Growing fodder for chickens

[pawtraitart]

I'm so excited! My rye is starting to sprout

This is after 12 hours of soaking and 36 hours covered in a strainer. Tonight I will drill holes in the bottom of my plastic bin and move them. It will be fun watching them grow! I will also rinse another batch to start sprouting. I plan to rotate four batches to start, feeding 1/2 biscuit daily. If this is successful I'll increase my fodder production as my flock increases. Right now I only have 17 chickens.

draining (I cover this with a plate. I hear that makes it think there's dirt on top.

)
See the bins next to the sprouting rye? That's the next step in my fodder system. So excited!!

I'll keep you posted!
Carol

Excellent start! I'm going to see if I can find some local bulk rye grain next year.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

I'm so excited! My rye is starting to sprout

This is after 12 hours of soaking and 36 hours covered in a strainer.
draining (I cover this with a plate. I hear that makes it think there's dirt on top.

)
See the bins next to the sprouting rye? That's the next step in my fodder system. So excited!!

I'll keep you posted!
Carol

That's just what mine look like at that stage ... then by day 2 I've got short fuzzies going. Because my trays have rather large holes (still haven't hot-glued the screen into them cuz I'm lazy like that!), I've been experimenting with letting mine get pretty "fluffy" in the soaking bowl before I spread them in the trays. It seems to be working, but it is my first batch with any control.

I think you'll like the cool color they are when they start to send up shoots.

 

[Oakieridge]

Here is an update on our Fodder Feeding experiment. Already my feed bill has gone down. We give Fodder in the morning first thing when we let them out to free range. They attack it like nobody's business!!! The guineas are taking longer to get on board with it but they won't starve themselves, lol. We then give layer pellets in the afternoon. This has worked great and I am seeing an increase in eggs! We had been down to less than a dozen eggs but we are up to almost 2 dozen yesterday.

Here is the fodder at 5 days of growth,

Fodder at day 7 it smells sooooo sweet and yummy it is a mix of wheat and barley,

And here is my small breeding pen of Cukoo Marans enjoying their little slice the first day. You should have heard that roo calling those girls over!!!

 

[pawtraitart]

Here is an update on our Fodder Feeding experiment. Already my feed bill has gone down. We give Fodder in the morning first thing when we let them out to free range. They attack it like nobody's business!!! The guineas are taking longer to get on board with it but they won't starve themselves, lol. We then give layer pellets in the afternoon. This has worked great and I am seeing an increase in eggs! We had been down to less than a dozen eggs but we are up to almost 2 dozen yesterday.

Here is the fodder at 5 days of growth,

Fodder at day 7 it smells sooooo sweet and yummy it is a mix of wheat and barley,

And here is my small breeding pen of Cukoo Marans enjoying their little slice the first day. You should have heard that roo calling those girls over!!!

What a beautiful thing! Saving money AND happy chickens!

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Here is an update on our Fodder Feeding experiment. Already my feed bill has gone down. We give Fodder in the morning first thing when we let them out to free range. They attack it like nobody's business!!! The guineas are taking longer to get on board with it but they won't starve themselves, lol. We then give layer pellets in the afternoon. This has worked great and I am seeing an increase in eggs! We had been down to less than a dozen eggs but we are up to almost 2 dozen yesterday.


Fodder at day 7 it smells sooooo sweet and yummy it is a mix of wheat and barley,

It looks divine! I just LOVE your set up! I am so coveting my own upside down white plastic bookshelves now.

A couple of qustions: How deep are you "layering" in your seeds? How many chickens do you have? How much are you feeding "per bird" each day? How long before you began to see an increase in egg production? Do you also do fermented feed?

 

[Lacy Blues]

Here is an update on our Fodder Feeding experiment. Already my feed bill has gone down. We give Fodder in the morning first thing when we let them out to free range. They attack it like nobody's business!!! The guineas are taking longer to get on board with it but they won't starve themselves, lol. We then give layer pellets in the afternoon. This has worked great and I am seeing an increase in eggs! We had been down to less than a dozen eggs but we are up to almost 2 dozen yesterday.

Here is the fodder at 5 days of growth,

Fodder at day 7 it smells sooooo sweet and yummy it is a mix of wheat and barley,

And here is my small breeding pen of Cukoo Marans enjoying their little slice the first day. You should have heard that roo calling those girls over!!!

Okie, I was looking on your profile page for the picture of your shelves when you first started. I couldn't find it. I liked the idea then and I REALLY like it now!

My plastic shelves, I believe, are all mesh types where everything would just fall through so I wanted to look at your shelves again and see about maybe getting mine set up that way... if I ever get my feed barn done.

 

[Oakieridge]

It looks divine! I just LOVE your set up! I am so coveting my own upside down white plastic bookshelves now.

A couple of qustions: How deep are you "layering" in your seeds? How many chickens do you have? How much are you feeding "per bird" each day? How long before you began to see an increase in egg production? Do you also do fermented feed?

Well I had been layering them to thickly, the first batches had seeds that didn't sprout much because there were to many. Now I am doing just enough to cover the bottom of the little sections. We have aprox. 200 birds (about 1/4 bantams). I have been doing 4-5 "trays/shelves" of fodder each day. 4 will feed them all but with 5 I feel that they have left overs and to me that says they are getting plenty and so therefor aren't going hungry. We had alot of layer pellets still in the feeders this morning so I told my husband lets try just giving fodder today. I don't like having pellets in their pen over what they will eat in one day because it draws in the mice IMO. We started feeding the fodder last Thursday and I just saw in an increase in eggs yesterday.

During the summer we were fermenting reclaimed oats and they loved that but since it has cooled off we haven't been. We may try to set some fermenting oats up in the house once we get the hang of growing the fodder. We had been going through 150#s of layer pellets every other day. Since Thursday I have only gone through 200#s. We have used about 20#s of wheat and about 35#s of barley so far for the fodder, if that. I think even if the fodder wasn't cheaper I would still do it. The birds LOVE it and if they had green stuff to free range this time of year they would be.

These shelves are perfect! They have little "cells" on the bottom so once the fodder grows it comes out in these nice cells that are already scoored into 4 pieces so they tear apart really easily.

 

[Oakieridge]

Okie, I was looking on your profile page for the picture of your shelves when you first started. I couldn't find it. I liked the idea then and I REALLY like it now!

My plastic shelves, I believe, are all mesh types where everything would just fall through so I wanted to look at your shelves again and see about maybe getting mine set up that way... if I ever get my feed barn done.

Here you go, the seed is to thick in these but all we did was turn the shelves upside down. Dh drilled about 5 holes in each little section so water can drain. I rinse them once a day.

 

[Lacy Blues]

Okie,

Did you drill holes in your upside down shelves and water them daily? I'm still trying to figure out what my set up will be and I'm really liking yours.

ETA: Oops, guess we were typing at the same time!

 

[Oakieridge]

http://i.walmartimages.com/i/p/00/02/40/99/20/0002409920907_500X500.jpg

I hope this link works. This is alot like the shelves we are using. Ours were free a lady was going to throw them away and so dh brought them all home thinking we could use them for nest boxes or something. Well we used them for something alright! LOL