- Apr 18, 2014
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Hi all, I just wanted to share my new experience with fodder. First and foremost my chickens nearly hyperventilate when I bring the fodder.
I have been reading on this for some time and thought I would give it a shot and see if it as easy as most claim. If your disciplined enough to commit about 15 minutes a day of simple maintanance you can grow and feed your flock healthy fodder for pennies on the dollar.
I'm going feed 24 hens and 1 horse fodder from October 15 to march 15. I just acquired 650 lbs ( 10 bushels) of certified red seed wheat directly from the field here . This field had no pesticides or herbicides used this year on the crop as the Minnesota weather was ideal for a weed less season.
I bought 20 five gallon pales w/ lids at Home Depot for 90.00. A bit of an investment but it allows me to store 600 lbs of wheat safe from rodents, dry and mold free in my garage in a very small footprint stacked. This investment will last for years.
When reading online about fodder one thing I found was that the trays people used had to be replaced every so often. My thought was why or more importantly why so hard to handle. I'm using some commercial cambro containers as you see in the photos. These are full hotel size 6" deep and each container holds 2 lbs of soaked seed and produces 12 lbs of fodder every seven days. For me with 2 containers that is 8 lbs daily for my 24 girls and 18 pounds for my other girl, Maeflower, the horse. This will cut my feed bill by 75 % or so monthly. The crazy thing is that I'm not cheaping out to save money. I'm saving huge money and feeding my girls better.
Below are the pics of day one thru 5. One thing I noticed about getting online info on fodder is that the people who are good at it withhold just enough info to keep you from building your own system. I will post some pics of my completed system in a couple weeks as I'm still experimenting on drainage angles and air flow to optimize my production.
My point in this post is simple. Growing fodder is easier than tying shoes unless your fat like me. lol.
I know some will ask why wheat And not barley? For me it's based solely on the fact that I live dead central in the most fertile, productive land in the country and beer is not paying the bills right now. No barley is grown around here lately. Set that aside wheat in fodder form is 20-24% protein. Barley is 12-15.
I'm a newbie to chickens and I'm posting this so others can see how easy fodder is. I'm not going to try to sell you a fodder system. However if if your inherently lazy and like mine let me know lol.
I have been reading on this for some time and thought I would give it a shot and see if it as easy as most claim. If your disciplined enough to commit about 15 minutes a day of simple maintanance you can grow and feed your flock healthy fodder for pennies on the dollar.
I'm going feed 24 hens and 1 horse fodder from October 15 to march 15. I just acquired 650 lbs ( 10 bushels) of certified red seed wheat directly from the field here . This field had no pesticides or herbicides used this year on the crop as the Minnesota weather was ideal for a weed less season.
I bought 20 five gallon pales w/ lids at Home Depot for 90.00. A bit of an investment but it allows me to store 600 lbs of wheat safe from rodents, dry and mold free in my garage in a very small footprint stacked. This investment will last for years.
When reading online about fodder one thing I found was that the trays people used had to be replaced every so often. My thought was why or more importantly why so hard to handle. I'm using some commercial cambro containers as you see in the photos. These are full hotel size 6" deep and each container holds 2 lbs of soaked seed and produces 12 lbs of fodder every seven days. For me with 2 containers that is 8 lbs daily for my 24 girls and 18 pounds for my other girl, Maeflower, the horse. This will cut my feed bill by 75 % or so monthly. The crazy thing is that I'm not cheaping out to save money. I'm saving huge money and feeding my girls better.
Below are the pics of day one thru 5. One thing I noticed about getting online info on fodder is that the people who are good at it withhold just enough info to keep you from building your own system. I will post some pics of my completed system in a couple weeks as I'm still experimenting on drainage angles and air flow to optimize my production.
My point in this post is simple. Growing fodder is easier than tying shoes unless your fat like me. lol.
I know some will ask why wheat And not barley? For me it's based solely on the fact that I live dead central in the most fertile, productive land in the country and beer is not paying the bills right now. No barley is grown around here lately. Set that aside wheat in fodder form is 20-24% protein. Barley is 12-15.
I'm a newbie to chickens and I'm posting this so others can see how easy fodder is. I'm not going to try to sell you a fodder system. However if if your inherently lazy and like mine let me know lol.