Can You Raise Chickens Without Grain? What Nutrients do Free Range Chickens Need? What Alternatives to Commercial Feeds Can You Use to Raise Chickens? What Can You Feed Chickens Without Grain? Grain-Free Flocking: Can You Raise Chickens Without Grain? You may have heard of raising chickens without grain, but how does it work? There is only one farm that raises chickens this way, and it is in Vermont. We contacted farmer Karl Hammond and offered to compost our restaurant’s food scraps for his chickens. I asked him how much grain his chickens need daily and he answered that it was zero percent.