Growing fodder for chickens

[Arielle]

Quote: Thanks Aspen, I was thinking it was my lack of skills. I will toss some around the farm and see if any will grow. One of the reasons I am interested in alfalfa is it contains a vita min that is anti cancer and high protein and full of green !! lol I"m looking more at what I am eating, a spin off of understanding our birds need to be eating better. Figure I should be eating at least as well as my birds! lol

 

[Mrs. Fluffy Puffy]

I use local mash to feed my layers, but I also know that everyone around here sprays their crops, and probably use gmo seed, so not so sure it is any better than commercial feed.

But I may switch totally to the fodder, but my chicks are all free range, so I may not use fodder so much in the summer. May add a little layer mash to the mix in winter for variety. I'm looking forward to seeing if the fodder changes the taste of the eggs. Does anyone notice a diff? My yolks are very deep orange already, but I think some of that comes from the free range. I'm no expert by any means, just my opinion. I have a friend who has the feed mill mix hers to a specification, so I'm going to ask for her mix next time I buy feed. I want to add flax seed to mine also. I'm just going to experiment this summer and see what happens. Going to try to plant a "chicken garden" in the pen this summer. I sound really ambitious, but will see.

Sometimes my "want to" is a lot more energetic than I really am.

I know I can order organic seeds in bulk via Azure Standard (a food Co-op we order from out of Oregon), but it's pretty expensive. However, my thinking is that if I start feeding everyone organic feed, fodder, etc then I can market their eggs as Organic and get a higher price for them, and pay for my feed that way. As far as changing the taste, if it's changed I haven't noticed. Mainly just the drastic change in yolk color is what I noticed most of all, that and bigger yolks.

Tell me about it..I have a list a mile long of stuff that needs to be done outside..but then if I did that none of the house chores would get done. LOL

I got oats as that was the only whole grain available at the time. It does sprout, but not well. Mine takes 11 days to get to 4 inches high.

I was afraid of a poor result as I had read on the list of others having trouble.

I will keep looking for wheat and barley and ferment the oats. They work great for that!

Do you have a feed mill in your area? That is where I like to get mine, plus they have much better prices.

~ Aspen

 

[Mrs. Fluffy Puffy]

Thanks Aspen, I was thinking it was my lack of skills. I will toss some around the farm and see if any will grow. One of the reasons I am interested in alfalfa is it contains a vita min that is anti cancer and high protein and full of green !! lol I"m looking more at what I am eating, a spin off of understanding our birds need to be eating better. Figure I should be eating at least as well as my birds! lol

That is interesting. I was reading up on alfalfa and some other seeds/sprouts the other day.

I'm a health food / herbalist nut, so I'm extremely picky on what my animals eat. It bugs me to death to feed them that cr*p from the feedstore, ick. I'd love to get all the animals on an organic diet..if I had the money. I am paying about $16-!7.00 per bag of feed already and I don't even like it, neither do the animals so for a few more dollars I buy organic and feel good about feeding it to my animals. I think at Azure for a 40lb bag of organic chicken feed and or seed it was about $28.00. Which is about $10.00 than what I'm paying.

~ Aspen

 

[Lacy Blues]

... snip...

Anyone else thinking about switching over to just fodder, or doing all organic feed? I

~ Aspen

I am trying. I have so many irons in the fire and I seem to be getting a lot older a lot faster this year than the past ten years combined. My list is long and getting longer and I don't have the energy to keep up anymore. I need to seriously utilize my time though as my kids are getting older too and I'm afraid it won't be terribly long before they are gone. My son is a tremendous help so I have him for probably just a few more years. I'm not kicking them out when they reach 18 by any means. I like having them here. My daughter is 19 and my son will be 18 in August.

I'm working on a plan right now to reduce my chicken population and then after I reach that goal I will be breeding only every other year at the most. I also am working on plans to have NICE yards and coops for them complete with planted areas covered with hardware cloth which the plants can grow through but the chickens cannot scratch the roots up. That and some large shrubs/short trees that are fruit bearing which the chickens can eat when the fruit drops (or I shake the bush). I plan to have dispensers for oyster shell, charcoal and grit using the square pvc at the hardware store that I think is for gutter downspouts. I will cut these into 3 sections equal in length and add a dish below to hold the contents... doesn't matter if they get mixed up... the chickens will pick out what they need.

