Does anyone feed their chickens spent grains from beer brewing?

[Chesca]

I know I'm a little late to respond to this post but- HELL YEA! We do some home brewing too and the girls absolutely LOVE the spent grains. I haven't really found too much they don't love though.

 

[OwensChickens]

This is good too know as I home brew as well.

What about the mash after a shine run?

 

[chickengeorgeto]

This is good too know as I home brew as well.

What about the mash after a shine run?

Shine mash (if grain based and not sugar whiskey) may be OK. But remember that almost all the calories in beer and shine mash have been stripped away and converted into sugar or in the case of grain based shine mash the calories have first been converted to sugar and then converted to alcohol. I seriously suspect that a flock of chickens fed on brewers fermented or expelled grains and little else would soon starve to death even while standing hock or ankle deep in "food." You will need conventional chicken food as well and remember to feed a balanced diet.

If expelled grain was a good source of energy and nutrients for chickens all brewers and distillers would be selling their still and beer slop to big feed companies instead of giving it away or hauling them off and paying to land fill them.

 

[whittychick]

I just received a bunch of grain from a friend that brewed their own beer..mostly barley. It's ok if I feed it to them?? I looked up treats to eat and its a healthy choice?! I just get nervous! Thanks!!

 

[CrazyTalk]

Shine mash (if grain based and not sugar whiskey) may be OK. But remember that almost all the calories in beer and shine mash have been stripped away and converted into sugar or in the case of grain based shine mash the calories have first been converted to sugar and then converted to alcohol. I seriously suspect that a flock of chickens fed on brewers fermented or expelled grains and little else would soon starve to death even while standing hock or ankle deep in "food." You will need conventional chicken food as well and remember to feed a balanced diet.

If expelled grain was a good source of energy and nutrients for chickens all brewers and distillers would be selling their still and beer slop to big feed companies instead of giving it away or hauling them off and paying to land fill them.

There's plenty of calories left in spent grains.

Distillers and major brewers DO sell their spent grain to farms and feed mills. It's widely used as animal food. The biggest problem is that it goes bad really quickly, and needs to be dried to keep for any amount of time, so it typically gets sold locally.

If you're able to get it, its probably from a small scale brewer - the big guys all have contracts for the stuff.

 

[frg34]

There's plenty of calories left in spent grains.

Distillers and major brewers DO sell their spent grain to farms and feed mills. It's widely used as animal food. The biggest problem is that it goes bad really quickly, and needs to be dried to keep for any amount of time, so it typically gets sold locally.

If you're able to get it, its probably from a small scale brewer - the big guys all have contracts for the stuff.

I keep the water level a couple inches above the feed that I ferment. Couldn't I just do that with spent grain too to give it a longer shelf life and just drain it off as I give them a little each day?

 

[echale3]

There's plenty of calories left in spent grains.

Distillers and major brewers DO sell their spent grain to farms and feed mills. It's widely used as animal food. The biggest problem is that it goes bad really quickly, and needs to be dried to keep for any amount of time, so it typically gets sold locally.

If you're able to get it, its probably from a small scale brewer - the big guys all have contracts for the stuff.

Dried Distillers Grains plus solubles is commonly known as DDGs. It's got a protein content similar to that of soybean meal, although the crude protein profile is different, being as how it's derived from corn, not soybeans. DDGs is a source of neutral detergent fiber as well that tends to increase volatile fatty acid formation in the gut, which has a tendency to reduce manure pH slightly. Typical feed formulations including DDGs contain up to 10% DDGs. You can, through judicious use of DDGs, obtain as much as a 15% reduction in manure ammonia emission rates, which helps hold down the odor associated with poultry manure.

IF YOU RUN ANTIBIOTIC-FREE, THERE ARE ISSUES WITH USING DDGS FROM CERTAIN COMMERCIAL SOURCES THAT YOU SHOULD CONSIDER, THOUGH.

Commercial ethanol (for use in ethanol-blended gasoline) producers use Virginiamycin (an antibiotic) to control the fermentation process. The hot drying process supposedly destroys the Virginiamycin in the DDGs, but it really doesn't destroy it all. Before I left the layer industry, I did some research on the presence of Virginiamycin in the DDGs I was using in small feed trials. Using Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay test methods, I found Virginiamycin residues to be present at or above 2 mg/Kg in 5 of the 12 samples of commercially available DDGS I tested. I presented the results of my work at the Southern Conference on Avian Diseases back in 2008, and representatives from the manufacturer of Virginiamycin were present at my talk. They were not happy campers, I can tell you that. In fact, there was a pretty ugly scene in the room when I was done.

For those of you who prefer to feed antibiotic-free, this is just something for you to consider. It shouldn't be a problem if you are using brewers or distillers (for drinking purposes) spent grains, but if you source yours from fuel ethanol producers, the results of my testing are worth noting.

Below is the text of the abstract from my presentation for a bit deeper dive into the issue.

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Virginiamycin is commonly used to control the presence of unwanted microbes during industrial ethanol production. Virginiamycin is not necessarily used during fermentation of each batch produced, but the ethanol industry indicates that it is used to a significant degree.

US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations state that Virginiamycin residue in laying hen feed or feed components is an adulterant. Feeding laying hens a ration containing measureable levels of Virginiamycin residues is against FDA regulations. FDA regulatory language does not differentiate between active and inactive Virginiamycin residues as an adulterant. The microbial inhibition test method generally used by the FDA identifies only active Virginiamycin residues.

The heat used to dry DDGS is thought to render Virginiamcin inactive. Other than manufacturer specifications indicating that Virginiamycin is stable up to at least 200 degrees F, no data exists on the relationship between heat and inactivation or outright destruction of Virginiamycin.

Because of the ambiguity in FDA regulations regarding what constitutes Virginiamycin residues, DDGS samples were subjected to Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) test procedures to determine the presence of Virginiamycin residues, whether active or inactive.

Twelve (12) samples of DDGS from five different suppliers were tested, and of the twelve samples tested, five returned a positive result for the presence of Virginiamycin.
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[jamesbwood]

I can get Distillers Grains in bulk from a local microbrewery. Does anyone have experience drying it? 8 gallons spread out and raked every few hours on a 11 by 18 foot tarp all day in the Florida sun is dry on the outside but still moist inside the grains. I tried completing the process in the oven but the bread/beer smell was objectionable to my wife. i can now get four 35 gallon containers of this at at time but need to find a way to dry it to store it. Suggestions?

 

[spalding17]

My husband brews his own beer and the girls love brew days! We just toss it under a tree or in the garden and the girls dig through it while it is still warm. Great warm treat for the winter too. Plus after it sits it, it starts to draw bugs, then the girls eat the bugs, lol.

 

[YborChix]

DO NOT FEED HOPS!!