Chicken Feed

Chicken Feed is an idiom that means "a small amount of money."  For example, one might say, "Of course you can afford that, it's just chicken feed."  The trouble with that is chicken feed often costs more than a "small amount of money."  Our chickens obtain, I would guess, 30% of their nutritional needs by foraging around in the pasture, feasting on bugs, worms, grasses, seeds, etc.  We supplement this with chicken feed we purchase from our local feed store, especially during the fall and winter.  But, what would we do if we could no longer afford to purchase laying pellets and scratch grains?  Or if the supply chain was disrupted by some event?  I think, first, we'd butcher and eat some chickens while they were still fat :)

I've often thought about this.  Is it possible for the small homestead farmer to grow all his or her chicken feed?  I'm doubtful at our size that it would be possible, but I think it is possible to at least grow some of it!

In a very, very delayed update, I wanted to talk about something that I first brought up way back in This Post from July 2015.  In that post I was talking about a mysterious plant that came up volunteer in the garden that ended up being grain sorghum or milo.  I have no idea of where the seed came from other than the fact that it must have been propagated by birds, as I don't feed any of my animals grain sorghum.

Here is a photo of the seed head of the sorghum that grew up in the garden back during the summer of 2015.  When I was growing up, we grew a few fields of sorghum, but the grain was red.  This grain looks almost entirely white or golden with only a few grains that are red.  Notice the chicken in the background coveting the sorghum in the garden!

Volunteer grain sorghum in the garden

I was thinking that perhaps the sorghum was not ripened yet, thinking that perhaps the grain would turn red when fully ripe.  But that did not happen.  The grain ripened on the head, staying primarily a white color.  I cut off the heads and threw the plant itself over the fence to the cows.  They happily gobbled it up.  Then I brought the fat, heavy grain heads to the back patio and laid them on the table to allow them to fully dry. Then I promptly... forgot about them.  That was the latter part of July!

Full, Fat seed head

This past weekend, while out on the back patio, I saw the sorghum seed heads and decided that I had (long overdue) work to do! I grabbed a colander and took each seed head between the palms of my hand.  Rubbing them briskly between my palms, the well-dried grain broke free from the stalk and fell into the colander while the stem itself stayed in my hands.

Mostly clean grain sorghum

Then I had to separate "the wheat from the chaff," so to speak.  I began shaking out the impurities, separating the good from the bad. The lighter chaff would fly out of the colander, leaving behind the heavier grain.  I manually picked out a few of the sticks or other foreign items that didn't pass the eye test.  I threw a small handful of the cleaned grain out to the chickens in the pasture and they made quick work of making them disappear!

Why am I doing all this?  Well, I'd like to see if it would be economical and/or worth it to grow at least some of my own chicken feed.  I plan to plant the seeds I saved in a plot this spring to do just that.  The next time I harvest sorghum this summer(hopefully), it will be for feed purposes - the grain for chickens and the plant itself for the cows.

Chicken Feed

So I did a little research and found This guide for feeding sorghum to poultry.  A few notable takeaways from that article:

• Within the last 15 years, the rule of thumb that once said “The nutrient value of sorghum is 10% less than corn when used in poultry rations” is no longer true. In fact, sorghum can be used to totally replace corn in poultry feed rations with only minor changes in the other dietary ingredients.
• Grain sorghum can be used at up to 70% in a broiler and layer rations and 55% in turkey rations replacing all of the corn. 

Interesting.  I funneled the cleaned sorghum into a container, labeled it, and tucked it away into my seed inventory.

Saved Seed

Sometime later this spring, I'll work up a little plot, broadcast the seed I saved, and hopefully be able to grow a small portion of our own chicken feed.