Right now, I ferment their whole grains, adding in hard boiled egg, dry cat food or fresh fried liver from the butcher for protein. I grate carrots/apples into the mix. I stir in plain, unsweetened yogurt every so often. Then I have alfalfa cubes too which I rehydrate and mix in. When these are gone, I think I will get the alfalfa/timothy hay cubes for a little different nutritional angle. I rehydrate beet pulp pellets to add in. I also do a variety of sprouts. I haven't had much luck with fodder. Now that its warming up, I will try to do these things outside. I know barley likes it cool but I'm gonna try it anyway and see how it goes.

I need to locate some of that Bentonite (?) clay that is super nutritious and has lots of minerals.

Not using commercial feed REALLY increases the oyster shell consumption so be prepared for that.

I guess that's it for now.

 

[trsturself]

I love all the info on this thread. I started my fodder a few days ago. I have 3 trays started with one starting every other day. I got my whole setup for $23 and can do 9 trays. I water them every morning and stir them up a couple times a day to keep the bottom layer from staying to wet and to moisten the top layer. Can't wait to feed it to my girls! They don't have access to greens as often as I'd like because the dogs have that area of the yard.

 

[Mrs. Fluffy Puffy]

I am trying. I have so many irons in the fire and I seem to be getting a lot older a lot faster this year than the past ten years combined. My list is long and getting longer and I don't have the energy to keep up anymore. I need to seriously utilize my time though as my kids are getting older too and I'm afraid it won't be terribly long before they are gone. My son is a tremendous help so I have him for probably just a few more years. I'm not kicking them out when they reach 18 by any means. I like having them here. My daughter is 19 and my son will be 18 in August.

I'm working on a plan right now to reduce my chicken population and then after I reach that goal I will be breeding only every other year at the most. I also am working on plans to have NICE yards and coops for them complete with planted areas covered with hardware cloth which the plants can grow through but the chickens cannot scratch the roots up. That and some large shrubs/short trees that are fruit bearing which the chickens can eat when the fruit drops (or I shake the bush). I plan to have dispensers for oyster shell, charcoal and grit using the square pvc at the hardware store that I think is for gutter downspouts. I will cut these into 3 sections equal in length and add a dish below to hold the contents... doesn't matter if they get mixed up... the chickens will pick out what they need.

Right now, I ferment their whole grains, adding in hard boiled egg, dry cat food or fresh fried liver from the butcher for protein. I grate carrots/apples into the mix. I stir in plain, unsweetened yogurt every so often. Then I have alfalfa cubes too which I rehydrate and mix in. When these are gone, I think I will get the alfalfa/timothy hay cubes for a little different nutritional angle. I rehydrate beet pulp pellets to add in. I also do a variety of sprouts. I haven't had much luck with fodder. Now that its warming up, I will try to do these things outside. I know barley likes it cool but I'm gonna try it anyway and see how it goes.

I need to locate some of that Bentonite (?) clay that is super nutritious and has lots of minerals.

Not using commercial feed REALLY increases the oyster shell consumption so be prepared for that.

I guess that's it for now.

Thanks for sharing your mix! That is just the type of thing I'm looking for. If you don't mind me asking, how many chickens are you feeding this mix to?

I've trimmed down my chicken herd quite a bit over the last year or so. Now instead of having 150++ I am down to 18 adult birds total. I have 6 Bantams, and 12 LF. However, two of my LF will be going to new homes tomorrow, and I'm still trying to rehome another rooster so that will leave me with just 15 chickens. However, I have 60+ ducks and about 30 geese....so they still eat a lot.

I'm kind of in the same boat as you. I'm culling down my birds as much as possible and trying to get the best setup/coop for them. As it is right now, I do not have enough time to clean out all the different coops, runs, etc that I have. LOL Plus if I had fewer birds it would make it a lot easier on my feedbill..and my back. ; )

Oh, another thing that I forgot to mention is that I'd like to start growing worms for everyone as well. We actually have some Red Wrigglers going right now, but I'm not sure how many are still alive so I'd like to start over and maybe have several different kinds such as meal worms, red wrigglers and some others.

My goal right now is to start feeding fodder, sprouts, fermented whole grains, worms/bugs, and maybe some fresh produce once I get my chicken garden going.

What kind of veggies is everyone planting for their chooks?

