I just so happen to run a small
mushroom farm, and I also happen to have a small flock of pullets. We ended up 'freshening up' our reishi genetics a month or so ago and I ended up with a number of extra bags of grain spawn from the old strain that I wasn't going to be using. I was considering innoculating some
wood chip beds, but I've always had better luck doing that with sawdust spawn. Then it occurred to me to try feeding it to the chickens! Especially since they are young and still deciding what is and is not food I figured get them used to it now.
It took them a few days but now they are loving it as much as their normal 'starter'
feed. I've also started throwing in shiitake grain spawn too, although they seem to like it less than the reishi. There are a couple studies and a few anecdotal reports out there on the internet about doing this, so it's not without precedent. However I thought I would share my
experience if any other people with access to grain spawn and chickens ever thought about doing this.
The benefits, as I see them, are: 1) Much higher protein content in myceliated grain compared with regular grains. 2) All types of beta-glucans, polysaccharides and other healthy components not found in regular grain 3) It is very cheap for me to produce and it's sometimes a waste product 4) If not closing a loop, bringing the two ends a little bit closer to each other.
I would be very interested to hear opinions or similar experiences on this subject.
((Note to moderator: I 'cross posted' this in the
Fungi forum as well. If that sort of thing is frowned upon please decide which forum it fits better in and delete the other. Thanks!))