Growing Sorghum for FREE Backyard Chicken Feed

get a unmarked from self-sufficiently and this video is about growing sorghum at home flee a flock of chickens or ducks even now the reason why I decided to grow sorghum was simply by chance I realized that in my chicken mulch which I use on the garden there was quite a bit of leftover sorghum in and amongst the the mulch and of course that started to come up in the garden so I let one or two grow into sorghum plants then I harvested the heads and I spread that around the garden and I ended up with getting a ton of sorghum growing up in my vegetable patch so I had a little patch it was a sorghum patch and I left just let that grow in fact I was able to get a whole bunch of heads out of it cut the heads off and it regrew a second bunch of heads for me so it was very productive so I decided to research sorghum in fact it's actually a Australian native plant or native grass it's very prolific it's a really good grower and I suppose that's what makes it a handy food for poultry because it's a grain that can be easily grown in many climates especially our climate in Australia here in the subtropics and pretty much all year round and it produces nice big heads and plenty of seeds so you know why wouldn't you grow it the only thing is I've personally found that my chickens don't love it you know they'll eat it if it's the last thing left sort of thing and that's probably why I ended up finding quite a lot of it in and amongst the mulch because you know chickens they got a Eagle Eye and they will spot grain and food anywhere so you think that they would have cleaned up the sorghum if they really loved it and so my testing over the last six months or so has showed that although they're gathered around the sorghum here that I've laid out for them they're not overly fussed with in fact they're picking out a lot of the spiders and the bugs that were amongst the sorghum heads first before they eat the grain you know some of them don't mind the grain but a lot of them just don't care for it much at all that leads me to another thing there's commercial feed I have realized now since I started this sorghum experiment that some commercial growers or commercial producers of chicken feed will write on the packet sorghum free or low in sorghum or 17% sorghum and that type of thing and now I know why because poultry just aren't overly fast eating sorghum there could be some reasons for that sorghum there can be some types of sorghum that is no good for birds especially if they eat it not fully ripened and maybe that's why some of the birds aren't really keen on it they might be inherently wary of the grain but it probably comes down to my poultry feed supplier Barry he reckons that look chickens just have their favorite grains and my flock little many flocks might not just like sorghum as much as they like sunflower seed or corn or wheat or other types of grains so that's probably the most plausible explanation but anyway I thought it was a good experiment to grow it because it is very easy to grow and I was thinking if I could grow sorghum so easily maybe it could be a good supplementary feed for my flock and save me some money will I grow it again and probably not but it was an interesting experiment to try over the next few days these guys will pick through that sorghum and they'll eventually eat it there'll be a few wild birds come and have a snack on it as well so it doesn't go to waste it's just not the most favourite thing they'll ever eat but a game like my poultry supplier Berry says if you if you if you leave fussy hands with their feed that they haven't eaten they will eventually eat it if they get hungry enough and I suppose it's the same for many animals and sorghum is a good grain and it is a good healthy grain for them to eat he reckons that rather than get rid of the sorghum if that's all that's left after a mixed grain of feed leave it for them and make them eat it that's the best way to make sure they eat all their good stuff and to make sure that there's no feed wastage anyway I hope you enjoyed this little experiment of growing sorghum for your home flock yes it is easy to do but what I do it again probably not but now we know thanks a lot for watching and bye for now

Channel: Self Sufficient Me

Views: 66,811

Rating: 4.9161677 out of 5

Keywords: Sorghum (Organism Classification), Garden, Food (TV Genre), Backyard, Gardening (Interest), Sorghum for chickens, keeping chickens, Chicken (Animal), sorghum for ducks, growing chicken feed, grow your own chicken feed, grow grain for chickens, poultry feed, grow your own poultry feed

Id: eL5a3ovp1Sk

Length: 5min 59sec (359 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 10 2015