The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Marketplace => Topic started by: fiestyredhead331 on January 06, 2015, 07:07:16 pm
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we're looking at buying our grain for the goats/sheep/chickens as whole grain and bruising it ourselves.
anyone have any recommmendations on particular types or companies to look at?
TIA :wave:
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We buy ours direct from a farm. Much cheaper. Our oats for the goats are only £3 for 25 kilo
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we've been buying bruised barley direct from a farmer at £70 per half ton but got a price of £70 per TON unbruised barley so looking at the options
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Instead of bruising it you could sprout it which is what I do for my goats - they absolutely love it.
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tell me more Clydesdaleclopper......
the problem I have is trying to 'grow' anything as I have about 85 free range chickens who make short work of anything I try to grow outdoors!
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For the goats I sprout enough for each day for them in a plastic box in my utility room. I have 4 boxes and I rinse the grain in warm water each day. By day 4 it is well enough sprouted to feed to them so each day I fill up the empty box and it just goes around :) It's supposed to be really good for them as it is much higher in nutrients once it has started to sprout and is very easy to digest.
For the chickens you will need big quantities so I would think fermenting it would be better as you keep it dark - so for that you could do it in a big barrel. It is also quicker than sprouting. I haven't tried the fermenting yet but it's on my to do list. I think there was a thread a while back about it on here but there is also a very detailed thread about it here http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/644300/fermenting-feed-for-meat-birds (http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/644300/fermenting-feed-for-meat-birds)
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thanks for that Clydesdaleclopper, will look into that but how big do my boxes need to be with 16 goats?... :-\
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I got a mill from ascott and it was handy but quite dusty. it made flour aswell. the coarsest setting was still flour like but better than nothing.
we used it for barley and gave it to anything that would eat it - we had a lot of visiting pheasants when we fed it.
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Depends how much grain you normally give them. remember the protein levels increase after sprouting so you can feed less than you would rolled. In terms of size, once sprouted it takes up approx 2 times the space. I use the Really Useful Boxes and leave the lids on and they stack on top of one another.