Chook porridge - cheap chook food!

In the winter my chookies appreciate some warm food in the cold Brisbane winters where the temperature drops into single figures overnight! Boy! Waking up to 9 degrees is pretty chilly for us sub-tropical-ians!

Every so often I get bags of stale bread rolls from work and one day it dawned on me that I didn't just have to throw 'em over the fence to the squawking ones but I could create chicken porridge, without the demise of a single chicken...

Here's what I did...

Chopped and crushed the stale bread rolls

Popped them in a pot and poured over some water and added various grains and seeds, a bit of milk, left over yogurt and heated and mushed it until it looked like porridge. 

And then I fed it to the chookies

Ah - might be a bit warm still....

But once its cooled - they eat it all up -

And then it turns into eggs!

Easy peasy porridge! Good way to feed left over bread to the chookies and give them a warm, nutritious breakfast (that would be the nuts, seeds and yogurt not the white bread). They seem to like it and it only takes a few minutes.

I have also made this with crusts left over from sandwiches that I got from an after school program as well with just as much success.

I have found that chooks aren't very bright and I have to wait for the porridge to cool a bit before giving it to them. The first time I gave it to them they dived straight in and looked like they had burnt their wee beaks - but kept coming back for more until I took it away to cool down. I didn't think they would approach a steaming hot pile of food - but I was wrong. So, now I leave it on the bench until I can comfortably stick my finger into the centre of it before taking it out to them.

If you put it in the fridge and mark it 'Chicken Porridge' - expect members of your family to tell you it needs more salt and that they really couldn't taste the chicken...  (and I thought the chickens wernt very bright!)

Score card:
Green-ness: 5/5 To use up food instead of it going to landfill is very green!
Frugal-ness: 5/5 To feed the chookies on free food scraps is very frugal
Time cost: As long as normal porridge I reckon!
Skill level: Round and round the cauldron go - as long as you can stir like the witches in McBeth and add ingredients with a flourish, it will be just fine (at least I have had no complaints from the chookies to date!)
Fun -ness: The Chookies think its great fun!