I love all the info on this thread. I started my fodder a few days ago. I have 3 trays started with one starting every other day. I got my whole setup for $23 and can do 9 trays. I water them every morning and stir them up a couple times a day to keep the bottom layer from staying to wet and to moisten the top layer. Can't wait to feed it to my girls! They don't have access to greens as often as I'd like because the dogs have that area of the yard.

Welcome to the thread! How many chickens do you have? I'd love to see a pic of your setup.

Yep, that's me. During the winter my birds get 0 greens, and sometimes during the summer months too as it's so hot and dry. The fodder is an excellent way to provide fresh greens for the girls. : )

~ Aspen

 

[Lacy Blues]

I did a quick count in my head and came up with 96 adult birds. Several of these are waiting in the cull pen. I think 12 of the 96 are bantams... and then I have a whole boatload of babies from this year's hatch... 44 of them outside (33 are bantam Andalusian project babies) and about 20 more inside (half are bantam Andalusian project babies) with a couple dozen more (large fowl) eggs in the incubator! Boy am I tired! These numbers include my daughter's Campines and my mixed breed egg layer flock.

I want to get down to 4 large fowl roosters, taking turns in two separate pens with perhaps a dozen hens in each pen. I want the same thing for my bantam project pens... so that would be a total of approximately 56 chickens which is still a lot more than you have and are slimming down to. On top of those, I will have a meat project going at the same time in a different pen. I'm combining breeds for this. I started with Delawares. This past January I picked up a pair of White Wyandottes to cross into the Delawares because I want a rose comb on them as we had quite a few issues with frost bite this past winter. I am also receiving shipment of a few Chanteclers to cross into this project but they are currently just babies so they won't get crossed in until next year. My Wyandotte pullet went broody for me and she is hatching out some "Wydells" as we speak. They were due to hatch today and so far as I can tell, she has 2 under her. There are 5 more due to hatch. I hope they do. I would rather she raise them than me!

I forgot to mention earlier that I also have started on raising mealworms (just one more thing for me to keep up with!)

 

[wormrun]

Anyone know of any organic seed, preferably non-gmo, here in sw ohio? Also I'm getting feed seed, not planting seed, correct? Planting seed has all the insecticides and chemicals to protect the seed, is this right? I'm going to go out today and find some wheat grain. Going to try to get started today.

Yes to the feed seed. Grow seed or planting, has been sprayed with a fungicide, which is lethal to the animals. Any wheat berry that I've purchased at the store in bulk has sprouted for me. No worries there, they are a happy little sprouter. I hope you had luck. I'll check further down the page to see if you ran into any questions. Good Luck!!!

 

[OHhappychicks]

Yes to the feed seed. Grow seed or planting, has been sprayed with a fungicide, which is lethal to the animals. Any wheat berry that I've purchased at the store in bulk has sprouted for me. No worries there, they are a happy little sprouter. I hope you had luck. I'll check further down the page to see if you ran into any questions. Good Luck!!!

I didn't make it to town today to get my supplies. My excuses: a perfect spring day, (sigh), baby chicks to watch with their mama keeping watch over them, more baby chicks in the brooder, grandbabies here, just didn't want to have to go anywhere. Wednesday is just about the only day I can stay home. I'm going to call our local feed mill tomorrow & check if they have the feed seed. Thanks for keep up with me! I really appreciate it. When you say "wheat berry" exactly what do you mean? What do I ask for at the feed store?

 

[wormrun]

I am making my own small stacking tray system and am wondering just how fast or slow the water should drain. I can drill and trial and error as much as I need to get it right, the problem is I won't know when I've got it because I don't now how fast or slow I should be draining haha.

If it helps my trays are about 1.5 sq ft

So less is more in this case. I used my solder gun to melt a nice size hole in the bottom of my sprout trays and the water flows out if tilted rather quick, I needed to slow this bad boy down! I therefore used a small (diameter) piece of PVC to raise it up enough to drain. My best guess is this, if you have green shoots by day 4 or 5 then you are perfect!

On my 2nd setup trying to achieve automation, I have these leach trays (don't buy them) that have at least a 1/4" hole on the end with a little drain spout. These drip from one to the next and empty into a Home Depot pail in about 10 to 15 minutes. They sit on tuna cans. I think they still drain a bit fast, but I have green shoots. Hmmmm..... I'm thinking of a little PVC again. Not sure if that helped you, but just do it. The sprouts will grow!