Growing fodder for chickens

[Tmoorie]

I, personally, have been on a gluten free diet for 4 years. We feed our chickens fodder also; the fodder coming from wheat berries. The feed we give our chickens, ducks, turkeys and guineas is GMO free with no corn or soy

I looked up wheat berries and this site http://happyherbivore.com/2012/01/what-are-wheat-berries/ says they contain higher gluten contents.

 

[Tmoorie]

Farmer Kyle when you have someone you love with a food allergy you do what you need to do. I promise you my chickens are healthy and happy. I don't restrict their eating simply for the fun of it. It's actually been alot of research and hard work to make sure they stay healthy and happy.

I wish it were as simple as you put it but sometime life throws curveballs at us and I have not found gluten free eggs for purchases anywhere.

 

[CATRYNA]

I looked up wheat berries and this site http://happyherbivore.com/2012/01/what-are-wheat-berries/ says they contain higher gluten contents.

Wheat berries are just wheat grain. Once they have been sprouted there is no gluten; it then becomes vegetation.

 

[Krausefarms]

What store in Temecula?

 

[Don P]

According to the laws of physics, unless you can create something from nothing, you still have a pound of feed and 5.5 pounds of water in the roots and leaves.

If you don't believe this take a chunk, weigh it then dry it in an oven, then weigh it. You can't create something from nothing. Even if you add vitamins and minerals to the water the young sprouts and fodder are all coming from the nutrient in the seed.

So what you have done is reduced the protein in the seed, so you now are feeding less protein and more carbs.

So no wonder your hens are starving and run to you when you come out. That may be fun for you y I use organic non-GMO grains and seeds to feed my hens and they seldom come running to me unless they think I have some snack for them of some unusual items I toss out from time to time.

Same with Scratch. Why do hens come running for Scratch, because it is real food, grain whereas the pellets are the vacuumed or swept up dust form the flour milling industry heated and glued together with sugar or molasses.

When you feed whole or fresh cracked grains you don't need scratch.


Now as long as you don't reduce you hen protein intake, adding fodder to those who don't get to pasture is fine. I grow fodder to give some greens to my hens who are locked in so they don't get to pasture for a while or young ones or if it snows or the grass is just all dried out in summer.

A little extra greens is nice. But as for a complete food, add some fish meal or camelina meal, yeast, kelp meal, or other high protein food so you are not just giving them
Barley seed and grass. Corn is all GMO even when called organic it is pretty well all cross pollinated so I would avoid corn wheat and soy as feed or food for people.

As for Gluten, eating eggs from hens fed wheat should not be an issue. But I would not want to eat regular commercial eggs anyway. Nor feed my hens wheat.

And GMO grains is more of the problem than gluten. But once the digestion is broken down by the GMOs, it might need to be stricter until you get the digestion repaired and built back up with enzymes, probiotics and yeast fungal elimination programs so you can handle gluten again. Takes 3 months to reverse the dysbiosis and a few more to heal the gut and get the gut flora solidly grown in so the yeast doesn't come right back rapidly. Then gluten will be well tolerated in most people, but its a good idea to avoid much wheat and corn anyway.

 

[HeritageGoose13]

As for Gluten, eating eggs from hens fed wheat should not be an issue.

This is not certain. Soy protein has been found mostly unchanged in eggs from hens that eat soy. Some people with celiac disease feed their hens a gluten-free diet for this reason. There has been no formal research on it but I have heard some people who get sick (vomiting) from store-bought eggs can handle "gluten-free eggs." And do not think it is antibiotics/GMOs or something like that... these people cannot tolerate other farmer's eggs any better, even if the hens were organic and free-range.

 

[CATRYNA]

I looked up wheat berries and this site http://happyherbivore.com/2012/01/what-are-wheat-berries/ says they contain higher gluten contents.

They certainly do compared to the original grain of past decades or even hundreds or thousands of years ago.

 

[CATRYNA]

According to the laws of physics, unless you can create something from nothing, you still have a pound of feed and 5.5 pounds of water in the roots and leaves.

If you don't believe this take a chunk, weight then dry it in an oven. then weigh it. You can't create something from nothing. Even if you add vitamins and minerals to the water the young sprouts and fodder are all coming from the nutrient in the seed.

So what you have done is reduced the seed, so you now are feeding less protein and more carbs.

So no wonder your hens are starving and run to you when you come out. That may be fun for you y I use organic non-GMO grains and seeds to feed my hens and they seldom come running to me unless they think I have some snack for them of some unusual items I toss out from time to time.

Same with Scratch. Why do hens come running for Scratch, because it is real food, grain whereas the pellets are the vacuumed or swept up dust form the flour milling industry heated and glued together with sugar or molasses.

When you feed whole or fresh cracked grains you don't need scratch.


