We learned how to sprout grain for chickens for a couple of reasons. First, if you sprout grain for your chickens you are increasing the feed volume and nutritional value over just feeding the grain itself. Second, sprouting grain for your flock can be done indoors in the winter and provides them with a fresh, nutritious treat.

How to Sprout Grains Video

If you would like to watch the video for this topic, click the play button below.

Benefits and Nutritional Value of Sprouted Grain

One of the greatest benefits of learning how to sprout grain for chickens, is year-round access to fresh greens. It does not matter what season it is or what the weather is like, because it can be done indoors by a sunny window.

Sprouting grains also takes something small and increases the volume so they actually have more to eat. This is especially good in winter when chickens eat more to stay warm. So on a homestead, sprouting grain is helpful for keeping those winter feed costs down.

From a nutritional perspective, sprouting grains makes the grain 40-50% more digestible! That means they are going to get more of the vitamins, minerals, and proteins that are available. In addition, the sprouts are loaded with beta-carotene and chlorophyll, which results in darker egg yolks and a higher nutritional value. You can see there are some great benefits to learning how to sprout grain for chickens, and it’s easy!

Steps for Sprouting Grain

The following steps relate to sprouting corn, so be aware that it will likely take less time to sprout other grains.

You can sprout any grain you have access to – like corn, oats, wheat, rye and buckwheat. Be sure to use a quality grain. I have a friend at work whose husband is an organic farmer, and she was able to hook us up with some organic corn.

Soak the grain in water until there is evidence of sprouting

The first four or so days, we soaked our corn in water, changing the water twice a day to make sure that it was clean. It can also really start to smell if you don’t change the water! It looked like nothing was happening, which was disappointing at first.

Transfer sprouted seeds to a seed tray or other container with small drain holes

On day five, we could see some pretty good evidence of sprouts. We had a set of seed trays that included one with drain holes that fit inside another that had no holes. I put a shallow layer of the sprouted seeds in the tray with holes.

Add a container underneath to catch draining water

The bottom tray of the set (with no holes) was partially filled with water so that we could water the sprouts quickly and easily by submerging the corn tray inside the water tray. You could also just water the sprouted seeds with a watering can.

Place in a sunny location – like a southern facing window

In our situation, we have a couple of southern facing windows on a porch closed in by the previous owner. This will be the side of the house where we build our attached four seasons greenhouse, so when that is done we will sprout these in the greenhouse.

Water sprouts twice per day until they are ready to feed to the chickens

To water, we dropped the top tray into the bottom one and let the sprouts soak for a few minutes. Then we pulled the top tray up and with a little turn, rested it on edges of the bottom tray to drain.

Note: Do not let the seeds remain in water or they will start to ferment rather than grow. Change the water often if using this method – it can get funky very fast!

It took about a week before we had some good sprouts going.

When are the sprouted grains ready for the chickens?

We could have fed the sprouts to the chickens on day seven. However, sprouted grain has the best bang for your buck as far as volume and nutritional value when grown to about 3 inches high. We had some really good growth on days ten and eleven, and on day twelve the sprouted corn was ready for our chickens.

There are other ways to sprout grain for chickens – do you have a method for doing this? What grain have you used or will you use? Personally, we would like to try oats or wheat next. Please leave us a comment below with your thoughts!