Using Acorns to feed your chickens.

[Mgui35]

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They have been enjoying the acorns and they scratch around the trees all day long. The trees have improved in growth due to the chickens and are now thanking them with a bumper crop of acorns. There haven't seemed to be any adverse effects from the trees from my observations. I know theres a few things that chickens shouldn't eat. Potatos and citrus come to mind.

 

[KenK]

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Wild turkeys and Wood ducks love acorns. I'm sure you could make some kind of concoction out of oak bark (tan bark) that would kill anything if they ingested enough of it. But in any kind of normal situation oak trees aren't going to hurt your chickens.

 

[ChestnutRidge]

I had been interested in the same thing a while back and found this great blog post about it: http://livingthefrugallife.blogspot.com/2010/10/acorns-as-chicken-feed-revisited.html.
She's got directions for crushing and storing, pictures, info. It's a good resource.

 

[galanie]

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Lol yes watch those neighbors! My closest neighbor set off his air horn at me when I was talking to my chickens too loudly.

Too funny. He probably had a good laugh at your embarrassment for being caught.

LOL if I get caught I just look at the people like, "What?" Doesn't bother me at all.

 

[Mgui35]

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Excellent. Thank you very much for the link. I didn't think of actually storing them, but I know I can get at least a hundred pounds of them to store up for the Winter.

 

[Feral tabby]

This is an awesome thread! Our neighbor has a huge heritage live oak in the backyard that is dropping acorns like mad. Headed out now to harvest!

 

[Craigerpo]

Hey folks. I have a side deck that acorns have been hitting for a few weeks. They are easily swept and collected. My chix don't seem to want to go thru the effort of cracking the nuts and I feel about the same. My thoughts immediately were to sprout the nuts, maybe in water or some flat trays. Possibly even healthier than just the raw nut? Anyone's thoughts?

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

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I don't know about sprouting, but you can put some nuts down and run over them with your car. (Just a few of them to test whether they even like them.)

 

[quietlyscheming]

Wow, that's great! My yard is riddled with acorns thanks to all the oak trees we have! Sounds like my little girl and me will take a couple of buckets and start collecting them up. The tree rats (a.k.a. squirrels) won't be happy but my chickens will!