Opinions on growing and feeding fodder to poultry?

[Kennas_Kritters]

I got some oat seeds to sprout and feed to my animals. I have chickens, emus and a peacock. What are y'alls opinions on fodder? Is it as healthy for them as it sounds or what?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

In limited quantity, its fine. I'd be stunned if you can grow enough to make it worthwhile economically. Most who grow sprouts, wheat grass, etc do so for purposes of "enrichment". As long as you keep that in mind, its fine.

For your bird's health, they need a nutritionally balanced diet, and growing that ourselves as the typical land owner is simply impractical.

 

[wyoDreamer]

There are a number of people on this site that grow fodder for their birds. I like to give my chickens some sprouts as a treat and they love it. I like to flavor of the eggs they give me, and the flavor improves when they can free-range. I cannot let them free-range very often, so I give them weeds in summer and grow wheat sprouts for them during the winter months. The more greens they get, the darker the yolks are. There is probably a maximum amount that I should be feeding them of the sprouts, but I don't what that would be.

 

[jthornton]

I've been growing sprouts off and on for a few years. My hens go nuts for it. They have very limited access to fresh greens so I grow it year round.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/sprouting-wheat.1358610/page-3#post-22984966

I finally cracked the mold issue with sprouts in the summer time, skip to the end of the above thread.

JT

 

[WIchickMama]

I've been growing sprouts off and on for a few years. My hens go nuts for it. They have very limited access to fresh greens so I grow it year round.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/sprouting-wheat.1358610/page-3#post-22984966

I finally cracked the mold issue with sprouts in the summer time, skip to the end of the above thread.

JT

Awesome thanks. I sprouted some oats too recently and was wondering what was next

 

[Al Gerhart]

Yeah, you would put their diet out of balance if this wasn't more than an occasional treat. I have a few customers that are running pastured flocks but they still have pellets available 24/7. You wouldn't want to do this for laying hens unless it was moult time and they were just resting and recuperating or the egg production would dive. Same on broilers, grow em fast as intended before health problems set in.

The oats? I would feed them to the chickens as the treat.