Can Chickens Eat Alfalfa Hay?

I recently added some goats to my little farm, and they have been staying in with my chickens while we work on their pen.

Last weekend, we went to the feed store to get hay, but they were out. They were cleaning all of the loose alfalfa out of the semi-truck trailers, and they offered to sweep it into the back of my pick-up and let me have all the loose hay I wanted. I filled up the back of my pick-up to the top with nice, clean alfalfa. Thought the goats would love it, but they weren't very interested. They seem to prefer the coastal.

On the other hand, My chickens went NUTS over the alfalfa and scarfed it down like crazy. they don't touch the stems, but they eat all of the dried green leaves.

My question is, is this safe for them? Also, do you think it might be a nice nutritional supplement during the winter when they can't get green plants? I have this whole pile of the stuff up on pallets and protected by a tarp to keep it dry, and I was thinking I might start tossing some into their run each day if it is okay for them.

Yes, they can eat alfalfa. Greens are good for them and part of a healthy diet. Ours get the leftovers from mule feeding time and love it. The greens give the eggs a nice bright yolk too. some of the ones we get are almost orange in color. I had to put fencing around the hay storage to keep the chickens out.

A lot of us buy the cubes and soak it in water for our critters. My ducks like it.

Lucky you. I've been buying alfalfa pellets for rabbits for my birds. I don't think it gets better than that... lots of beta carotene in alfalfa.

Colby in KY

I came on here looking for info about alfalfa pellets. I bought some to give them some cheap greens for the winter and then got to wondering how good of idea it was. I also have ducks and just dumped some today in water for them.

So, thanks

Timely post ! I was just about to ask if anyone had heard of chaffhaye. I called up a couple of the local feed stores, one offering chaffhaye for ~$11/50lb bag, the other guys had an 87# bale of 4th cut alfalfa for ~$13. I'm a little unsure about the former since they say it's fermented, besides they eat the leaves from baled stuff, and then have the stems to scratch around.

Does anyone have any thoughts, or experience with the chaff stuff ?

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hmmm, that stuff sounds interesting. Might look to see if I can find it around here.

The stuff I got was just the loose hay that came out of the bales on the hay truck. It has some stems, but is mostly the green, leafy part. My chickens LOVE this stuff and gobble it down. I piled a pick-up truck load on some pallets next to their coop and covered it with a tarp to keep it fresh and dry. I plan to start throwing it out into their run each day to let them have some greens during the winter.

If you have a feed store in your area that sells alfalfa, it wouldn't hurt to check what they do with the loose hay when they sweep out the empty hay trucks. My feed store guys were happy to give me all I wanted for free because it meant that they did not have to sweep it out onto the ground, pick it all up, and bag it for disposal. They just had me back up to the trailer so they could sweep it in.

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I put alfalfa hay in the yard for my birds and they love to scratch around in it.

PLEASE, to those feeding hay - any type - to chickens: be very, very careful, as they can become cropbound when eating hay. I lost a pullet that had eaten too much hay; it got all balled up in her crop...it was awful.

I would think the soaking of alfalfa cubes would be better than just straight flakes, as it's chopped into smaller pieces. Yep, they love it...but it often does not love them back.