Chicken Feed - Home Grown Sunflower and Millet!

I have seen some amish around here do a "sunflower braid"(like garlic) - they take off as much of the flower, greens and leaves as they can without compromising the head - leave about a foot of stem(?). Using 3 heads at a time, all facing outward - they bundle the stems with twine move up 6 inches add 3 more etc. - it seems space efficent and provides a lot of air flow.

Isn't it just amazing how God created gardens to grow! Plant one tiny seed and get a huge return on your efforts, gotta love it!

We are putting our millet and sunflowers in pillow cases this year to prevent mice from getting to them. Even hanging from the rafters did not keep the mice away. Make sure your sunflowers are super dry hefore storing or they will mold. We also let overipe corn dry and use it for chicken feed. We use a bottle opener to scrape the kernels off.

I foresee many sunflower and millet volunteers in your garden next year! haha :-)

Your attached greenhouse with the cats is a great idea. I tried to dry sunflowers in my shed and the mice had a field day.

Sean, I like to roast my sunflower seed and then use that roasted seed to cut my whole coffee beans as they go into the grinder, they add a good flavorful and nutty component to the coffee and sunflower yields a different yet seemingly longer lasting energy than caffeine

It's wonderful to see a small part of the life you lead, you seem truly fulfilled with life and it's heartwarming

Sean you have such a calm, relaxed manner and voice. Ty for great info and amazing video

What a wonderfully harmonious way to farm!

* then the wild birds spread the seed and makes for next year's harvest ❤️

Best part for sure is that chuckle at the end...

I think I'll plant sunflowers next year in my newly prepped garden bed. The birds will love them. Must get the Wizard of Oz look for my wife when she goes to harvest! 😊

Beautiful and well thought out video again. I find your voice very soothing which just makes my chicken watching that more pleasant. Yes I come to watch your chickens lol... One note, I finally had some goji berry bushes take and they flowered this year! It's fun to try even if I'm in a apt. and container gardening, I got zucchini and tomatoes and bunches of herbs, I'm satisfied

I want to see how to press sunflower seeds for oil!

We did this accidentally at first. We had a huge bag of feed for the chickens along with wild bird seed sitting out because I forgot about them and our lovely buck, fred escaped, and completely tired the bags apart, scratched at them digging for his favorite seeds and spread them all over.lol then while cleaning what I could up, the girls had a heyday grabbing handfuls to plant in their planter and around the small part of the land we use a "yard" with maybe less than 100sq ft of grass. Well, now its probably a few hundred sq ft of free feed that has been feeding our animals all thru the summer as treats and still have some to put away for the winter. We are now going to designate an area and continue to grow it ourselves to help supplement feed and use as treats. And hopefully one day become completely self sufficient. As feed is getting harder and harder to come by when its needed. And we can find hay for the life of us. Anywho. One day. As long as we keep working hard, I believe our day will come. You have been such a huge help and inspiration this year since I've found your channel. Thank you so much.

Thanks for this vid. It has given me some excellent ideas to help sustain my future chicken project. Thanks

Probably the best thing I’ve seen about keeping chickens, compliments

Never mind. I already bought some. Will plant and water them once a week lightly in a poked water bottle ☝️

Looks like a great way to dry them out. I would mention that we grew Black oil sunflowers next to Mammoth sunflowers and the Mammoths don't seem to attract the gold finches as much if at all. They grew well in a berm I made to stop fall flood waters from getting to the house, no fertilizer or soil amendment.

Thanks for the ideas! I planted both sunflower and amaranth for their beauty and the bees love/d the sunflowers. I’ve a friend that just started keeping chickens and I’ve already told her I’m going to save the seed heads for her to give her chickens some snacks. I didn’t even think about trying to save the amaranth. I bet they’d enjoy that too. Now I have to figure out when to harvest those. Thanks!