I’ve seen this question several places –“I have plenty of corn-can I just feed my chickens corn and dispense with feeding them expensive commercial feed?”
The short answer is, “Yes.” You may feed your chickens whatever you want to feed them, and most chickens will usually gobble up corn before they’ll touch prepared feed.
If you have children, you may also feed them whatever you want to feed them—grilled cheese for every meal or maybe ice cream for breakfast, candy bars for lunch, root beer floats and pie for dinner.
You don’t though, do you?
Why not?
You don’t feed your children those things, because it’s not a healthy, balanced diet.
You also shouldn’t feed your chickens strictly corn, for the same reason.
A nicely written article from www.hencam.com explains how 19th century hens are different from 21st century hens. Even if we keep “heritage breed” chickens, life is different for them than it was 200 years ago.
“In the 19th century most chickens were barnyard scavengers. They hatched out under their mamas and were taught to look for grain in the horse stalls, and for bugs and greens in the garden. The farm wife tossed stale bread and kitchen scraps to the hens. Chickens destined for the table were fattened on sour milk. Sometimes, in the winter, they’d be given a handful of grain. The hens back then laid only a few eggs a week. This haphazard diet was enough sustenance for them. But, flocks became larger and more confined. Chickens were bred to lay more and more eggs. Instead of 90 eggs a year, a hen now might lay over 300. With the increase in egg production came an increase in the nutritional requirements of the flock.’“
There are those who will argue that corn contains all the nutrients necessary for a chicken to survive, and they may not be wrong. What they might not understand is that a chicken’s body is not able to utilize all those nutrients.
Corn is nearly always the main ingredient in purchased feed. It’s relatively inexpensive, readily available, and supplies carotene for nicely colored egg yolks and carbohydrates for energy.
Read labels!
It is only one ingredient among many, however.
According to Feeding Corn To Poultry, “Corn is the easiest grain for chickens to digest and is low in fiber.” This article continues to say, however, that corn does not provide certain things necessary for good health in poultry, so for example, it is often combined with soybean meal to boost protein and the enzyme phytase is added to allow birds to utilize the phosphorus in corn.
Harvey Ussery, in The Small-Scale Poultry Flock, devotes several chapters to feeding a flock. He explains in detail why feed for chickens should be varied, and even offers “recipes” for making feed at home.
If you have lots of corn, go ahead and feed some occasionally to your chickens. Read more about what nutrients your chickens should be getting to keep them healthy, though. Read about the different types of commercial feed, too. Just as you do at the grocery store, examine the labels. Think about why you have chickens, too. Are you using the eggs? Putting the birds in the freezer for dinners? Even if you just love watching your chickens—if you are putting in the time and effort to raise a flock –spend the time and effort to be sure you are feeding them a healthy, varied diet.
15 Comments
“You don’t feed your children those things, because it’s not a healthy, balanced diet. You also shouldn’t feed your chickens strictly corn, for the same reason.” Umm, yeah . . . but you I assume that you don’t whack the heads off your kids, and then pluck them, and then roast them, and then eat them for dinner either . . . or do you? You’re kinda unbalance, ain’t cha?
Good, real good info on corn being inadequate as chicken feed. Thanks, I didn’t know, I’m an arborist. If you have only a few lines to get someone to do the right thing nutritionally for chickens……how about advising 2 or 3 alternatives to corn instead of a paragraph against without an option for we idiots ? Our attention span is only 6 seconds, we don’t have time to read a book ! Our state governors in their infinite wisdom and panic prohibition are going to kill the economy and kill the food chain……starvation is fast upon us. Help !!!!! we have one Plymouth chicken that wandered onto our rural 5 acre hillside and adopted us, going to buy more before things get serious……” AND THEY’RE GOING TO GET SERIOUS QUICKLY. JESUS has a hand in all of this. We’ve been bad kiddies, spoiled, contentious, disobedient kiddies. Spank time, serious spank time is upon us.” Robert 1 V. 9 ” Please help me in a few words with an affordable, economic feed recommendation for chickens. Thanks
My sister has many allergies. She asked me to look up if chickens whom are fed corn, does the corn cross into the egg and affect someone with a corn allergy. Corn is as bad as wheat, just as you said. Could you please answer me so I will be able to give her the information.
