Nutritional value of wheat?

[bheila]

Quote:
We have a goat pasture that my husband was thinking about seeding with the wheat.
What about wheat for cows? I have a steer down the street getting fat for butchering.

 

[digitS']

If it's from the Midwest, it may be higher protein wheat.

My chickens like the durum wheat that I've grown for them. Soft white wheat would probably be even more welcome and that's probably what I was trying years ago (see previous post).

The "elook" link shows that durum is 14% and soft white is 11% protein. This may be a little too optimistic. Soft white is down there with corn in crude protein. That doesn't make it "bad" but neither can be substituted 1 to 1 for a standard, more balanced feed.

I'd say to get the other feed as high in protein as you can. The University of West Virginia link looks too generous with the scratch to me but that can provide some guidance. Do a comparison in costs.

I think that if,
$1 buys X pounds of commercial feed, and
$1 buys X + .5 pounds of wheat at 14% protein

it could make good sense to buy the wheat.

If $1 buys X + .5 pounds (or less) of wheat at 8% protein

it probably would make sense to stay solely with the commercial feed. Free on the other hand is Free.

I think I'd really try to figure out how to use as much of it as possible.

The feed companies are really "efficient" as utilizing all sorts of things at low cost and still coming up to certain standards.

As a "backyard chicken person" - it barely makes sense for me to grow wheat myself, let alone buy it. BTW - wheat is awfully easy to grow and harvest in small amounts.

Steve

 

[PAJerry]

I've been sprouting wheat and feeding it to my hens for about 2 weeks now and they love it. I am also getting 8 to 9 eggs per day from my 10 hens. I certainly can't complain!!

They still have access to layer rations but really look forward to the wheat sprouts I give them every afternoon, as they finish them in about 10 minutes. I am sprouting 3 cups of wheat daily but am moving up to 4 now that I have bought some larger pans to sprout and feed in.

The information I have found indicates that sprouts have 3 times the nutritional value as unsprouted wheat, so I think it's an easy way to boost the value of the seed.

 

[bheila]

Quote:
How long does it take for you to sprout the wheat before you give it to your chickens?

 

[hankshens]

Could you maybe give the excess wheat to a rescue? My chickens love wheat and our feed store sells it 50lbs for $12.

 

[PAJerry]

I'm running my sprouts in a four day rotation. Day 1 is an overnite soak of the wheat. Day 2 - I put it into a 10 x 10 foil pan with lots of small drainage holes in the bottom and rinse with water in the morning and evening. Day3 - rinse morning and evening. The water drains out faster as the wheat sprouts. Day 4 - rinse in the morning, feed it to the hens when i get home in the afternoon. My setup is in our cool basement so yours might be faster or slower depending on the ambient temp. The time involved might be 10 minutes a day - if that - to provide a very nutritious and relatively inexpensive feed item (I paid $6 for 50 lbs.).

I have also sprouted black oil sunflower seeds and the hens just love them. They seem to take a bit longer to sprout and they are also much more expensive.

 

[digitS']

Okay, I was confused and rather doubted PAJerry's statement, "sprouts have 3 times the nutritional value as unsprouted wheat" - except with vitamin content, I hasten to add

. But, what about protein?

So I looked at the USDA National Nutrient Database for info on wheat. Durum wheat is about 14% protein with 11% water in the sample.

"Wheat, sprouted" (type is not given) is 7.5% protein but it's nearly 50% water. (Water doesn't really count unless it inhibits the bird from consuming enuf of the food because of the volume.) If the "Wheat, sprouted" was dried, down to the moisture of unsprouted wheat, wouldn't it be more than 30% protein?!?!

So, I looked at what Wikipedia has to say (I know, I know

). Seems that crude protein goes up while starch content goes down, is how it mostly works. Well, that makes sense . . . but, all that starch is energy food - so could we take that too far and end up with putting the hens on a weight-reduction diet by having too much sprouted wheat?

I guess it could be thought of as a balancing act - increase protein by sprouting but still give some unsprouted. Or, be sure there are adequate calories in whatever else is given.

Interesting

.

Steve