Now as long as you don't reduce you hen protein intake, adding fodder to those who don't get to pasture is fine. I grow fodder to give some greens to my hens who are locked in so they don't get to pasture for a while or young ones or if it snows or the grass is just all dried out in summer.

A little extra greens is nice. But as for a complete food, add some fish meal or camelina meal, yeast, kelp meal, or other high protein food so you are not just giving them
Barley seed and grass. Corn is all GMO even when called organic it is pretty well all cross pollinated so I would avoid corn wheat and soy as feed or food for people.

As for Gluten, eating eggs from hens fed wheat should not be an issue. But I would not want to eat regular commercial eggs anyway. Nor feed my hens wheat.

And GMO grains is more of the problem than gluten. But once the digestion is broken down by the GMOs, it might need to be stricter until you get the digestion repaired and built back up with enzymes, probiotics and yeast fungal elimination programs so you can handle gluten again. Takes 3 months to reverse the dysbiosis and a few more to heal the gut and get the gut flora solidly grown in so the yeast doesn't come right back rapidly. Then gluten will be well tolerated in most people, but its a good idea to avoid much wheat and corn anyway.

I have grown fodder for years and I can feed far more birds on 5 or 6 lbs of fodder than 12 or 16 oz of grain, that I initially started with, if you get my drift. The fodder is part of their diet. I have friends who add fodder to their goats, Buffalo, horses and cattle diets. It's grass! And, full of nutrition. I don't know about your Physics, as you have explained it. If I were to plant a corn kernel and it produced a plant including 3 or 4 ears of corn, it would certainly weigh much more than the single kernel of corn that was initially planted even if you do take the whole plant and dry it. I guarantee it. Take an egg and sperm and combine them and wait 9 months. I guarantee, again, that the end result of 7 or 8 pounds is going to be much more than the beginning point, even if you were to put it in the oven and dry it.

 

[Don P]

Yes but the corn would have to grow for more than 3-7 days. Then the plant stops feeding solely from the seed and pulls nutrients out of the soil etc. I hope you can see the difference?
Any biology book will tell you just as the chick grows in the egg or a fish lives on its egg sack feeding entirely on those nutrients for a while, so do sprouts feed only from the seed until they grow developed roots that can get nutrients from the soil. I thought everyone knew this.

As I said, dry the fodder and weight it and you will see it has not gained weight except for water. Don't fool yourself or your hens, they are deprived and may still produce eggs but may not live as long, produce eggs as long or be as healthy. If you get rid of your hens every 2-3 years you may not care.

I have people who switch to my organic non-GMO grain feed from other feeds and have 10 year old hens start laying 2-3 x week.

Yes fodder is fine to feed all animals that eat grass and seeds or grain. No problem.
But what does it prove that other people do it? Loads of people take Chemo but that doesn't mean it will cure cancer. It doesn't. But you are welcome to do it because other people do, instead of a natural solution that is safe and works.

I love live food, I am all for live food and as I said, I use fodder also, but the seeds in it are their main nutrients and protein they get from it.

I at least soak my whole grains and seeds overnight or I sprout them before feeding because it is easier to digest.
Just soaking the grains for 2-3 days you will find you will feed less than dry grain because it is easier to digest. That is why it is vital to add grit to dry real grain feed.
No need with pellets because it is vacuumed up dust from the grain mill already.

But letting the soaked seeds go to grass does not increase their protein or amount of nutrition, it reduces the protein.
But they get some chlorophyll if you let it get green, and that is nice especially if they don't get pasture.

In the winter for sure, when they may not get worms or insects and all year I would add some other high protein to compensate for sprouting and I would not just feed one grain only. Even adding a few BOOS seeds is not enough. they will benefit from a blend and higher protein.

I also ferment my feed some of the time for the benefits of enzymes they get and the lactic culture and easier digestion.

I have friend who is a science teacher and every year he has his class do an experiment on chicks and they feed different groups different levels of protein and measure and weight them weekly. It is quite obvious the stunted growth in the ones on less than ideal protein and you can see where more protein has no added benefit over 22%.

I have been raising my own chickens for over 20 years and am a natural physician and studied with vets and physicians all over the world. You still can't get something from nothing. 1 lb of feed yields 1 lb of feed and fodder just converts some of the protein in the 1 lb to carbs and increases water content. There is no magic to growing plants.

 

[HeritageGoose13]

Don P, generally I agree with all you are saying. But one thing I think you do not realize, is that the nutrients are not "added" to the fodder, they are made more digestable and therefore added to the chicken consuming the fodder. All seeds contain nutrient inhibitors aimed at preventing themselves from being digested- this way they can sprout after going through an animal's system. This is why we would get sick if we ate raw grains or legumes. Some animals can break through these inhibitors but not without effort. Energy requires calories. So by removing the inhibitors, the food is easier to digest, meaning more nutrients are gotten out of it.