Once a year, my family raises enough broiler chickens (meat birds) to sustain us for the year so we don’t have to buy chicken at the supermarket. I quickly realized that the feed at our local feed stores had GMO ingredients. So why was I going thru all the work to raise my own food only to feed it unhealthy ingredients? I started researching organic or NON-GMO chicken feed and how I could get my hands on it at a reasonable cost. In my area, the cheapest organic feed I can get shipped to me is thru amazon. So this led me on a journey to come up with my own homemade chicken feed recipe. I used this recipe last year for the first time. My birds were more active and healthy looking. They walked and moved around much more than the previous years. I’ve been happy with this feed recipe. We’ve figured up that it’s about $20 more per 200 lbs of feed over my local feed store.
What are broiler chickens?
How much water do broiler chickens drink?
Homemade Broiler Chicken Feed Recipe (Grower/Finisher):
- 12lb Oats
- 8 lb Soft White Wheat
- 8 lb Hard Red Wheat
- 6 lb Sunflower Seeds
- 5 lb Lentils
- 5 lb Split Peas
- 2 lb Flax Seed
- 1 lb Sesame Seeds
- 1 lb Kelp
- 4 tbsp Organic Coconut Oil
- 4 drops Oregano essential oil
Mix together and store in an air tight container.
I purchase this starter feed for my broiler chicks. Once they are ready for grower feed I use the above recipe. Good luck naturally feeding your homestead chickens.
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14 Comments
Can you tell me how many chickens this recipe will feed? And for how long? I’m trying to prepare for our very first batch of broiler chicks. I want to do organic feed. We will be raising some chicks for friends as well, so I’m trying to get a cost figured out. If we get 25 chicks… can you tell me how many ‘servings’ of this above recipe we would need over the 8-10 weeks they’re growing?
We usually buy about 50 meat birds at a time. I can’t give you an exact number on how long this will last. 6-8 weeks in the beginning. As they get larger you’ll go thru it faster. We load it in a 5lb feeder bucket and they freely eat during the day.
How big are the end bird carcasses and how long is the growth from start to finish? I’m curious cause according to my math this is only 15% protein while standard feeds are above 20%. So I’m curious if it works just as good or if I have to add a whole lot more weeks and feed time driving up the cost overall.
Great question. We grow for 12 weeks and birds are 6 to 10lbs. Some roosters are a little heavier. Here’s the type of birds we usually get: https://www.efowl.com/shop/jumbo-cornish-cross-chickens-cackle/.
I ran a test with a friend. We bought these birds together. We both had around 50 birds. She fed conventional feed. I fed this recipe. Her birds were a little larger in the 11-12 weeks we raised but she also fed more more feed. We butchered them together so we were able to see everything side by side. Her birds weren’t as healthy. She had more fatalities than I did and they had more fat on the skin. I’ve raised this breed both ways and while the breast is meatier with conventional feed, I prefer to have healthier birds that don’t put on the weight so quickly. They are perkier, walk around more and I don’t lose as many before processing day. Maybe we could add more protein to this recipe to get it closer to 20%?
Great Information! Thank you for taking the time to share it with others. We are getting ready to raise our first broilers, and we plan to use your recipe.
Thank you
Thank for the recipe I just started these hen poultry and I need ur advice pls I have 20 broiler and I want it to grow fast what is ur opinion and what to feed them
I use an organic chick starter grower from the local store. I start this recipe about 6 weeks old.
Do you soak the feed in water before feeding or feed dry?
Feed dry
Can you use this as starter feed for the chicks as well, if one were to grind it?
I’m not positive. I always used store bought organic for chick’s.
Just wondering — how would you adjust the recipe to make it 20% protein? I’m using conventional feed this time raising Freedom Rangers, but I would love to feed my next batch homemade organic feed. I think they’d need a higher protein ratio, though, because they already grow at a slower rate than Cornish Cross. Thanks so much for sharing this recipe!
Thank you for this. When you say this costs $20 more per 200 lbs than the feed at the store, are you comparing it to organic, non-GMO feed, or just the basic cheap stuff?
Organic