I especially appreciate Lindsey’s tips on how to tell if you’re feeding enough. It makes perfect sense now.

We usually use laying pellets and give it to them free choice in a covered feeder that holds two 50 lb. bags. When we didn’t have that, we learned through trial and error how much they needed.

When they weren’t getting attacked by the insane number of predators we have lately (the children JUST came in and informed me they trapped a raccoon – using the dead chicken he attacked yesterday…) we would let them out in the morning and leave the coop open – they would go back to the nests in the coop. But they had already been laying in the coop without ranging for quite a while, so they knew where home was. Rarely the children would find a stash in the woods.

Currently we feed free-choice layer pellets, and throw all our food scraps to them, and yes, that does mean leftover food, bread, veggie trimmings, coffee grounds, their own egg shells, meat scraps when we process meat. Whatever they don’t eat, they scratch into the ground. When we clean out the goat barn, we enjoy pitching in piles of hay, then watching them spread it out for us as they hunt for bugs. We also pick “chicken salad” for them when they aren’t ranging – we pick piles of weeds (all chicken-safe), grass, etc. It’s amazing to watch a chicken snap off a 3-inch piece of grass and gobble it down.

In the past, we actually supplied whole corn, whole oats, soybean meal, and oyster shell in separate containers free choice. We made sure there was plenty of grit in the coop – sand and small rough pebbles. Never had any digestive problems. I’ve read about people who sprout whole grain for chickens in large amounts – apparently this is very healthy, and supplies “greens” requirements when you can’t range your chickens.

Never asked grocery stores for scraps – I’m going to just to see what I find! For 6 months in 2003 we did a “Publix run” – we were allowed to pick up ALL the scraps from the bakery and produce from one particular Publix – we did this for our pigs and used some for the chickens. We’re glad we don’t do this anymore – it required a commitment for my husband to be there at 6:30 EVERY morning and the children and I would take 2-3 hours every day to unpackage everything, sort it, and get it ready for the animals. We gleaned a lot of stuff for ourselves as well, but been there, done that, don’t want to do it again.

And whenever the children find grubs in the yard, or a horse you don’t have any more spills feed and a HUGE colony of meal worms/whatever larva it was develops – we scoop that up and deliver a special treat to the hens.

One way around this non-laying period is to put a light in the coop at night. We did this when our girls were younger. DH put in a bulb with a photosensor on the outside of the coop, attached to the fixture (in some vague, electrically way) and when it got dark outside the light would come on (around dusk) and in the morning, when the sun came up, the light went out. This fools the birds into thinking there are 24 hours of daylight and they don’t stop laying.

Lightning hit our photosensor so it’s out of the picture now and our girls are getting older now anyway. The oldies are over 4 years and the others have been laying for 2 years this week. We’re getting set to raise a new batch from the hatchery but we like our birds so much that we’ll definitely be keeping some of them, just for their great personalities.

One thing we did to encourage forage was to feed them only by hand. We left the feeder empty and tossed out a coffee can of scratch and another of cracked corn a couple times a day. We gauged how often to do this by how many eggs they were laying. If we only threw out one can a day, production was WAY down. If we threw out 2 or 3 it was back to normal and if we tossed them any more it was the same and there were more scorpions in the house and ticks in the yard It’s a balancing act.

You could also mention to a local yard service that you’d like some grass clippings- though you might end up with lawn chemicals in that unless you know the lawns.