In this informal, family‑focused tutorial Victor (Speaker A) shows how to keep six backyard chickens thriving on kitchen food scraps at virtually no cost. He walks through the chicken‑tractor setup, demonstrates how the birds are fed a rotating mix of fruit, vegetable, and other household waste, and clarifies common myths about unsafe foods (onions, garlic, avocado pits). He quantifies egg output from two‑year‑old hens (about half an egg per bird per day, roughly 30 ¢ per egg compared to commercial feed) and explains when supplemental feed may be needed. The video also details how to collect and spread chicken bedding and manure onto garden beds as a natural fertilizer, integrates cover‑crop planting (broccoli, alfalfa), and offers practical fencing tips. Throughout, children help with feeding, planting, and fence building, illustrating a hands‑on, educational approach to sustainable homesteading.
Chapters
You need some help? You sure? 6 chickens in a chicken tractor. Nice area, nice area to be garden. Deep bedded. And the best part is these chickens are giving— Lily, how many eggs a day are these chickens giving? 2, 3, sometimes 3. And they're old chickens, they're like over 2 years old. Production can cut as much as half at that age. The beautiful part, the most part I'm most excited about— ready? You guys want to— you want to see their food? This is all we feed them. Liquids and everything, because the liquids— hold on— because the liquids just run through. Don't do it yet. The liquids just run through, down through the mulch, and nourish the garden. Banana peels, acorn squash, collard, kale, apples, oh, butter, onions, carrots, broccoli stems, butternut squash stems. Oranges, strawberries. All right, release the posse. They know right where to go. You gotta love chickens.
Come see where they're hiding, right? Okay, you have to pull this out. The nests are down under them.
Okay, they like to have— they like to lay underneath the nest box. You might have heard that chickens don't eat certain things. Seems like chickens eat everything. Somebody say don't feed onions, don't feed garlic. Oh, to make your eggs taste like garlic. Well, Lily, is that so bad that eggs would taste like onion and garlic? But it's never happened. I feed them onions and garlic all the time. Somebody say, oh, don't feed them avocados because the skins and the pits are toxic to them. Guess what? They don't eat the pits and skins. Is there anything you guys don't like? I mean, they shouldn't eat junk food, just like you shouldn't eat junk food. Orange peels and citrus can be good for them. I mean, that's not all you want to feed them. You don't want to feed them all orange peels. Just like with anything, you don't want to feed them all lettuce. I mean, you want to have a good mix. You might wonder, well, how can I do this myself? Food scraps? Well, 16% of our trash— Americans' trash— is actually food scraps. I would say if you could give them half a pound each, you'd have enough. So if you have 3 pounds of food scraps a day, you could have— feed 6 chickens on that. If you didn't have that some days, you could supplement with some feed or have less chickens. It depends on what your goal is. If you don't mind supplementing a little bit, supplement a little bit. Are they as productive as chickens on fermented grain, say? There's chicken on fermented. They're a little more productive, but not that much right now. They're laying about half an egg a day, say. And now it is early spring, so that's lower production, and they are old. They're laying half an egg a day, and those are laying about a third of an egg a day, sometimes more. But those cost nothing. These cost about 30 cents an egg. That's premium organic feeds.
All right, let's go.
Hey, has Violet had her baby? I don't know.
Have I kidding?
Suspense, suspense.
Oh no, she hasn't. I thought she laid down in the dark.
All right, 5 sprays.
1, 2, 3, 4.
You had done 5. Oh, don't give her the orange pill. Well, we'll give her a few orange pills among the apples.
Hey Papa. Yeah, how many orange peels do we put in there?
Yeah, count them. And let's cut that apple in half.
3 orange peels in here. Little one, a big one.
Let's see if we can trick her into eating them.
2 big ones and 2 little ones in that one.
Okay. Yep. Here, put this to the side so she doesn't bust it. Oh, Jonah ran off with my knife. Why doesn't he have his knife? That's all right, I'll show you a trick. Whole apple. Gird up your loins! Ripped that apple in half with my bare hands. I know you kids will like that one. All right, bring her on. We can't trick you, huh? See if she'll eat the alfalfa. Hopefully it didn't give too many sprays. Well, she's eating it. Oh wow. Oh yeah. All right, trying to feel to see if they're getting any tighter. She's getting kind of filthy back there. They say that, uh, diarrhea can be normal when they're coming close to birth. Oh yeah, that— yeah, wait, don't put fresh water in yet. Just how you muck so we don't get any dirty, dirty stuff in that. Yeah, go pour it out. You can be filling it up.
Where'd the manure go?
This— let's put the bedding on a future garden. Thank you for that deposit. You don't like this? Here, I'll get rid of the oranges so you'll eat it. I think we tricked her into one orange, but we're not gonna trick her too much. Yeah, you got it right there. You spread that stuff out here.
Look, like where that got spread in.
Our cover crops are coming up, and then our chickens will come in here next.
Broccoli's in here, I think.
Yesterday we planted all these. We had too wet of a soil. Jonah, bless his heart, strained it. Yeah, we got a strainer out here, strained it out, and look, he made almost perfect blocks.
I know. I'm set for that.
You guys want to plant the broccoli?
Yeah.
Who likes broccoli?
Me! Me! Only when it's cooked perfectly and like round.
Here, give me some hands.
I do like when it's too long.
One in each one. Here, you want to do it? No, I don't want to do it. Okay, why don't you start on that end, Josiah, and Lily, I'll start on this end.
Wait, I already did these two. Wait, I already did those two.
Okay. All right, and then put it, put it back up there. We have to remember to come label it.
We said we have to water.
Jonah insisted on setting up the next cow area. What are you doing? Oh, you gotta move that manure? Yeah, the muck. Kids are moving the muck to the garden area. Jonah's setting up the next area for the cows. Don't think he'll mind if I get the water.
What?
What? You're doing good, buddy. Good job. Are you already ready for us except for the cross fence?
Yeah.
Okay, good. Hey, if you, if you put up your side fence— one little tip— if you put up your side fence at a post like this, we can make a gate right here and you don't have to add a post. That's okay though, we'll just add a post over here real quick. That's okay, we would just make the— we would just make the cross fences closer, shorter. What do you like, Jonah? Okay, just the middle pole in the cross here. Can I at least do this? Yeah. Maybe that'll do. All right, come on, Johnny, you got that lane. Here she comes. Wow, the kid's already mucked it. You don't want to leave? She doesn't like backing out of that extension.
She doesn't.
Come on, Lily, back up. Oh wow, it came right out. That was handy.
Oh wow.
Yeah, it's already starting to compose. You regretting your decision not to go? She's got her tail up. Did she poop? I don't know, because— but she did put it back down, so she's probably just a— probably just a poop.
