Sprouted Grains for Chickens

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In order to avoid buying conventional chicken feeds, I've been simply buying organic whole grains ("feed quality", which is cheaper) from our natural foods distributor, Azure Standard. They are the same grains as what they sell for people, only these haven't been cleaned of bugs & dust so they're a little too funky for human consumption. They may even be the grains that have been swept off the floor of the grainery ;)

Chicken Wheat, before sprouting

Chickens will just get fat and malnourished on a diet high in grains (sound like any other species?) so what I do is sprout the grains for a few days. The sprouting process makes the wheat, or whatever grain you're using, become essentially more vegetable than grain. Each grain is a seed, which starts to grow a leaf and roots. I let the sprouts green up on a windowsill, and then the chickens gobble them up. Our eggs benefit nutritionally from the bit of my time spent rinsing sprouts every morning.

Ready for the chickens to eat

It's definitely more work than just tossing the hens store bought feed, but I think it's healthier, and I just feel better about doing things myself, rather than wondering what the heck they put in the feed. I have read about kids getting arsenic poisoning after eating the eggs from their own hens, who were given feed that was insanely high in arsenic. Why would anyone ever put arsenic in chicken feed? I can only guess that it somehow brings the cost down... but I like being able to safely say that there is no junk in what I feed my hens.

The Sprouting Instructions are simple:

• Fill a jar (I use a two-quart jar for my 7 chickens) 1/3 full of wheat berries
• Soak grains overnight in water (read here about how I dechlorinate my water for better germination of sprouts.)
• Drain and rinse wheat once a day, letting as much water as possible drain out to allow sprouts to grow (they shouldn't be immersed after the initial soak)

I generally have 5 or 6 jars going, at different stages of development, in order to give them time to green up before the chickens eat them. I feed the hens one jar every morning, rinse the 5 remaining jars, and start a new jar soaking that night. I store them on a cabinet shelf until the last two days of sprouting, when I put them on a sunny windowsill to produce chlorophyl. I give my chickens a second meal each afternoon, which is usually some combination of kitchen scraps. See my earlier post for making your kitchen scraps into something the hens will actually eat.

I have also used feed quality oats for sprouting, which sprout faster than the wheat so you don't need to have as many jars going before they're green. When using oats you can fill the jar about 2/5 full, since they don't grow quite as much as the wheat. Any other whole grains or edible seeds will do for sprouted chicken feed, but oats & wheat are the least expensive organic grains I can find.

Any seeds or grains that you sprout for human consumption should be rinsed twice a day. This prevents bacterial and mold growth. For the chicken food, I don't think a bit of mold and bacteria bothers them, but if you want to keep their sprouts fresher feel free to rinse twice a day!

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Sprouted Grains for Chickens

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Oleh Mellow

Mellow January 11, 2012 59 Comment