Grow These 5 Crops For FREE Chicken Feed | Self Sufficient Livestock Grain

I grow sprouts during the fall and winter for my chickens. It doesn't require electric, just mason jars, soak the sprouting seeds in water in the jars for 24 hours, drain add water and rinsed twice a day and drain, tilt upside down in its side so all the water drains out, until they are sprouted to the size you want. You decide how long/big of sprouts. Anywhere between 4 to 8 days, depending on the type of seed, you will have nutritious food for your chickens. Mine love it and come running when they see me and the jars. Blackoil sunflower seeds, or amaranth seeds, or dried sweet peas, dried mung bean, dried lentils, arugula, quinoa and so many more. I buy them by 25 lb buckets (organic). I usually have 12 quart jars lined up draining. Every 2 days I feed them 2 and start up 2 more so I never run out. We also eat the sprouts as salads or toppers to sandwiches etc....The drained water I use for watering my house plants, or boiking eggs, boiling pasta or rice or potatoes. We don't waste the water.

I just watched a guy feed his chickens soaked beans and cooked pasta and had amazing results.

I recently found out that sorghum is also called broom corn. You can make those old fashioned brooms after you shake off the seeds for your chickens or goats chickens or goats

I have a fenced area next to my chicken yard. I just toss some of my organic chicken scratch which is mixed grains and it grows what they like. Also I spread some wild bird seed, we all know how good it grows from the spillage from the feeder. I also throw in older vegetable seeds, what grows grows. It all turns into a jungle of chicken goodness LOL. They love horse radish leaves, sun choke leaves and I use the black oil sunflower because they have more nutrition than the Russia giant sunflower.

Take heart, you're helping people. I learn as much from your honest appraisal of your failures as well as your successes. And it encourages me to try again when you are doing that very thing. You gave me some ideas today that I might try for my animals. I have chickens, dairy goats, and dogs.

Pumpkins/winter squash are another good crop that can be stored through winter. Humans and chickens can eat all parts of the fruit, and they can be grown amongst corn (like 3 sisters style). Obviously, as part of a balanced diet 😉

I put my compost in the same bucket every day.The chickens followed the bucket to wherever I wanted them to be for the day. In the evening they just followed the bucket back to their roost. (One chicken always jumped into the bucket and ate her way to the new area). While sifting compost I saved all those big white fat grubs for the chickens. I let my chickens scratch around in my compost piles. They eat bugs and weed seeds.

Comfrey is another great feed and helps the soil as well.

Good ideas. We found common oats real easy to grow as well. They can be planted spring or fall, they need very little care, crowd weeds well and the birds love them!

Also consider making Elderberry shrubs available to your chickens. they love it and will hang around under it for shade.

If you have time yet this fall, be sure and plant winter rye grain (2-3bu/ac) and next spring broadcast your main crop seeds through it and when they sprout flatten the rye into a straw mat to be your 'compost in place'. When you scale up from a garden to a real farm you'll "go broke' trying to buy or cart in compost to amend the soil.

Love the ideas! Iowa girl here, sprouts are another great "green" that we started growing indoors. No light required and ready in 5 days! We just use a quart jar with a screen lid, it works amazing. I mix it in withe the sourdough discard and the girls love it!

Thank you - we live in a very different area from you (wet, clay soil), but I think I could still grow some of these. Very inspiring video. One thought: we have grown sunflowers for chickens for a while now. One cheap way of getting lots of seeds, and ensuring they're the dark oil rich types that' are good for birds, is to buy seeds intended for garden birds. You get a big pack of the "right sort" - much cheaper than buying from a garden seed producer :)

I grow lots of amaranth for my cut flower garden. And I can attest to the fact my best plants are the ones where seeds just dropped the previous fall. In other words, simply shake seeds now where you want it next year, or early in the spring snd it will take off. It is a plant that seems to resent transplanting so starting indoors doesn't normally work for me.

4:35 totally agree, chickens prefer both grains and weeds, the former for energy, the latter for vitamins. I try to feed them 50/50.

I had great success with Swiss chard this summer. Temps over 100 for weeks with no rain. My chickens love it, me too picked young. Blessings!

You are right about sorghum. Sorghum originated in the heart of Africa and was domesticated around 8000 BCE in Ethiopia and Sudan. It later spread to East and South Africa. Wall paintings and archaeological excavations have provided evidence of the cultivation of sorghum in Egypt in the 7th century BCE.

If our rain dries up like it did in WI last year, irrigation will be a necessity. We installed it last July when I couldn’t get all the watering done in time. Best money we ever spent in the garden. Will be adding more to grow some grain crops. Plants can’t take up nutrients unless they have water.

🇺🇸🙋‍♀️🐴🍃 Love the idea of growing your own feed!

I'm in Southern Arizona, extreme heat and dryness thruout the summer. I'm also first year homesteading . I'm planning on sunflowers, pumpkins,, Sorghum, millet, hemp, amaranth, and green fodder that has a variety of clovers, alfalfa, and lots more . That's my goal, was hoping this year but I've realized I have to take more time preparing the area before planting.