What is best to plant for chickens during summer for winter? On small space for more seeds, corn, sunflower,wheat...?

[Nenad]

What would be best for small space in garden, what gives more seeds? What can also be planted that gives good amount of seeds? Thanks

 

[chickengr]

I would like to plant something for chickens as well. I wonder if white proso millet would be a good choice. chickens could forage on that so no storage necessary. it is supposed to be fast growing as well.

any other idea?

 

[Lauravonsmurf]

Below is a partial list of things you find in more whole feeds or even old books on poultry. The easiest is probably Sunflower, Pop Corn or even Ornamental Corn, and bird friendly Milo (that’s the milo in bird seed mixes, or sold in bulk at feed stores for birds, or in some chicken feeds)… I usually have a plant or two pop up on their own, I just fed a Milo seed stalk to my girls yesterday from a volunteer plant. The popcorn is fun, because you can eat it too, black sunflower is preferred stuff in bird feed but I have fed big sunflower seed heads too that I grew, harvested and dried.

If you want sprouts the grass type grains are easy… like wheat, barley, oats, alfalfa… but also sunflower sprouts, other vegetable sprouts too… but the wheat grows pretty easy volunteer around here, I just fed my birds sprouts from the seed in the feed I buy… I just put it in a tray and let it grow then fed it to them…early this week they got just such sprouts, they gobbled it up.

In addition they like carrot, beet scrapes, dried flower petals (marigold for example), watermelon, dried berries/raisins, fresh berries), herbs like oregano, tender veggies, leafy greens and more…

Stuff in feeds and treats sold in poultry and bird feed…

Sunflowers (black seed ones most common)
Wheat
Barely
Pop Corn and Ornamental Corns
Field Peas
Oats
Paddy Rice
Milo
Flax
Alfalfa
Lentils
Split Peas
Pumpkin Seeds
Squash Seeds
Safflower Seed
dried hot peppers

How to get seed easy… buy a bag of wild bird feed, buy a whole grain chicken feed, the popcorn for AirPower’s at the grocery store, Ornamental corn cobs sold in fall at the grocery store will totally germinate no problem (just rub the corn off the cob and plant in spring) or you can also buy seed packets, buy a little bulk seed out of bins at feed store…

I could go on…

Below are our original vegetable beds in the Chicken Run… (gardening dangerously) that’s why they where caged… then when I wanted the birds to have access I just removed the fencing and they would eat what they wanted… did this for many years, right now they have been removed as we are redesigning the area I couldn’t find the photo of the beds with fencing on top that allowed the plants to grow so high and then chickens could nibble it but not all to the ground when I was doing more cover crop in a bed)… experiments in growing food for humans and birds... I don’t have pictures of the recent sprouting of chicken feed experiment that my birds just ate… but I just put feed in a long plastic chicken feeder I wasn’t using and watered it, then popped it out and fed it to them when it had grown up a bit. Going to start a new batch…the treat was a big hit with my ladies.

I hope this gives you all some ideas.

 

[Nenad]

Below is a partial list of things you find in more whole feeds or even old books on poultry. The easiest is probably Sunflower, Pop Corn or even Ornamental Corn, and bird friendly Milo (that’s the milo in bird seed mixes, or sold in bulk at feed stores for birds, or in some chicken feeds)… I usually have a plant or two pop up on their own, I just fed a Milo seed stalk to my girls yesterday from a volunteer plant. The popcorn is fun, because you can eat it too, black sunflower is preferred stuff in bird feed but I have fed big sunflower seed heads too that I grew, harvested and dried.

If you want sprouts the grass type grains are easy… like wheat, barley, oats, alfalfa… but also sunflower sprouts, other vegetable sprouts too… but the wheat grows pretty easy volunteer around here, I just fed my birds sprouts from the seed in the feed I buy… I just put it in a tray and let it grow then fed it to them…early this week they got just such sprouts, they gobbled it up.

In addition they like carrot, beet scrapes, dried flower petals (marigold for example), watermelon, dried berries/raisins, fresh berries), herbs like oregano, tender veggies, leafy greens and more…

Stuff in feeds and treats sold in poultry and bird feed…

Sunflowers (black seed ones most common)
Wheat
Barely
Pop Corn and Ornamental Corns
Field Peas
Oats
Paddy Rice
Milo
Flax
Alfalfa
Lentils
Split Peas
Pumpkin Seeds
Squash Seeds
Safflower Seed
dried hot peppers

How to get seed easy… buy a bag of wild bird feed, buy a whole grain chicken feed, the popcorn for AirPower’s at the grocery store, Ornamental corn cobs sold in fall at the grocery store will totally germinate no problem (just rub the corn off the cob and plant in spring) or you can also buy seed packets, buy a little bulk seed out of bins at feed store…

I could go on…

Below are our original vegetable beds in the Chicken Run… (gardening dangerously) that’s why they where caged… then when I wanted the birds to have access I just removed the fencing and they would eat what they wanted… did this for many years, right now they have been removed as we are redesigning the area I couldn’t find the photo of the beds with fencing on top that allowed the plants to grow so high and then chickens could nibble it but not all to the ground when I was doing more cover crop in a bed)… experiments in growing food for humans and birds... I don’t have pictures of the recent sprouting of chicken feed experiment that my birds just ate… but I just put feed in a long plastic chicken feeder I wasn’t using and watered it, then popped it out and fed it to them when it had grown up a bit. Going to start a new batch…the treat was a big hit with my ladies.

I hope this gives you all some ideas.

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Thank you very much!!!

 

[3KillerBs]

I'm planning on planting extra storage-type squash for the chickens so that they'll have a nice source of vitamin A rich veggies.