Monday, November 24, 2014

Growing Winter Rye Grass for Your Chickens

If you are raising backyard chickens, I have a great winter forage source for you, winter rye.
Every fall I seed my back lawn with winter rye grass seed and it takes off quickly providing a food source for my urban chickens.


Rye grass is high in nutritive value and tolerates chickens grazing on it and is a great grass to grow for chickens to graze on.. Every morning when I open the coop, I let the girls out for some green grass munching. Even long after my St. Augustine lawn dies back from colder temps, the rye stays green and gives the chickens a constant source of greens through the winter. If you live in an area where it snows, I imagine you could grow it in trays. Once it is eaten down it will rapidly grow back if the trays were rotated.

Growing Grass For Chickens To Graze On:

  1. In early fall, for me September, I seed our back lawn with winter rye seed. 
  2. Water daily until grass emerges.
  3.  Wait to mow until the new rye grass is 3-4 inches tall.
  4.  Allow chickens to graze on rye grass for additional winter nutrition for your urban chickens.


2 comments:

  1. Hi

    I m new to "chickening" and was wondering how many chickens can eat from one tray of fodder?

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  2. If you have a large feeder than quite a few. I had an average size feeder with 5 chickens.

    ReplyDelete