Mulberry as fodder for poultry, etc.

I am starting to plan for a small (1-3 acre) u-pick poly fruit orchard. I would like to run poultry through with e-fencing. I am less interested in maximizing the number of apple trees per se than I am trying to bring about a healthy diverse system. I have little experience growing mulberries, only eating the wild ones around me in zone 4b.
I plan on planting some for the birds in the very least. I have read and heard in many places that mulberries make great animal fodder and that historically it was hay before there was hay, so to speak.

My question is, does any one here feed their poultry mulberry leaves (I know they eat berries, but its the leaves that I want to know about as well)?
I am considering the idea of mulberries planted in row with fruit trees, wherein, the mulberries periodically get pruned ahead of grazing periods. My idea is to prune them regularly so they remain as a large bush and the small branches overhanging into the mow aisles becomes fodder.
Poultry (and sheep I am presume) would eat the chopped greens in the mow aisles.  The re-growth rate on those trees is so great that it seems like an excellent
supplement to their diet if they eat it. I have read that ducks will eat just about anything green.

Anyone have experience with this kind of alley cropping w/ silvopasture for small animals?

My chickens love mulberry (morus alba) leaves in the summer when the grass is dead. They'll fly up and eat any they can reach. When they have other green things to eat, they're less excited and will wait for the leaves to rot on the ground and attract tasty bugs instead.

A couple of resources with information about mulberry leaves as fodder:
https://www.fao.org/livestock/agap/frg/mulberry/Papers/HTML/Mulbwar2.htm
https://repositorio.iica.int/bitstream/handle/11324/2661/BVE17038739i.pdf;jsessionid=C6F013B3592A86D4021119E406086D09?sequence=1

Mulberries can definitely stand up to heavy coppicing. Seems like an excellent choice for silvopasture. The cultivars with really long fruit (pakistan) or long summer bearing (Illinois everbearing) would be great in a u-pick setting if you can grow them in zone 4.

I feed my rabbits pruned branches from my mulberry trees.  They love the leaves and the bark, and the wood is good for gnawing their teeth down.  

My chickens are free ranged, so they have continual access to all the mulberry trees (there are too many to count).  While they definitely eat the berries (and poop purple, and lay stained eggs, lol) I have never seen them eat the leaves.  The trees with the lowest branches are well within reach of a standing chicken (no need to fly up).  This may be because there is simply other stuff they find more attractive, like the bugs and worms.  

I came here because I was watching my young ducks chow down on autumn olive leaves and was wondering what else they’d like..

Look up Nick Ferguson on YouTube. He likes the white mulberry, but it seems that the red is a good alternative.
This link is one that touches in it.  There are many more.

https://youtu.be/UrMK4_zYm-0

I have found my chickens prefer most other things to mulberry leaves, and one year they even ignored the fruit!
That year they were stuffed full of cicadas,  so it hardly counts, but you get the idea.

As for growing mulberry among the the other fruit trees, be vigilant.
One of my volunteer mulberry trees out grew and shaded out a pear tree that was years older.
I was very negligent,  but still, these trees are persistent,  to say the least.

As for other fodder, my girls like willow leaves a very much, and the branches could make for a good product, as artist charcoal or basketing material.

The nitrogen fixing shrubs and trees are good if only because of their leaf growth patterns.
They tend to leaf out late, drop leaves early, and because they tend to have compound leaves the shade is dappled and the leaves break down easily.
With those advantages, forage and human food are almost just bonuses, but some offer that as well.

I am growing red and white mulberries mixed in rows of other fruit and nitrogen fixing trees and bushes. I think your only real option may be the white mulberry due to your growing zone, but they would be excellent candidates from the system you describe. The only problem I have had here with them is deer. They strip all the leaves they can reach all summer and try to peel and eat the bark in the winter.

From that I would say your critters would be in good company chowing down on mulberry prunings.

Might want to look up tree hay...

I have been collecting various varieties of mulberries......   for just such fodder..

There is another way of going about this...     Use the mulberries and run them thru a wood chipper and create compost,   feed worms the compost and then feed the worms to the chickens....

I have been working at "tree Hay"   with my electric wood chipper which runs off solar.       I combine mulberry with moringa, with leucana chipped up to make a compost that I have been making soil blocks out of.    

Tons of work to make your own soil / compost, but it is far better than what one can buy from the store which has mystery ingredients.

But I have been taking leucana and making a natural fence right outside my fence line with it, in the winter I pollard it and make more soil for the next year.

I have one mulberry that I'm keeping in check through aggressive pollarding.
I've taken to tying flexible young the branches down out of my way.
Often they break, yet remain half attached and heal in that position.
This puts the newest growth down at ankle height, which could be useful in a fodder system.

What if you cut a branch the same way you would for air layering, but did not wrap it in growth medium?
If it drys out, you have just made tree hay, with minimal infrastructure.
If it gets greener, good, it's probably gonna make for richer hay when you come back and harvest it.
I'm gonna try this.

William Bronson wrote:I have one mulberry that I'm keeping in check through aggressive pollarding.
I've taken to tying flexible young the branches down out of my way.
Often they break, yet remain half attached and heal in that position.
This puts the newest growth down at ankle height, which could be useful in a fodder system.

What if you cut a branch the same way you would for air layering, but did not wrap it in growth medium?
If it drys out, you have just made tree hay, with minimal infrastructure.
If it gets greener, good, it's probably gonna make for richer hay when you come back and harvest it.
I'm gonna try this.

I am actually testing this now with a peach tree that broke in 1/2 but remained attached, I am air layering in the ground with a cement block on top...   hope it roots.