Best/Easies Grains to Raise for Chickens

[retiredwith4acres]

I have a small area that I am thinking about growing some grains for our chickens. I need suggestions of what to grow. I know corn, if I could get it by the racoons. What is good for protein that could be grown here in Northern Middle Tennessee? We got our chicken feed statement from last year and spent over $1600 for my hobby! Of course, I do have anywhere from 50-150 chickens. I love to garden so why not raise some of the feed. We do free range some but have to keep them up when not around because of hawks and foxes. I did sell some eggs, chicks, and chickens and we put about 25 in the freezer but that is still a lot of money for a hobby. That doesn't even look at my other hobbies like basket weaving and crocheting, etc. I might need to get a job!

 

[897tgigvib]

Sorghum comes to mind. Plant looks a lot like Corn, grain is up on top.

Millet comes to mind too.

Not sure, ask the other Chicken folks, but I think you'd be able to just cut a plant down with the ripe heads and toss them to the Chickens.

Tennessee used to be one of the top Sorghum growing states. There might even be someone with a sorghum molasses mill near you. Those are friendly folks with a tradition of trading. Tell them about a pickup load of stalks to load up, and ya might get some jars of sorghum molasses for trade and an invite to come to the milling party.

Sunflowers are another good one, and Amaranth grows like crazy! Might want to experiment with Colorado Quinoa...no, wait...the quinoa grain needs to be washed first, at least for humans, to get the saponin shampoo off it.

 

[digitS']

It is a question I've fretted about quite a bit, '4acres. You will have to decide if it is worth your bother, however. It takes a fair amount of land to grow enuf grain for 50-150 chickens. Let's say that you want 1/2 ton off your garden. Would you be willing to grow 1/4 acre for the chickens and process that?

The best I've been able to come up with is to grow a variety of things. You won't have balanced protein without doing that, anyway. Also, you will gain some ideas of what can work best for you. Lots of people used to feed their chickens wheat thru the winter. Of course, that was just a maintenance thing - a flock could just survive and would need better feed before becoming productive in the spring. Chicks would need better feed to grow.

Soy is what is usually used for a plant-based diet that balances the amino acids in other grains. You end up with "chicken protein." However, soy needs to be heat-treated, cooked. Field peas may not need to be cooked but I have so much trouble with weevils in the seed that I kind of gave up on that idea.

I grow sunflowers and millet in the garden almost every year. I don't know anything about sorghum. You may not need to worry about the racoons with these. The birds will eat the sunflowers and millet as they ripen.

Steve

 

[Smiles Jr.]

I, too, have tried millet and sun flowers for chicken feed. But I have abandoned that due to the labor involved and the fact that the wild birds converge on these plants as soon as the time is right and I would end up with almost nothing. Chicken feed has gone sky high in the past year and it looks like there is no end in sight. So it seems that all of us chicken people will have to weigh the actual benefits of having the silly birds in the future. Free ranging is about the only really economical way to have chickens any more. But that does not work very well in our winters here in Indiana when the ground is frozen or snow covered. Self sufficiency has it's limits these days.

 

[897tgigvib]

...my garden is fenced and netted...

 

[digitS']

I think my neighbor, Bert, began to fall on some difficult times. This was in a garden location where neither of us have been for the last 6 or 7 years. Bert sold out and moved away and I moved my gardening across the road. There is a new property owner on what had been my garden.

Bert was over at the fence one day looking like he wanted to talk.That had never happened before. I went over and listened to his idea for me to raise blueberries on his half acre behind his house. I considered a counter proposal, something that wouldn't take so much investment on my part. I thought about putting up a structure to house laying hens. I could raise some fryers for both our freezers and dance thru the licensing for egg sales at the farmers' market . . . maybe.

First, I had to decide how much saving on feed that half acre could produce. How many laying hens would it support? (Forget about fryers for the moment.) It was simply a matter of setting pencil to paper.

A laying hen will eat about 1/4 pound of high-quality feed each day. I could probably count on about 1,500 pound of wheat (or, some other grain crop) off that half acre each year. 1500/.25 = 6000. 6000/365 = 16 chickens for the year. . . . . I didn't mention this scheme to Bert.

Steve

 

[so lucky]

If I didn't feed my chickens table scraps they would starve. They only eat the $14.00 per bag layer pellets if there is absolutely nothing else, and only after waiting and waiting for me to provide something edible. They never have liked the commercial food, even as chicks. I do raise mealworms for treats, and trap Japanese beetles to freeze for winter use. But those pellets must taste nasty. Whether they are terribly spoiled, or smart in refusing food that is mostly soybeans and chemicals--I don't know.

 

[vfem]

I accidently grow wheat all the time! I lay down straw as mulch in the winter everywhere, and wheat pops up everywhere. I till and rip most of it up, but I always leave some that is in an area I don't use. Then when it seeds and its ready I just cut or rip it up and throw it all in the chickens run and they love it! Cost me nothing extra because there is always extra seed in those cheap cheap bales of straw.... and it kept all the other weeds down. So many uses its like a triple efficient crop with so little work , and so much benefit for us.

Just a though!

 

[Nyboy]

I am with so lucky my hens love table scraps!! They also love when my dogs don't finish their diner, dry dog food is a cheap protein.

 

[retiredwith4acres]

Well, after the discussion, maybe no financial vs. work vs. land use positive for lots of chickens. I am going to grow some corn, kale, turnip greens, sunflower, sorghum and some grain to see what I can do. I will not do large amounts but just trial plots to see what happens. (Mom has some unused land close by) Now that I have found my favorite dual purpose breed I am working on cutting down numbers of chickens with only doing a couple of breeds instead of 8-12 and that should cut back feed needed.

It is funny about scraps from the table, some eat, some don't. They love cracked corn but if it is purchased already cracked are we getting any nutrients left since corn loses its nutrients after cracking and that bagged stuff has got have been done weeks before. I also think I will sprout some seeds to feed, and maybe try small scale fermenting to see if that improves growth and health of a small group. In other words, some scientific method research.