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  • From: Harvey Ussery <harvey@themodernhomestead.us>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Sorghums, millets, and sunflowers as feed
  • Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:59:45 -0400

I'm getting serious about producing more of my poultry flock's (chickens, ducks, geese, sometimes guineas) feed on the home place--more independence of purchased inputs, superior natural feeds. (I just completed an article on this subject for Mother Earth News, out early next year, I think. I expect I'll publish on the subject in Backyard Poultry as well.)

I'll be posting more later about the "Home Feeding Project" I'm launching, but for now, I have questions for those of you who have tried growing sorghums, millets, and sunflowers as home-grown poultry feed:

*Sorghums: I grew black sorghum (Sorghum nigrum) and red broom corn (S. vulgare) this year. As the seed panicles have ripened I have cut them and thrown them to my layer flock. They love it, though I've noticed that they much prefer the S. vulgare to the S. nigrum.

I've encountered some terminological/taxonomic confusion where "sorghum" is concerned. I've found some sources that uses "Sorghum bicolor" to include the whole group of "broom," grain, and fodder/syrup sorghums. Others said that S. vulgare and S. bicolor are synonyms.

So, I'm confused, but I'm looking for recommendations for reliable, high-yield *grain* sorghum varieties. The seeds for the ones I grew this year I bought from FEDCO Seeds (Maine), but they were listed in the ornamental flowers section, so I'm hoping I can find a more productive grain type. Can anyone help?

*Millets: I'm also looking for good feed millets. I grew Japanese millet (seeds also from FEDCO) this year. Okay as a cover crop, but seeds quite small, and the chooks didn't seem much interested in eating them. Can anyone recommend good feed-grain millets, and sources of seeds?

*Sunflowers: I grew both the big-head/big-seed type (Mammoth Russian Grey Stripe) and the multi-head/smaller seed type. I just cut off the heads when the seeds were ripe and threw the whole heads to the birds--they pecked out the seeds themselves.

Anyone experimented with raising sunflowers for poultry feed? Recommendation on best varieties and seed sources?

Thanks for input if this is an area of experimentation for you as well.

~Harvey

--
Harvey in northern Virginia
www.themodernhomestead.us

The building of new topsoil depends on us, and our future depends on building
new topsoil. This is the greatest challenge facing modern agriculture.
~Christine Jones





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