Feeding Chickens Duckweed

[Compost King]

What a great idea, I’ve considered the same before I had birds as a human food source, but I would rather feed it to my birds then eat them. I have access to a duckweed pond so I would probably get the majority of it from there, but the crayfish would be a great addition to their diet

I spend hours thinking about ways to feed chickens without depending on others. Never know when their will be a chicken feed disruption. If I had access to duckweed I would be harvesting it and dehydrating what the chickens do not consume. It replicates fast after you extract it from a pond. Extract as much as you can sustainably extract and dehydrate it and bale it like hay might be a great feed source for livestock of all kinds. Not being very interested in nutrition I have not researched what nutrients chickens need that duckweed does not have. Foraging chickens will likely find what they need however winter has less of a selection for them and they will deplete things in their range if it has something Duckweed does not. I have considered covertly putting duckweed in a parks pond around here but I will not do it until I fully understand the environmental impact. Other people use the park too and maybe duckweed kills off a fish they fish for.

I may find a local farmer who would grow it on a pond since they have ponds they use to water livestock and crops. Maybe they will start doing it to feed their own animals plus have a surplus to sell. If its cheaper to produce hay they won't waste time on Duck Weed but if they can produce it cheaper than hay it may become the next big thing.

 

[Nigel27]

I spend hours thinking about ways to feed chickens without depending on others. Never know when their will be a chicken feed disruption. If I had access to duckweed I would be harvesting it and dehydrating what the chickens do not consume. It replicates fast after you extract it from a pond. Extract as much as you can sustainably extract and dehydrate it and bale it like hay might be a great feed source for livestock of all kinds. Not being very interested in nutrition I have not researched what nutrients chickens need that duckweed does not have. Foraging chickens will likely find what they need however winter has less of a selection for them and they will deplete things in their range if it has something Duckweed does not. I have considered covertly putting duckweed in a parks pond around here but I will not do it until I fully understand the environmental impact. Other people use the park too and maybe duckweed kills off a fish they fish for.

I may find a local farmer who would grow it on a pond since they have ponds they use to water livestock and crops. Maybe they will start doing it to feed their own animals plus have a surplus to sell. If its cheaper to produce hay they won't waste time on Duck Weed but if they can produce it cheaper than hay it may become the next big thing.

I agree that it will be the next big thing along w algae! They grow so fast and even contain up to 40% fat! (Algae), and 40% protein. I’m thinking seaweed too, for minerals.

 

[Compost King]

I agree that it will be the next big thing along w algae! They grow so fast and even contain up to 40% fat! (Algae), and 40% protein. I’m thinking seaweed too, for minerals.

these are the thinks that make gardening/livestock hobbying so much fun for me. I may never come up with something that revolutionizes an industry but the quest to do so brings so much pleasure to my life. I need to do small scale duckweed farming, even if its just in a bucket. In the future when I have a great plot of land that I can make a pond for such projects I will enjoy trying something new.

 

[Purlsnponies]

I keep reading that duckweed grows insanely fast, and was hopeful that it would shade out the algae in my pond, as well as provide an additional feed source for my chickens.. but I can't get the stuff to grow! I'm in Florida, the pond is full sun, with lots of nutrients. Can't figure out if fish are eating it, if the bubbler provides too much agitation (there are still spots) or if maybe the wrong time of year? But if anyone has any helpful hints for growing it, I'd love to hear!

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

What a great idea, I’ve considered the same before I had birds as a human food source, but I would rather feed it to my birds then eat them. I have access to a duckweed pond so I would probably get the majority of it from there, but the crayfish would be a great addition to their diet

You’ll often see things in the media about “the future” of human food consumption being eating bugs, seaweed, and algae.

To me it seems far more likely that those things will feed animals...seeing as something like 75% of agricultural land in the US is used to grow animal feed.