Making Small-Scale Hay for Chickens

In the picture above, there is a mix of corn and barley growing. Since the barley grass acts as a "cut-and-come again" grass, I can cut it throughout the summer, let it dry, then turn it into hay. Later in the year, I can cut it and use it for silage. Either way, both options are going to be used for winter-greens! 

Usually, if you're growing hay for cows or some other herbivor-ous"production" animal, there are certain stages of a plant that generally have higher nutrient/protein levels. Now, for what I'm doing, I'm not as concerned about nutrient content, primarily because chickens aren't herbivores (this may surprise you, but chickens are actually omnivores; yes, that means they will eat meat if given the chance:) Rather, my goal is to get a green-feed for winter so I can (a) limit wear and tear on the pasture during the winter, and (b) keep egg-yolk color within the medium to dark yellow color throughout the winter. 

Yolk color is very important (personally), because that is one of the major defining factors between store-bought eggs, and free-range eggs. I think that if we are being honest, even a majority of the free-range eggs in stores today look and taste similar to the cage free eggs, except they are a bit more spendy. 

Photo courtesy of MyBeautyGym.

Essentially, I wait until the grass is at least 8 inches tall. If it gets to the heading stage (where the grain would eventually grow), its still alright, its just that there is more stem than leaves. Chickens like to eat the "leafy" portions because they can't chew the stems. I waited for my first cutting until it was in the head-stage so I could get more volume, but I will have to run it through a shredder so I can feed it, otherwise the chickens will just look at me and ask me, "what am I supposed to do with this? It's too big to eat!"

Once the grass gets tall enough, I just chop it close to the ground with some shrub-shears, then gather it with a pitchfork into small piles so it can dry in the sun. 

By making some of my own hay, I can cut costs down during the winter (buying alfalfa pellets can get spendy) by not needing as much alfalfa pellets, or baled hay. I figure that each chicken is capable of eating roughly a quarter pound of grass/leaves/ect... per day, and with about 165 chickens (and now like 35 ducks), that translates into about 48 lbs of grass per day, or about 1300 lbs of fresh green material per month. That is a LOT of greens! 

While I wouldn't be able to gather that amount of greens from our property alone, growing some of it paves the way for a self-sustaining farm, in which a majority of the inputs used in production are all controlled and used within a closed system, which ultimately cuts down on waste!