Website owner: James Miller
What kind of food did early settlers feed their chickens?
Q. What kind of food did early settlers feed their chickens?
A. Before commercial bag feed was invented in the 1920s, early settlers relied on foraging, kitchen scraps, and surplus farm grains to feed their chickens. Because chickens were highly resourceful "yard birds," settlers rarely bought specific food for them; instead, the birds survived on whatever they could scavenge around the homestead.
Early settler chicken diets were divided into three main categories:
1. Free-Range Foraging
Settlers allowed their flocks to roam completely free to minimize feeding costs. While wandering the farm, chickens ate:
● Insects and pests: Flocks gorged on beetles, worms, ticks, grasshoppers, and larvae.
● Small animals: Chickens naturally hunted small mice, frogs, lizards, and snakes.
● Manure piles: Chickens frequently scratched through cow, pig, and horse manure to find undigested seeds and fly maggots.
● Pasture greenery: They ate fresh grass, clover, wild berries, and weeds.
● Grit: The birds instinctively ate tiny stones and pebbles, which stayed in their gizzards to grind up tough foods.
2. Kitchen and Dairy Waste
Nothing went to waste on an early homestead. Households threw all organic leftovers into the chicken yard, including:
● Sour dairy: Sour milk, clabbered milk, and leftover whey from cheese-making provided excellent protein.
● Stale baked goods: Hard bread, crusts, and stale corn cakes were regularly softened with water or milk and fed to the birds.
● Table scraps: Families tossed out animal carcasses, meat scraps, lard trim, and boiled potato skins.
● Garden surplus: Damaged or overripe vegetables like pumpkins, cabbage, tomatoes, and beets kept the birds fed through the harvest season.
3. Surplus Grains and Mill Waste
During the winter months when foraging was impossible, settlers supplemented their chickens with raw grains:
● Whole or cracked grains: Settlers threw out handfuls of cracked corn, oats, sorghum heads, and wheat berries.
● Mill sweepings: If a settler lived near a local gristmill, they could buy or gather "mill sweepings"—the cheap, spilled grain dust and fragments swept off the floor.
● Animal feed overlap: Chickens regularly cleaned up the spilled grain left behind in horses' and cows' feeding troughs.
Source: Google AI
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