CHICKEN FEED

[old-wos-is-name]

Is it possible to keep a couple of chickens and feed them on household scraps or do I need to buy chicken food?

[Buenchico]

Quote:
"It is illegal to feed chickens with waste food from your kitchen, including vegetable scraps"

Source:
http://www.direct.gov...mallholders/DG_189309

Chris

[old-wos-is-name]

Buenchico,
I am amazed. I see lady gardeners on the tv that are trying to be self sufficient and they keep chickens in smaller coops than the legal ones on the government site, they feed them on household scraps, re-cycle the egg shells back to the chickens for grit and seem totally unaware of any law. I am totally at a loss to see why you should not feed household scraps to hens ( not meat). I doubt if many, If any, poultery keepers know of this law.

[Graham-W]

I would imagine most back yard chicken keepers know about this law and choose to break it. I used to keep three hens in our yard. They were fed on poultry mix but ate very little. They seemed quite happy keeping my lawn at a resonable level with me only cutting it a couple of times a year. They also got scraps that were cooked in a special kitchen ( if you know what I mean).

[ruthann58]

mine are fed layers pellets , food from the special kitchen and also allowed to roam free range during the day eating slugs worms and anything else that takes their fancy no doubt defra has a rule about that as well ,

[wildwood]

Well blow me down with a feather! Illegal to feed chicken kitchen scraps? We must have been breaking the Law for years when we had chooks for eggs. What a waste dumping good food into the rubbish!

[B00]

What's a "special kitchen"?

[Old_Geezer]

It's a kitchen with learning difficulties.

[Barmaid]

I feed mine largely with layer pellets and some mixed corn but they are free range so they can grub around for stuff anyway. I knew that you can't feed them kitchen scraps therefore, I make sure that the "treats" they get are not kitchen scraps. ie, I take the leaves off a cauli or carrots outside. Thus they haven't entered my kitchen.

Now its getting colder, I also make up a warm mash with their pellets and some hot water which they seem to appreciate.

[tamborine]

Unwise to feed egg shells as chooks will peck their newly laid eggs thinking it as food. Best to buy chooks grain feeds which contain required nutrients; wheat/barley etc.

Protein feed (in scraps) is restricted from livestock as a precaution against Foot & Mouth.

[Barmaid]

It's OK to feed eggshells if they have been roasted and crushed. Lot of mucking about in my view. Mine seem perfectly happy and healthy and are still knocking eggs out (even though they should probably be off lay by now) without all that trouble.

You can't stop them eating animal protein though. If mine see a toad, frog or mouse, it's a gonna. If one of the cats brings a "kill" home, the chickens will take it off the cat and fight over it. (You really don't want to be in the middle of a chicken/cat fight, trust me).

Also OWIN you need a nice cosy, safe coop to protect from Mr Fox. You will also need to treat for worms, lice and red mite regularly.

It's quite a bit of work (especially trapsing over the garden at 7am in a real rimey frost to let them out or cleaning the hen house in sub zero temperatures), but they are cute, are a great natural pest control and their eggs are delicious!

[tamborine]

While its hard to monitor free range poultry it only takes one mis-fed chook to start an epidemic & wipe out livestock.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/...th-yorkshire-15431088

[Kleiber]

It is NOT illegal to feed chickens on kitchen scraps, i.e. veg trimmings, leftover bread, fruit peel etc (they don't like onions or uncooked spud or citrus). I have a smallholding and have fed my chickens on scraps for years. What DEFRA are saying, and quite rightly so, is that farm animals should not be fed on what we used to call "swill" that we gave to pigs especially, because of the risk if transmitting disease. Pigs especially must not be fed anything that has traces of meat in it and they must not have access to any compost heaps or muck heaps. As far as chickens are concerned, you are fine to feed vegetable or fruit scraps (cook your potato peelings first) or old bread, cakes etc., but don't give any meat or meat derivatives. Having said that, you should make up their main diet with layers' pellets and mixed poultry corn, with some grit to help digestion and the formation of the egg shells. You can't keep any livestock on a budget so if you can't afford to buy proper chicken feed, don't bother.