feeding sprouts, grass alternative?

[chickensman98]

usually when i finish mowing our 4 acre lawn i give my chickens some of the grass clippings, but right now we are in a minor drought. so my chickens aren't getting much greens, so i might try growing some wheat grass to give them

 

[Dudu]

That's what I do too now, since the 4 chickies that live at home with us don't have any more grass in the always perfect flowerpots. I have started throwing seeds in the pots of some larger plants, just to grow around them, and I alternate and have several grass pots going on so that new sprouts are always ready when I have finished harvesting the previous batch. They love it for sure.

 

[Joultry]

i love all of your ideas! My favorite thing to do is feed them watermelon they love the fleshy fruit

 

[ange92040]

we had watermelon last night and gave them some they LOVE it. We froze the rind and left overs and gave them some this afternoon so they could cool off some.
We will be trying the planting ideas this weekend,starting with the bird seed and if that goes well then we'll move up to the wheat grass.

 

[riverhen]

I also have hens in an enclosed pen. I put a dog/animal wire cage inside the pen. The cage is sizable...I then planted seed inside the cage...when the greens had grow enough to be of interest to the hens I removed the cage moving it to a new location in the pen and replanted it while they ate the already grown greens. It did not take long for the grown green to be undetectable. Having the seed grown in the pen made it easy to water and constantly replenished.

 

[fultzie]

one thing i did was, i went to lowes or manards ..(local lumber yard) and bought some grass sod ..i just unroll it in the coop there and they can eat on that for awhile ..and when they finish it ..i just get a nother roll ..for like 3.50 a roll ...usally lasts for couple weeks per roll..for me any way ..

 

[ange92040]

Fultzie how many chickens do you have? just seeing if it will last that long with mine. I only have 7 and they seem to devour things quickly.

 

[glenny]

Chickens love sprouts and they are bursting with nutrition. You can either plant the seeds in dirt or sprout them in jars as you would to create sprouts for your own salad. The only sprouts I know of that shouldn't be fed to chickens are from potatoes which may be toxic and onion and garlic which aren't unhealthy but might alter the flavor of the eggs. My girls love dried mealworms better than just about anything in the world. I also dig earthworms from the compost pile and bring them as a high value treats along with whatever I weed from the vegetable garden. Good luck! I think our chickens really appreciate variety.

 

[DawnCols]

What Glenny said.

Also:
Personally, I found a nice cheap birdseed mix and sprout it in jars in my kitchen. I keep two jars going at a time and pull out what I want to feed each day. I give them to the girls in disposable plastic containers from frozen dinners or from takeout food as dishes and run them through the dishwasher. I was raised by depression-era parents, and my go-to is always going to be using what's free or cheap.

I made one of those frames with chicken wire to grow them a live salad bar area, and planted oats and clover. But when I let them at it, they started pulling the oats up by the roots! It was amazing. They'd get hold of the end of the blade of grass, give it a good yank, and pull it right out of the dirt.

And by the way, to whoever asked if you could use those packets of seeds that you grow for your cats--sure. It would be a bit expensive though. Those packets are usually just oats. You can buy oat seed a *lot* cheaper from a seed company. For what you'd pay for that tiny packet at the pet store, you can get half a pound.

Let us know how your experiments turn out!

 

[MsTigrLadi]

Those baskets look like laundry and craft baskets....you can get the craft baskets from JoAnn's Fabrics or Michael's