My chicken feed recipe works for free-range chickens, who have access during the day to plenty of grass and bugs and other plants and roots. The feed mixture varies slightly from year to year depending upon what is available. There are a few essential core ingredients though, and a method of preparing the feed (sprouting the grains) that is critical. The quantity of feed depends upon the season. I don't like to feed them more than needed for a consistent egg production. Chickens will not forage but will gorge on feed if it is provided to them all day long. Though some feed is needed for chickens, I want my chickens to also forage so that they receive the most natural, optimal diet.
Core Ingredients:
2 parts hard red wheat berries (wheat with highest protein content, 15%)
1 part organic whole corn
1 part black oil sunflower seeds
1 part field peas (or other whole peas or small beans)
1 - 2 tsp kelp powder
oyster shells
I use organic wheat and organic corn. It is sometimes hard to find organic feed ingredients. Possible sources I have used over the years include: Wheat Montana, Countryside Naturals, Coyote Creek, Tractor Supply or other local feed stores, and Azure Standard. Feeds are very expensive - often the shipping cost is the biggest problem since we do not have good sources of local organic feeds here in the DFW area. This is another reason to let the chickens supplement their diet through foraging, especially during the growing season when nature is flourishing.
Currently, I purchase my wheat berries, organic whole corn, and green peas from Azure Standard. They also have soy-free mixed-grains scratch feed that I have been purchasing and using since last May. I will explain below how I use this in the feed. I purchase my black-oil sunflower seeds and oyster shells from Tractor Supply or Ag-Mart or other local feed stores. Kelp powder lasts a long time if you buy in bulk and I get it from a variety of places - my last bag was from Frontier Wholesale. We store our grains in plastic buckets with gamma lids (which screw on and off easily). Storage in buckets helps eliminate the spread of bugs - larvae are always in grains so you will have bugs occasionally. It is fine to still feed the grains to your chickens, but be careful you don't let bugs from one bag spread to all your grains.
The quantity of feed that we give to our chickens varies with the time of year. They do not have access to the feed all day long. Instead, we mix up a batch and toss it out to them in the morning when we let them out of the chicken coop. It gets them out in the grass foraging. When there is lots of green grass and plenty of bugs, we cut down on their feed. In the dead of winter or summer, when there is little outside food for them, we increase the feed slightly.
Chickens molt in the fall and their egg production decreases as the amount of daylight decreases. During this time period, they do not need as much feed. This is why we only slightly increase the feed during the winter. We never put artificial lights in our chicken coops to extend daylight hours because though this keeps up egg production, it is not healthy for the chickens. It does not allow them a rest time during the year, and it will affect the long-term health of the chickens.
Also, we try to eat with the seasons, not just our produce but all our foods. This is healthiest plan for us, it is as God intended. Eggs are plentiful in the spring and early summer, and thus we enjoy more egg dishes during this time of year. In the fall and winter, when egg production is down, we use our eggs in baking and have only an occasional breakfast of eggs.
Blending your chicken feed (amount for about 20 - 25 chickens):
Soak together in water overnight: 2 - 3 cups whole wheat berries and 1 - 1 1/2 cups black oil sunflower seeds. Fill water level a couple inches over the grains because they will absorb a lot of water and you want them to still be immersed in water in the morning. In the morning, drain off the water and place the wet seeds back in your bowl.
Stir or re-rinse again in the evening. We always have two mixes going at once since they are allowed to 'sprout' for 24 hours after soaking. At night one bowl is soaking in water, and one bowl is drained and sprouting (wet but not sitting in water). Sprouting the grains increases their protein content and nutritional benefits.
In the evening (24 hours after you started your first batch of wheat/sunflower seeds) soak: 1 - 1 1/2 cups of corn and 1 - 1 1/2 cups of peas or beans. You can soak them together. 
In the morning, drain the corn and peas and place in your feed container. Add the wheat/sunflower mix that has been soaked and then sprouted for 24 hours. Stir.
Sprinkle in kelp onto the wet grains, stir again. Sprinkle in oyster shells and other additions such as old grains and flax last. Stir to combine.
Each morning, drain the previous night's wheat/sunflower mix that is soaking and start soaking another batch. If I am adding soy-free scratch mixtures (I have been purchasing these from Azure Standard since they are available and contain field peas), I stir one cup into the wet mixture with the kelp. Since these scratches are ground pretty fine, it is important to add them to the wet mixture so they 'stick' to the larger sprouted grains and don't get lost on the ground when you toss out the chicken feed.
Optional ingredients (other things I add, if I have them) include:
old peas and beans from my kitchen
old grains or grains that have become buggy from my kitchen
flax seeds
other sprouting seeds if I find them cheap (such as radish seeds, mustard seeds, clover seeds, sesame seeds, etc)
soy-free scratch feeds (from Countryside Natural or Azure Standard)
Fertrell's in place of kelp
After mixing everything together, we let the chickens out and toss the feed to them. We go to a different spot in the field each day, and standing in one spot, toss it out radially in a circle using a large spoon. The chickens go to roost at night in their coop and we lock them in at dark to protect them from predators. Thus, we let the chickens out of their coop in the morning and feed them then.
We can see and taste the difference in the quality of our eggs. The eggs served at hotels and restaurants for breakfast are such an inferior quality, it is difficult to eat them. Find a source of good quality eggs and encourage your supplier to eliminate soy from their feed. Unfermented soy is a cheap source of protein that is not good for chickens (or people). In addition, almost all soy and corn produced in the U.S.A., in genetically modified, which is not only a serious health concern but it is a serious food production concern since all seed sources are being contaminated. The quality of the foods you eat affects your health.
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