Alfalfa cubes?

[gabby3535]

Does anyone feed alfalfa hay cubes to their chickens in the cold months? (The kind avail. for pet rabbits, etc.)
"Real" alfalfa hay is not always available.......and the cubes are "chopped" and compressed............
I thought I might stuff a wire suet feeder with some of the cubes for them to peck at.......
Thoughts?

 

[wombat]

I believe commercial operations feed alfalfa to induce molt as an alternative to withholding feed.

So ... I would think you would not want to replace much of their total food intake with alfalfa. I don't think that small amounts in addition to regular feeding would be a problem, though.

 

[Chris09]

I'm sure you could.
I feed mine alfalfa meal I get at the feed mill.. I soak it over night and then put a little on there feed the next morning..

Chris

 

[briteday]

I buy the 50 pound bags of alfalfa cubes for horses and soak them in a black pan with water overnight. The chickens get them when I don't have any greens for them, maybe once every two weeks...now that their run is pretty bare and so is the veggie garden.

 

[Cindy in PA]

Quote:
I do the same, but I give them about everyday in the winter & never had any problems. I give 12 chickens about a quart amount when it is all fluffed up with water. They eat the bits and just leave the toughist stems.

 

[Wifezilla]

I put a cube in warm water and let it soak for a bit then give it to my ducks. It's a good treat on a cold morning.

 

[LynneP]

Me too, to my hens, sometimes with a glob of molasses!

 

[HBuehler]

We feed them year around 2-3 times a week depending on the natural vegitation ..it's what our horses eat every day instead of baled hay so we always have plenty of it around..would anyone like to take over my animal feed bill?

We slightly dampen it and break it up until it's nice and soft..our chickens hate it real wet.You would find if left in cube form it would be very hard for a chicken to pick anything from it...they are very hard cubes
We feed about a 5 gallon bucket full at a time but we are feeding lots of chickens..It doesn't replace their normal feed but supplements those days when foraging isn't really optional...we had 12" of rain in a few days for instance.It's high in protein and so many vitamins and good stuff.Of coarse in the winter months when green isn't growing at all they really go crazy for it..right now that rain has made us a clover field so they would rather have that.