By Katie Bedgood, Lakeview FFA Chapter Member

Have you ever thought about growing your own chicken food? Maybe you just need a fun activity for the kids to do. Growing lentils is easy and fun. All the supplies you need are a mason jar, lentils, and water. Lentils are an annual, edible legume known for its lens shaped seed. They are used all around the word for culinary purpose and mostly when cooking stews and soups.  Finding what you need is easy.  All the supplies for this project can be found at your local grocery store. 

The first step is to put your lentils in the mason jar with enough water to cover them. After your lentils have soaked up the water, you’re going to want to rinse them.  You will need to rinse at least twice a day. After a few days, you will start to see sprouts! You want to make sure you do not feed the lentils to your chickens if they are unsprouted or have mildew. Why can’t you feed your chickens un sprouted lentils? Well, the purpose of feeding your chickens sprouts is because the germination process increases the nutrient value of the seeds and provides a little extra protein. When the seeds are not sprouted, they can be toxic to not only chickens but people too. So, be careful, have fun, and happy sprouting. 

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