Chickens are picky eaters. You can offer them nothing but pelleted feed but once they get tired of it, they will eat less. Which can make their egg laying drop. If your hens must be penned up and don’t get much free range time, crafting a beautiful scratch treat is a great way to spoil them and give them an egg-producing boost! Here are a few non-GMO, healthy chicken scratch recipes our flock enjoys:
Please note that chicken scratch is a treat, meant to be less than 10% of your hen’s food intake, and is not a balanced feed for confined birds. You can find old fashioned chicken feed recipes here!
Non-GMO Chicken Scratch Recipes
These blends have been hand-mixed in our farmhouse kitchen and tested by our flock. While non-GMO whole corn and non-GMO cracked corn is available for adding to any chicken treat, the chicken scratch recipes below do not use any corn and only call for non-GMO grains and seeds. (Afflinks) You can view a list of the GMO and non-GMO grains here. Opt for organic whole grains if you want to also avoid any glyphosate sprayed on the grains.
Chicken Scratch Trail Mix
Our flock loves this chicken scratch recipe, with it’s wide variety of colorful bits and flavorful natural foods. Hens will come flapping and screaming for this scratch mix, making afternoon round ups much easier! Because it contains some dried fruit, it is best to make it up in 1-2 pound portions that will be used up within 14 days and keep it in an airtight container.
The recipe is given in parts so you can make as little or as much as you want. I used 1 Tablespoon per “part” in my ingredient images.
Chicken Scratch Trail Mix Recipe:
1 part Whole Wheat Berries
1 part Whole Oats
1 Part Black Oil Sunflower Seeds
1 part Pearled Barley
1 part Split Green Peas
1/2 part Craisins (dried cranberries)
1/2 part Raisins
1/2 part Dried Meal Worms
Raisins have 4% protein and 0% fat. Craisins have 0.17% protein and 1.09% fat. Using the nutritional chart below (scroll down), this blend has an estimated 12.42% protein and 6.75% fat. This is too little protein and too much fat to be used as a daily laying hen feed. It is only a treat.
Simple Scratch Mix
This blend contains no dried fruit so it keeps longer and can be made in larger batches. Hens still love this mix and will greedily eat it all!
Simple Scratch Mix Recipe:
1 part Whole Wheat Berries
1 part Whole Oats
1 Part Black Oil Sunflower Seeds
1 part Pearled Barley
1 part Green Split Peas
1/2 part Dried Meal Worms
Using the nutritional chart below (scroll down), this blend has an estimated 16.23% protein and 8.91% fat. This is adequate protein but too much fat to be used as a daily laying hen feed. It is only a treat.
A Note About Barley
Barley can cause chicken poops to become slightly sticky if the hens eat too much. Some hens will naturally skip eating the grain. If you find your flock is not enjoying the barley or their poops become sticky, you can skip the barley in these recipes. It will change the percent fat & protein of the scratch blend but it’s easy to calculate the new amounts using the chart below! You can read how to get cleaner laid eggs if your flock already deals with poopy egg issues.
Calculating Nutritional Values of Chicken Scratch recipes
The chart below can help you determine the percent of fat and protein in your chicken scratch blends:
Keeping Chicken Scratch Fresh
All chicken feeds and scratch mixes should ideally be used within 30 days. You’ll notice your flock eats better if feeds and grains are as fresh as possible and have not been sitting for too long. I prefer to keep the scratch blends containing dried fruit indoors, in a mason jar where I know the climate controlled indoor air will keep everything fresh and mold-free.
Vittles Vault Storage
For scratch mixes containing only grains, peas, and meal worms I store them in Vittles Vault brand containers in the garage where the blend will be used up in less than a month. You can find the decal SVG file shown above on our Free Chicken Feed Bin Labels page. Newsletter subscribers have access to even more designs using the Member’s Library password included at the bottom of each email!
What Is Your Flock’s Favorite?
If you have a chicken scratch recipe your flock loves, feel free to leave a comment and share!
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