Backyard Chickens: Winter Forage Supplements

Now that we are nearing the Winter Solstice, the lawn has started to go dormant and the chickens will be missing out on their main source of forage. And soon we will be moving the chicken tractor to a spot in the yard where they will stay put until spring. Since they will be eating the remaining grass down to bare dirt, and since they are still giving us at least two eggs a day, we'll be supplementing their ration with meal worms and sprouted grain. This will provide some semblance of forage even if it will only be once or twice a week. Commercial free-range operations use elaborate systems for large-scale grain sprouting in winter. We just wanted to come up with something simple that would give us about one seed flat worth of sprouts a week during the worst of the winter months and still be compatible with our grow light table. After looking at some of these commercial systems I settled on the following three piece tray array.

I started by punching small drainage holes in a solid flat using a soldering iron. This will sit in a second solid tray followed by a third mesh tray for added support.
  

For a first try, it turns out that about four cups of winter rye soaked overnight would evenly fill the tray to a depth of about half an inch. As you would do for alfalfa sprouts destined for the salad bowl, they were rinsed twice a day over the sink with the spray wand.

After about three days the seeds began to sprout and were either kept under a grow light or moved outside in the sun on mild days to green up.

After about a week, the resulting mat is ready for breakup and feeding. The increase in biomass was amazing. All through this process the rinsing continued and once they reached this stage they were moved to the garage to keep cool and limit mold growth. With two separate arrays, we should be able to have at least one fully sprouted flat ready for feeding each week.

Love them sprouts!