Soft Red Wheat as Feed?

[phantomriver]

I've found a source of super cheap soft red wheat(buying direct rather than through the local feed stores). Can I use it as a partial replacement of my animal's rations. Currently they are on goat pellets for the goats, rabbit pellets for the rabbits, chicken pellets for the chickens, horse pellets for horses--The reason being that buying straight grains never saved any and I figured it was balanced correctly for them. If they can have it, what percentage can it replace? The goats don't eat much grain to begin with and at the moment the hay is holding the horses' weight without pellets but that will change once late winter gets here. I'm about to pick up a ton to plant on some land that was just cleared to hold the soil until spring and will get more if I can use it as feed without killing anyone.

[Bearfootfarm]

http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/...acts/wheat.htm

Species Usage
i) Beef: Feeding wheat to ruminants requires some caution as wheat tends to be more apt than other cereal grains to cause acute indigestion in animals which are unadapted to it.

The primary problem appears to be the high gluten content of wheat which in the rumen can result in a "pasty" consistency to the rumen contents and reduced rumen motility. Whole wheat may be efficiently used by cattle, but it's nutritive value is improved by some form of processing. It is generally conceded that its feeding value is optimized by dry-rolling, coarse grinding or steam-rolling to produce a thick flake.

Fine grinding of wheat generally reduces the feed intake and is likely to cause acidosis and/or bloat. Never-the-less, when available for feed, it can be substituted equally for corn on the basis of TDN to a maximum of 25% of dry matter intake for beef.

ii) Sheep: Whole-grained wheat intended for adult sheep need not be ground or processed before incorporating into rations since these species chew feed more completely. In the case of early-weaned and artificially-reared lambs, the palatability of whole-grain wheat is improved by pelleting.

[Trisha in WA]

I sprout whole wheat berries for 7 days and feed it that way to my cows, rabbits, horses and chickens. It is basically a grass by then. I also use barley in this way.

I have sort of modeled my design after a fodder pro system available at Farm Tack, but I started on a very small scale using gallon jars on the window sill in the kitchen. Right now we are still building the bigger unit, so only the cow gets her feed daily this way, but I have given some to all the animals and they all are happy to eat it.
I believe it is going to save me over half on my feed bill and as much as 75%.