How Were Chickens Fed Before Commercial Feed?

To think commercial feed has only been around for about 100 years. While chickens themselves have not changed much, our approach to feeding them has evolved to provide a more balanced diet to the backyard flock. In the past, keeping backyard flocks – especially in cities and urban areas – was uncommon. Eggs and meat were considered a delicacy and expensive. They were often a seasonal delight due to their reproductive cycle.

Since they did not thrive in winter, it was expensive to replace them each year. Most families would maintain a small flock to only provide their family with what they need. Without modern conveniences like refrigeration, food spoiled quickly, and rural life forced a level of self-sufficiency to use what they had to make it work. Below are some common ways they fed the flock before commercial feeds became available:

Garden Vegetables

Chickens enjoyed a variety of homegrown produce. Beets, tomatoes, pumpkins, cabbage, and lettuce are among their favorites.

Free Ranging 

Access to fresh grass, foraging for insects, scratching through a manure pile for worms or larvae. They also instinctively ingested small stones or grit to help break down food in the gizzard. Chickens are skilled hunters, and it is not uncommon for them to go for small snakes, toads, skinks, or salamanders.

Kitchen Scraps

Households made use of every available resource, feeding their chickens leftovers such as meat carcasses, whey, clabbered milk, stale bread, boiled potato skins, and other veggie scraps cooked in the potato water. These scraps helped supplement their diet with protein and carbohydrates.

Grains and Dried Seeds

Chickens scavenged spilled grains from larger livestock feeding and were offered grains such as sorghum grain heads, dried cracked corn, wheat berries, and whole oats.

The Evolution of Chicken Nutrition

With the introduction of commercial poultry feeds, flocks now receive optimized nutrition tailored to their life stage and activity level. A balanced diet supports higher egg production, better overall health, and ensures each bird gets equal nutritional value, rather than relying on random foraging or scrap items. 

However, if your birds are allowed to range, you can still utilize many of these traditional feeding methods above to offset feed costs, especially in the warmer months.while also providing a small feed ration daily, which ensures they continue to receive the necessary nutrients for optimal health and productivity.