Thank you,
Ruth Turcotte
Hi Ruth,
There are some things that a chicken can ingest that will show up in the egg (cross the blood membrane) such as antibiotics. But grains like corn are well digested by the bird and turned into enzymes and sugars in the digestive tract. Corn, as corn, doesn’t show up in the eggs. Please don’t hesitate to have your sister talk with her doctor as well.
Hi I would like to ask are hens able to lay eggs by feeding them mixed corn. My hens love mixed corn.
can someone please tell me why my chickens are not very heavy??I am feeding them good feed and garains but they seem not to be getting the feel of a nutrisous bird.what am I doing wrong?
Hi Mable, Likely you are not doing anything wrong. You don’t mention what breeds of birds you have, but they may not be those considered “heavy”. As long as they are getting all the nutrients they need, there’s probably not a problem.
The problem with corn and soy unless it is organic, is that 90% of the corn and soybeans raised in the US is genetically modified. I feed mine organic laying food and they free range. They also get kudzu which grows in the south and comfrey. Instead of scratch, I throw out birdseed for them to eat. It has vitamins, calcium, and keeps them very occupied in the chicken yard. It is not genetically modified grains. They also get the grass clipping when I mow, since their yard is getting sparse of grass. They are let out on the unprotected part of our property when I am doing work close.
Good for you! It sounds like you are doing good things with your flock. I try to be very careful of GMO’s, too, so I feed organic feed and grow organic corn in my garden. Keep up the good work!
When I was growing up in the 50’s and 60’s my grandparents had a farm in northern Arkansas. They feed cracked corn most every day…. No commercial feed. The caveat is that they got all the table scraps and free roamed an 80 acre farm. So although you can dodge the cost of commercial feed, you must compensate for it some way
And I had a great aunt who did the same thing here in New York State! I think she would have been appalled to think of buying feed for the chickens when there were scraps and corn. Now we worry about the additives in feed, the GMOs in grain, vitamins, minerals…it’s a matter of balance, isn’t it?
I raise backyard chickens and the free range all day, I give my chickens layer pellets with corn in a radio of 1:4 along with food scraps and scavenging the garden.
I give my 5 hens one cup of corn in the morning when I let them out then they get layer food and what ever else they find the rest of the day. I do give them some table scraps it depends on what is in it. And I put grass clippings in their pen. They like to dig through them to find bugs. They also get meal worms as a special treat. They are happy and lay good.
I think that last sentence says it all! That’s what we want from our flocks, isn’t it?
It’s not necessary to buy expensive commercial feeds. I have been raising poultry and small livestock for 35+ years and I make all of their feeds for almost nothing. Corn (whole grains) can be fed to poultry in three ways: as dry grain (whole or cracked), as a fermented feed, and sprouted. Each way provides additional nutrients and palatability of the grain. But what is even better is to locate LOCAL farmers who harvest, store, and sell grain from their farms. In most cases you can get feed a half the cost of feed stores. To find a local farmer, you can drive to the surrounding countryside and just look for a farm with grain storage silos, or call your local agricultural department and ask, or look on websites like Craigslist in the farm and garden section. I make a mixed grain scratch of corn/cracked corn, sorghum (milo), barley, rye, wheat, and sometimes sunflower seed; I also ferment it and sprout it for my birds. As well you can often find local bread company distributors who will give or sell (really cheap), stale bread from the warehouse. If your birds are confined, give them grass clippings and weeds from the flowerbeds and garden. And lastly, give them ALL of the table scraps, even meats.