Growing fodder for chickens

[thedollysmama]

Alcohol content in fermented grains...uh, well, yes, that is a bit of an issue. Lemme explain:
Friend of hubby's owns a small brewery in Magalia, CA and gives us all his spent grain in exchange for eggs, some farm raised lamb chops, and a dressed chicken or two. All we have to do is go and get the grain on Fridays. Spent grain is a vet common feed in the livestock industry, Sierra Nevada Brewery, also in our area, has a partnership with Chico State University and the university farm feeds the spent grain to their beef cattle and then the brewery sells the processed beef in their restaurant. The alcohol content of the grain has to be relatively low and ruminants are good at metabolizing alcohol anyway.
There was one notable incident with rather over fermented grain, just one, when the grain was a bit wet and the can was in the sun. The young broilers got a little tipsy and as my DD says, they make mean drunks. To each other, I mean, not to the humans. The broilers either were sparring or in contented heaps napping.
If you can find a source of spent brewery grains, do it by all means. You can dry it for storage, you can feed it wet, whatever. Great stuff!

Karen
Who was a bit stunned to come home to a large chicken frat party

 

[Arielle]

A reference to a website or book that could help me sort out what grains can be sprouted successfully would be much appreciated. I have access to brewery waste, about 130 gallons of spent barley and hops. As a result I want to sprout grains that will nutritionally compliment the barley and hops. I will be feeding chickens/ducks, sheep, goats, doves, and rabbits. I have access to most grains, I just am reluctant to venture into buying seeds when I could potentially be throwing my money into the wind.
There are an awful lot of references out there and most recommend barley as the grain of choice but again, got a lot of barley already!

Karen
Still pondering how to effectively search this forum

I found a book on interlibrary loan on sprouting for humans and it included a boatload of options and the details to sprout each type of seed and the quirks of growing each. Have you looked at sproutman for information?

amaranth is high protein and high lysine.

I hae a boook from college that lists innumeraous food stuffs and the prot- carb- mincronutrients. Creatinng a balanced diet is a challenge. You need the requirements for the animal and then the specifics for each food stuff. I took several sememesters of classes to learn how to do this. YOu can do it, but it will have an element of trial and error.

 

[BY Chicken Lady]

Alcohol content in fermented grains...uh, well, yes, that is a bit of an issue. Lemme explain:
Friend of hubby's owns a small brewery in Magalia, CA and gives us all his spent grain in exchange for eggs, some farm raised lamb chops, and a dressed chicken or two. All we have to do is go and get the grain on Fridays. Spent grain is a vet common feed in the livestock industry, Sierra Nevada Brewery, also in our area, has a partnership with Chico State University and the university farm feeds the spent grain to their beef cattle and then the brewery sells the processed beef in their restaurant. The alcohol content of the grain has to be relatively low and ruminants are good at metabolizing alcohol anyway.
There was one notable incident with rather over fermented grain, just one, when the grain was a bit wet and the can was in the sun. The young broilers got a little tipsy and as my DD says, they make mean drunks. To each other, I mean, not to the humans. The broilers either were sparring or in contented heaps napping.
If you can find a source of spent brewery grains, do it by all means. You can dry it for storage, you can feed it wet, whatever. Great stuff!

Karen
Who was a bit stunned to come home to a large chicken frat party

Oh my goodness! That is too funny, poor chickens, I hope they didn't have a hang over the next day.

 

[BY Chicken Lady]

I found a book on interlibrary loan on sprouting for humans and it included a boatload of options and the details to sprout each type of seed and the quirks of growing each.  Have you looked at sproutman for information?

amaranth is high protein and high lysine. 

I hae a boook from college that lists innumeraous food stuffs and the prot- carb- mincronutrients.  Creatinng a balanced diet is a challenge. You need the requirements for the animal and then the specifics for each food stuff. I took several sememesters of classes to learn how to do this. YOu can do it, but it will have an element of trial and error. 

Is the book called Sproutman?

 

[thedollysmama]

I found a book on interlibrary loan on sprouting for humans and it included a boatload of options and the details to sprout each type of seed and the quirks of growing each.  Have you looked at sproutman for information?

amaranth is high protein and high lysine. 

I hae a boook from college that lists innumeraous food stuffs and the prot- carb- mincronutrients.  Creatinng a balanced diet is a challenge. You need the requirements for the animal and then the specifics for each food stuff. I took several sememesters of classes to learn how to do this. YOu can do it, but it will have an element of trial and error. 

I was probably sitting right next to you in class! At the time it was intellectually interesting but not applicable to the life I was leading. Now I can't find my books! And I wasn't worried about gmo or budgets then either.
I just want to formulate a diet that takes my budget and the health of my critters into consideration. Shouldn't be all that hard, really, I know what I can buy and can tweak numbers as needed. Should be fun!

K.

 

[BY Chicken Lady]

Is the book called Sproutman?

Disregard...I found Sproutman, Steve Meyerowitz.

 

[BY Chicken Lady]

I received my second set of Seed Sprouter Trays in the mail today!


Wheat sprouts on day 2 (after 1 day of pre-soak).


I love these so much that I voluntarily did a review of the product on my blog. See it here: http://backyardchickenlady.blogspot.com/2013/06/victorio-4-tray-seed-sprouter-product.html

Now that I have 2 sets of 4 trays (8 trays total), I can start two new trays each morning, and they will be ready to feed the chickens by day 3, so I can keep 6 trays going continually for the chickens, and still have two trays left for my own sprouts. I am soaking my Barley & Wheat mix to put in the first set of trays tomorrow! My chickens eat one tray in about 5 minutes. I use them as healthy treats that I can give them twice a day. These Seed Sprouter trays work better than any of the baskets or jars I have tried so far. Note, the jars did work really well, but being in a jar they became a tangled mess by the time I fed them to the chickens -not that the chickens cared that much, a sprout is a sprout to them.

 

[DebraM]

Alcohol content in fermented grains...uh, well, yes, that is a bit of an issue. Lemme explain:
Friend of hubby's owns a small brewery in Magalia, CA and gives us all his spent grain in exchange for eggs, some farm raised lamb chops, and a dressed chicken or two. All we have to do is go and get the grain on Fridays. Spent grain is a vet common feed in the livestock industry, Sierra Nevada Brewery, also in our area, has a partnership with Chico State University and the university farm feeds the spent grain to their beef cattle and then the brewery sells the processed beef in their restaurant. The alcohol content of the grain has to be relatively low and ruminants are good at metabolizing alcohol anyway.
There was one notable incident with rather over fermented grain, just one, when the grain was a bit wet and the can was in the sun. The young broilers got a little tipsy and as my DD says, they make mean drunks. To each other, I mean, not to the humans. The broilers either were sparring or in contented heaps napping.
If you can find a source of spent brewery grains, do it by all means. You can dry it for storage, you can feed it wet, whatever. Great stuff!

Karen
Who was a bit stunned to come home to a large chicken frat party

Oh Karen,
You cracked me up. I can even picture them with their drunken bravado, roosters are "cocky" enuf without being alcohol soaked!! Absolutely priceless!!! Love it.
Deb.

 

[Arielle]

Quote: Sproutman.com is an online resource for sprouting for humans ( and dogs) , the book went by another name entirely. I like interlibrary loan as it is free; I asked the librarian to use a key word like "sproutimy libarian ( she herself is someone that eats sprouts and such so she is full of info for me) . Sshe put me on to sproutman.com

 

[sueblack]

Quote:
Totally agree. This is what I have finally concluded. The temperature and humidity vary in my house due to changes in the weather and I have finally gotten my routine adjusted to the new hot/humid weather. Thanks for you help.