Brewing Beer and Feeding Chickens

[BellevueOmlet]

I just got into All-Grain beer brewing. I love the beer and my chickens love the grains. I cook about 10 lbs of barley or buckwheat and feed the spent grain to the chickens. They get excited because it is a nice soft grain after it has cooked. The only concern I have is that since it has been cooked for so long to extract the sugar that it also does not have much nutrition and is just a filler that I am giving them. Does anybody know if this is true? I usually plop the whole 10 lbs in their "fun/treat" trough but am thinking I should space it out more so they get the nutrition they need. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

The spent grains likely have less nutrients than unboiled grain, so I'd use them more as a "treat" than a "feed replacement", but you're right, they do love the leftovers from beer brewing.

To store them for longer than a day or two, you can either dry them or freeze them, both seem to work pretty well for longer-term storage.

 

[BellevueOmlet]

Thanks. I have been using them as a treat which is pretty exciting since they get less treats in the winter. In summer, they will probably kick them out of the way and ask for watermelon.