We grow proso millet for our chickens. They love it. Cut it, let it dry and store it in feed sacks. Or you can just let them into the patch. The stuff is easy to grow. Tom

We grow alfalfa in a small plot and cut it with either gas-powered hedge trimmers (me) or old-fashioned hedge clippers (my wife). Both work fine. We usually dry it under cover and feed it to our goats as a treat. We get 2 or 3 cuttings a year even up here in our short growing season. It has frozen out during the winter before, but we now have a very hardy strain of perennial alfalfa that has survived 3 winters of temps nearing -50 F.

Grain is just too much work for us on a small acreage. I have Siberian Pea trees growing that provide some high-protein feed supplement, but not enough to feed all year.