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Introduction: The backyard poultry farming contributes to the development of rural communities by preserving species, culture, and tradition, thus promoting food security. The sustainability of these systems is contingent upon overcoming productivity issues associated with traditional management practices. However, the characterization of nutritional management remains limited, constraining opportunities for improvement. Objective: To characterize the nutritional management of backyard poultry in three rural areas of the Antioquia department. Methods: Thirty backyard poultry farms in rural areas of San Roque (17), Maceo (7), and Caracolí (6) municipalities were characterized. Data were collected through a systematic survey including bird species, number of birds, feeding frequency, and types of feed. Data were compared between municipalities using the Kruskal-Wallis test and presented as median ± interquartile range. Thus, the frequencies of feed types are presented as the percentage of occurrence in the total identified feeds. Results and Discussion: Caracolí had the highest number of backyard birds per farm (44±24), compared to Maceo (24±13) and San Roque (16±21) (P=0.02). San Roque had a higher number of hens per farm (14±14; P=0.02). The fattening of chickens showed a similar number of birds per farm in all three municipalities (9±9; P=0.23). These systems had a similar number (P=0.19) of other livestock (7±5.5) and similar feeding frequency (1.5±1 times/day; P=0.32). Three farms provided ad libitum feeding, while the remaining offered 88.9±60 g/bird/day of feed (P=0.84). The types of feed identified were whole corn (54.1%), concentrates (21.3%), mixtures of concentrates + by-products (10.45%), corn meal (6.55%), forages (2.27%), cooked kitchen residues (1.63%), and cheese whey (1.63%). Conclusion: The variety of identified feeds reflects producers' adaptation to locally available resources. However, ad libitum feeding in some characterized farms may influence the sustainability of these systems. Acknowledgments: Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development - MADR and the Colombian Agricultural Research Corporation - Agrosavia for their technical and financial support through the project: MADR Agreement 334-2023. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]