I turned my nose up at it and put it in the compost.  We didn’t have chickens then.  And we still don’t but KOTPE does.   

Anyway, Penny called me a couple of weeks ago and asked if I wanted the rest of her old food storage.  She’s in her late eighties now and has decided to sell her home.  And she doesn’t want any of that food around anymore.  Of course, I wanted everything. 

I can’t say that I want to eat any of it.  I am perfectly satisfied with what I have already stored for my family.  I won’t bring that food in the house because it is covered with dust, spider webs, and probably spider eggs.  After 55 years in the desert heat, it’s not going to be improved by bringing it inside.  And yet, I think there is still some value in it.  I knew the wheat could be fed to chickens—we’ve done it before.  And the chickens all lived!

But with this amount of wheat and other items (there are close to 100 4-gallon buckets), I wanted a formula for feeding them.  I wanted to be sure not feed too much wheat.  Well, I’m not feeding them.  I’m just putting this together for KOTPE to feed his chickens.  It will cut down on his feed costs. 

So I asked around and a friend found the following recipe.  It comes from The Prairie Homestead, who got it from permaculture chicken guy Justin Rhodes.

Homemade Chicken Feed

30% corn

30% wheat

20% peas

10% oats

10% fish meal

2% poultry nutri–balancer

Free choice kelp 

Free choice aragonite

Mix together and feed as you would any other chicken feed. Since you are using whole grains, your feed should not lose its nutritive content as quickly as more processed feeds.

Of course, this is just for the wheat that has weevil skins in it, or for using up grains whose buckets crack.  I’m afraid there are a few of those.  That plastic is so old that it’s become quite brittle.  Wheat that isn’t compromised will be shared with those who didn’t prepare.  Not that I would have any problem sharing wheat with weevil skins in it.  There’s just no reason to keep storing it when it could be used to feed chickens now.

Links to related posts:

Antiques Road Show, Food Storage Edition 

Terror in a Bucket:  55-Year-Old Powdered Milk  

References:

https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2016/06/homemade-chicken-feed-recipe.html