Not entering into the whole "is the world going to Hades?" discussion, only offering what CAN be a temporary stop-gap or supplement:
Find a local craft brewery, microbrewery, or nanobrewery in your area.
Breweries generate lots of spent grain--mostly malted barley, with occasional wheat, and maybe on very rare occasions a bit of corn, buckwheat, etc, as an adjunct. (I've never seen hops in any of the spent grains I've gathered--hops are usually supposed to be later in the brewing process--but I can't rule it out.) The byproduct is waste to them, and they have two options: pay someone to haul it away, or give it away to those that can use it. This includes cattle ranchers, hog farmers, an occasional bakery specializing in exotic things like dog biscuits--and chicken farmers. BIG breweries can contract with feed companies or factory farms to get rid of the stuff. You won't need that much.
Now, be advised: The process of malting barley converts starches into sugars, and those sugars are supposed to be efficiently boiled out of the grain. What you get left with is fibers, some remaining starches and carbs, and some sugars.
Nutritionally, I've been advised that it's a lot like "junk food"--it's NOT something you want to feed chickens you regard as pets or breeding stock or heritage/exotics for long periods of time, just like processed white bread or food scraps or even mealworms. But the chickens LOVE it. Every chicken raiser who has tried spent brew mash will confirm. They will "pig out" on it. I have photos of our smaller bantams hopping into buckets of the stuff behind my back and deciding "I live here now....
" There are "farm breweries" in some states that send all their spent malt to the farm's animals, including the chickens.
Be also forewarned: The stuff is WET. And, initially, heavy. It typically has the consistency of lumpy oatmeal/gruel, and is usually sticky and a bit icky unless it dries a bit in the open air. It often attracts flies too (hey, more protein!). It WILL become foul, moldy, and inedible if not frozen or spread and dried VERY soon after pickup. You have a day or two, max, unless you freeze or dry the stuff, and with the money that costs just go find proper feed.
Most microbreweries such as the "local brewpub" will only brew a couple times a week at best, and you would have to check with them to find out when to pick up the grain. As an example, the one closest to our flock brews 1-2 times a week; typically (but not always) when I drive by on Fridays there's a fresh supply awaiting pickup. I load up a couple five-gallon buckets (out of maybe 50-100 gallons waiting) and head to the flock. A bucketful gets scattered in various spots hither and yon in two chicken runs and between them, as a "boredom buster" for the flocks, who can immediately smell the malt and go running to scratch their way through it and gobble.
(And, of course, the roos call the girls over, insisting THEY made it show up.
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I would sincerely like to dry some out for spreading out the rest of the week, but the chickens see to it that no matter where I hide the drying trays in sunshine they'll hunt them down and keep pecking. A second or third bucket might get saved in a basement for the next day, a day later than that, or even for the horses. Even in northern Arizona, in the summer one has to rush to stay ahead of it becoming moldy, unpalatable or yucky. (And it then adds to the biodiversity of the compost heap.)
The brewery in question used to use the classic blue plastic barrels and half-barrels for the farmers who collected the grain for their animals, but this summer as the flies came heavy they switched to the heavy-duty black plastic totes with yellow lids seemingly ubiquitous at every
WalMart, to cut down on the fly nuisance. If you make such an arrangement with a local brewer, offer your own plastic tote, or at least show up with a smaller tote and a grain scoop. (Big totes get too heavy; you want the scoop because the stuff gets icky.)
Once again: NOT a substitute for proper layer or all-flock feed, or even scratch. But it's a tactic to help stretch your supplies should serious supply-chain problems hit your area or endure. If your neighborhood receives only 80% of its grain allocation, maybe start hitting the breweries to help stretch supplies. (But note: If problems are getting that bad, you will also be competing with cattle farmers, horse owners, etc................ hmmmmmm. You know what, forget I ever mentioned this strategy until I check with the other breweries in my area first!
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