We came up short financially this summer, so the chickens free-ranged it without any pellets. Luckily, we had loads of food in the back yard to share with them: peaches, sunflowers, squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, as well as the usual grass, bugs and slugs (we'd turn over rocks for them), etc. They also ate weeds which serve as herbal health tonics. Oh, and they will leap for food hilariously! Ours were leaping for blackberries and rose petals all the time. In the fall, the edible weed patch I keep will feed the chickens, too. Lambsquarter and amaranth seed heads. I've had volunteer millets grow under the wild bird feeders....I just let them and gave what the wild birds left to the hens. They do like to have pellets around for a solid meal once a day, but ours kept flourishing when solely free ranged as described for a few months. It's a great opportunity to use human snacks as treats which tame the birds and get them to let you pick them up, come when called, leap for a treat, and other "tricks". We give them cereal, bread crusts, tortilla chips, and other grain-based snacks as treats. Now all I have to do to re-coop them is to shake a cereal bag as I walk in and sprinkle a little around. There's a mob!