How to Make Your Hens Beg for Breakfast

Quick Recap for Busy Chicken Peeps

• Chickens don’t want the same feed every meal

• Store-bought bags make eggs bland and “meh”

• Foraging shows hens crave variety and freshness

• BSFL (black soldier fly larvae) brings protein-packed nutrition

• Growing your own feed keeps costs and margins steady

Why My Hens Started Clucking Louder at Sunrise

I used to think breakfast was about me. Pancakes, eggs, maybe bacon sizzling in the pan. But one morning, as I carried a scoop of dusty kibble from the feed store bag to my hens, a question hit me sideways:

What about their breakfast?

For most backyard or small-scale farmers, breakfast is just another scoop from the same old bag. Day after day, it’s the same bland mix. Sure, it fills bellies. But joy? Not so much. And the eggs? They come out tasting like the bag they came from...forgettable.

If you’ve ever watched your hens closely, you know this truth already. They don’t scratch the same patch every day. One morning, they’re pecking furiously under the cottonwoods. Next, they’re at the compost pile like it’s a golden buffet. It isn’t random. They’re craving variety. Life. Something a feed sack will never provide.

The Question That Changes Everything

Here’s where the dangerous thought creeps in:

What if you could give your hens that same variety, without wasting money or time?

If you’ve asked yourself this, you already know what I discovered...healthy hens aren’t built on eating store-bought junk food. They’re designed to feast on a living buffet of bugs and seeds. 

That’s when I stumbled across the Purdue Extension guide on black soldier fly larvae (BSFL). Suddenly, the dots connected. Chicken keepers don't just want fresher eggs. We want a farm system that feeds itself, controls costs, and gives us peace of mind.

Building Breakfast the Way Nature Intended

Currently, at Blooming Health Farms, the system is taking shape with the help of a young individual who is completing court-ordered community service. So instead of making him pick up trash and muck out the coop, he's learning to use tools for the first time. Soon, the flies will show up, and larvae will wriggle into the menu.

It isn’t going to be glamorous. It isn’t an instant fix. But it is a system....a prototype feed hub that puts you, not the feed store, in control.

Imagine hens racing across the yard, clucking and scratching because breakfast isn’t bland anymore. It’s alive. Protein-packed. Exactly what nature wired them to crave.

And when you crack those eggs open, you’ll see yolks rich and golden. Not because a bag claimed it, but because your hens lived and ate the way they were designed to.

The Quiet Epiphany

Maybe you start this journey thinking it’s about cutting costs. But what you’ll discover is something bigger.

By moving from store-bought sameness to a self-sustaining system, you aren’t just feeding hens—you’re building resilience. You’re feeding them the way nature intended. And in the process, you’re feeding yourself something priceless: the confidence that every egg comes from birds living closer to how nature intended.

That’s the kind of breakfast worth waking up for.