The Chickens in my Backyard and What They Eat

I love watching the Chickens run down the ramp first thing in the morning! It's like watching a bunch of kids running down the stars on Christmas morning as they tear into the fresh batch of weeds and grass and bugs. We will move them sometimes during the day too, and they love the fresh violet greens, dandelions, the grass that's gone to seed. I will pick them garden greens and all but Alpha will eat them.

Alpha looking for some bugs.

Alpha worries me. She was first out of the shell but she is at the very bottom of the pecking order. She is so tiny and docile. We have to pull her out at feeding time (We are feeding them chick starter still) or she gets ran right over. She gets lots of babying by our 10 yr old. The sooner we get rid of 4 of the chickens the better it will be for Alpha.
We are 90% sure 2 are boys and I am hoping my husband will try his had at butchering them, because I would really like the meat. We will get rid of the one red that bites! That leaves one more we will have to find a home for.

Moving it in the morning before letting the chickens out.

One of my past posts I talked about Amaranth and wondered if we could feed it to the chickens.
My wonderful husband found this blog post about it, Can Chickens eat Amaranth?  This Arizona Victory Garden looks like a good one to follow, there is a lot of info on it.
Frank also found this one Chicken Garden on growing a garden just for your chickens! I learned a lot from both of these articles and I hope you do too.

Be sure to feed your potato bugs (if you don't use any bug sprays on them or the plants!) to the chickens. They love those crunchy little protein packed snacks.