Spent brewery grains

Does anyone know if spent brewery grains have any nutritional value for chickens?
We have a friend whom owns and operates a small brewery. We are donated a lot of grain weekly.
We offer it as a supplement, along with the use of conventional feed.
Most of the nutrients of the barley grain are boiled out of it.
Yes is has some value left in it but not as much as it had before processing.
We mostly feed it to our many pigs and goats.
You need to add other sources of nutrition if you offer it to your poultry..
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We have a friend whom owns and operates a small brewery. We are donated a lot of grain weekly.
We offer it as a supplement, along with the use of conventional feed.
Most of the nutrients of the barley grain are boiled out of it.
Yes is has some value left in it but not as much as it had before processing.
We mostly feed it to our many pigs and goats.
You need to add other sources of nutrition if you offer it to your poultry..View attachment 1124629 View attachment 1124631 View attachment 1124630
In addition, I should have mentioned, you need to receive it wet! The wetter the better. That brownish water is the nutrients that was boiled out of it.
I love the really wet batches. Heavy to move around but that juice is what you desire nutritionally speaking.
KEEP IT AIR TIGHT! If you don't use it fast, maggot city. I transfer to sealed 5 gallon bucket with an o-ring sealing lid. Store away from sun and heat.
 
Connie, how long does it remain "useable" when you store it that way?
Weather and season is the main factor.
We are in Florida.. Heat index will get ya, and your free food.. Hehe.
Winter have been able to store up to 30+ days.
Summer, at 7 to 9 days.
That is with an air tight seal.
We have so many mouths to feed that a surplus is few and far to science experiment with.

We use it up fast with all the other critters, so I never had it more than a week, of a single batch.
Although,
We recently received 15-50 gallon trash cans all at once... I only own about 45-5 gallon buckets
You can't fit 750 gallons of mass into 225 gallons of storage space. Not gunna happen.
What did not get sealed up air tight, spoiled on the top layer in 3 days in our current heat of course.
It smelled bad. Had to scoop out 8 to 10 inches deep after a few days of non sealed storage. Did not feed it, had enough non spoiled stuff, why risk it.

We have to take it, no matter what amount because everyone keeps calling our friend wanting it. If slack off and don't keep removing the waste product out of their way, others will fill our shoes and our flow stops coming as often. We breed and raise swine. Barley grain is a life preserver. Helps keep our goats out of or pocket as well.

I believe if we had that huge batch around January time, it would have lasted at least 3 times that unsealed.
 
Does anyone know if spent brewery grains have any nutritional value for chickens?
They call spent brewery grains SPENT for a reason. Not only has all or most of the food value been extracted but it is all converted from a starch to a sugar by the malting process while most of the water soluble nutrients have been either removed or ruined by the cooking process.
One way around the spent brewers grain condrumn is to build a pig pen with a slotted floor above your chicken coop and feed your pigs a mixture of spent brewers grains and some pig or commercial hog chow. Then let your hogs recycle or maybe recirculate is a better term, the spent barley to your chickens living down below.

Of course when this was demonstrated the other way around by feeding cattle on a mixture of poultry litter and silage (high in urea) the little-old-ladies-dressed-in-tennis-shoes went ballistic.
 
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They call spent brewery grains SPENT for a reason. Not only has all or most of the food value been extracted but it is all converted from a starch to a sugar by the malting process while most of the water soluble nutrients have been either removed or ruined by the cooking process.
One way around the spent brewers grain condrumn is to build a pig pen with a slotted floor above your chicken coop and feed your pigs a mixture of spent brewers grains and some pig or commercial hog chow. Then let your hogs recycle or maybe recirculate is a better term, the spent barley to your chickens living down below.

Of course when this was demonstrated the other way around by feeding cattle on a mixture of poultry litter and silage (high in urea) the little-old-ladies-dressed-in-tennis-shoes went ballistic.
Last edited: Today at 12:48 AM
 

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