Hello all, I have found a source for broken rice and rice bran that seems to be a really good price,($5/85 lbs.) but I've never seen anyone suggest feeding rice to chickens. Any comments? Thanks in advance!

-- Kristin in LA. (positivekharma@aol.com), April 11, 2001

Answers

didnt they stop throwing rice at wedding, because birds were dyeing from it?, maybe you could cook it first. Dont know if the broken rice would make a difference

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), April 11, 2001.

Kristin-- We NEVER feed our chickens raw rice. We always cook it first. Our understanding is that it can kill them. Can't prove or disprove it, but I'm not willing to find my chickens dead. The rice bran is probably different.

-- z in Washington (beebedz@juno.com), April 11, 2001.

Hi again, I just ran a search and found out that raw rice is perfectly acceptable for chickens, as long as they receive rice bran as well. Polished rice by itself can make them ill.

I found dozens of websites which discussed the feeding of rice and rice by-products to chickens, and found out that in Asia, this is a perfectly common practice, and the chickens suffer no ill effects.

Thought some of you might like to know, esp. if you're living in rice country like we are now. It turns out I was wrong about the price, too- it's only $4/100 lbs. If I mix with cracked corn, greens, and kitchen scraps, I think they'll be covered protein-wise.

Have a great week!

-- Kristin in LA (positivekharma@aol.com), April 11, 2001.