Sprouts for Chickens - Let's make it simple!

when we first started raising chickens a number of years ago we looked into the idea of sprouting grains or making soaked and sprouting mixes for our hens a lot of the literature out there seemed really complex you needed all these ingredients you needed to do changes of water and all that we found ways that are actually very straightforward that worked well for us that I'd love to share so what we're gonna talk about in this video is how you can go from straight seed whole grain into beautiful rich verdant sprouts for your hens with the least amount of hassle that's what we'll get into today stick with us we learned early on how much value there is in sprouting seed for our hands before we feed it to them these rock-hard dry seeds sure they'll eat them but once they sprout and they have this greenness to them there's so much more food value way more vitamin C vitamin E and the same amount of grain becomes way more material once it's sprouted and in the process to do so can actually be very straightforward so you can see here these are seeds that sprouted a little ways back and I'd like to show you how we go about that but let's start at the very beginning of our process the whole process starts with the grain that we have here what we never buy in is crushed layer feed or pellets or mash or things like that we only buy whole seed and in our case we've got a great relationship with a local farm where we can buy waste grain it's generally whole grain from an organic flour mill for eight cents a pound wherever you live there might be some waste stream where there might be whole seed available at their local farms that you can check in to in that case it's organic and we're really excited to go that route that's our preference we also buy in some other seed we've got white millet and sunflower seed and we're not very highly particular about the exact ratios but we tend to use more of the low-cost seed and these aren't organic they cost around 40 cents a pound so each bucket full of seeds that we sprout costs us around 80 cents or so and we make ratio of maybe two parts or so to the blow-off wheat that we get from this local mill to one part each of the sunflower and millet and simply in a bucket pour rainwater over it so that the grain is generously covered we leave that for one night here's our bucket that just was soaked for tomorrow's use you can see the hens are eagerly interested in it even though it hasn't sprouted yet although they like it even more when it does we put a stick in it to make sure in case a little chipmunk or a bird falls in there they can get out easily and the grain that Sasha soaked yesterday is here and you can see it's already starting to really soften up now in the summer months if we were to simply leave this for multiple days it would rot so you can even see that it's beginning to ferment the tiniest bit it has a sweet vinegary sort of smell so starting to do a good fermentation process but this is viable seed that is ready to sprout and so how do we actually get it to sprout and turn into green things let's talk about that this is where we do things I think a lot differently than some of the other recommendations I've seen out there most recipes now call for you draining the water off switching it doing that a number of days rinsing it off until they begin to sprout what we do is once we know that it's soaked it's beginning to wake up and germinate we simply add it to the landscape of our chicken yard that we have lots of piles of old rotting leaves and sawdust and wood chips waste hay all sorts of things like that and so what happens is the chickens can eat as much of this sprouted or soaked grain as they want and then we can help promote it turning into actual green sprouts by simply covering up some of it now in this case I can use a hay fork and bury a little under these carrot stocks that are in here you can see from doing this the other day so this is probably two days old you've got these really beautiful germinating seeds mixed with compost and fresh sprout seed so they've got some free choice on a little bit of a range the more we do this every day the more there's a range between freshly soaked rain and sprouts nice beautiful roots and then eventually some greens now you can get to the greens in a couple different ways it can be absolutely as simple as dropping a bucket over some of these areas dropping a crate putting some branches perhaps even dumping some fresh weeds from the garden so they can eat those greens and as they work through that the sprouts can be greening up underneath don't overthink it don't stress yourself out just soak some grain and put it out for them and let the system evolve and figure itself out with you you may see rich dark compost with seeds germinating in it here and think to yourself well I don't have that yet how am I supposed to be able to germinate these seeds until I have that it's important to remember once the seeds are soaked they're really ready to actively germinate and here's a great example a pile of sawdust just straight-up sawdust it's been here for a few weeks but there's no compost in this or anything taking these seeds and throwing it at the sawdust now sure the chickens are going to eat a lot of that but we can also use a hay fork or our hands to hide some now this is just sawdust all the way through you do that enough and the seeds will germinate in the sawdust they'll germinate in those leaf bags you dumped out they'll germinate in the garden weeds you've dumped in the chicken yard the old wood chips the waste hay the animal manures again don't feel like you need to get stuck on the exact perfect recipe the exact right ratios begin soaking some nice quality seeds in whatever water you have rainwater pond water give it a day put it out on whatever context you have and the chickens will begin enjoying it how do we get it to actually green up though so we're seeing how the chickens can get access to soaked grain and the start of sprouts what if we'd like a little fresh pasture so nice pockets of green in their landscape it's the same process but it's simply a matter of putting something over to keep them out for a limited amount of time in this case we're using a two by four inch welded wire ring like a compost ring this could be some branches laid on the ground could be lots of different things after a week or so we can move that aside and give them free choice and you can see all the wheat the millets random brassicas a whole beautiful medley of greens in here now we can let them completely bust this apart and turn it to nothingness that's fine we can also do something like this where you can see this ring was over this area yesterday they had a lot of fun they chewed it down they mowed it and we can either let them continue on until it's zeroed out and start from scratch or pardon me excuse me ma'am a little further if you will we can put it back over and let it green up again or we can put it on halfway maybe that's fun some of this will turn back into a lush rich lawn and some of this they can kick apart and be able to eat the sprouts and worms that came to it the important thing we're trying to get across is to not over think of it overthink it to not get stuck on every little detail but just begin the process this is part of a whole system where we're striving our best to provide a full healthy happy life for our hens probably we could be doing better we could probably be doing better in what we're eating but we're trying every day they come out there's something new something fresh even though it's a static yard and we're trying and they're trying and it's all pretty fun thanks for watching [Applause] [Laughter] [Applause] [Applause] you're missing it because we're kicking it too much [Applause] [Music]

Channel: EdibleAcres

Views: 116,962

Rating: 4.9514608 out of 5

Keywords: permaculture, chickens, chicken, permaculture chickens, backyard chickens, chicken feed, chicken food, compost, sprouting organic whole grains for chicken feed, grain, chicken coop, raising chickens, chicken run, permaculture chicken, feed chickens without grain, chicken (animal), what to feed chickens, chickens eating grubs, compost (material), permaculture animals, lexington permaculture, sprout whole grains for chicken feed, chickens eating

Id: Dwr36abaqhc

Length: 11min 6sec (666 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 27 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/briscoecountyjr]

Thank you for sharing, that was really informative.

[u/toomanyfandomstolove]

Those chickens look so healthy and happy! Makes for yummy chickens!