Guess what season it is in the Northern Hemisphere?! - Its FODDER Season! 🍀

[ChocolateMouse]

Welp! No walmart for you then! Too much risk being in a crowded store like that with no mask. Just gonna have to buy from somewhere more expensive. I feel confident you can find bins somewhere else... Or better yet on the internet so you don't have to go out without a mask at all.
My sister with severe asthma wears a mask everywhere these days. But then again she also doesn't shop at walmart.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I grew alfalfa in water. It went very well. I grew chia in dirt and it got mold about the time it was thinking of making second leaves. Ugh.

I'm trying chia in just water. You know how you can use chia to make pudding...? Well, yup, it turns into gel. I have to keep adding water, but I can see tiny sprouts now on day three. My idea to combat mold is to water with diluted kombucha or acv. I'll let you all know how it goes!

I grew alfalfa last year, unfortunately you can't buy uncoated alfalfa seeds anywhere around here and it is a lot of work to wash off the coating. The ducks however loved the alfalfa sprouts!
I was thinking about trying out the Chia seeds that i use for baking bread, but if they turn into goo, that would clog the drainage holes in the fodder bins.
At the moment i have a bin with wild bird seeds, looks like a lot of millet or amaranth plus some other seeds.
I want to try flax seeds next.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

@WannaBeHillBilly, I am a (semi-retired) Registered Nurse. The COVID-19 positivity rate at our local hospital is running about 20% where I live. I had a distant cousin in Nevada die of COVID-19 in October. Currently, my younger brother is sick (no taste, no smell, not feeling well) at home in quarantine for 2 weeks with his youngest son pending results of his COVID-19 test he took on Saturday. We all hope that the vaccines are effective and the vaccinations will be available to the general public sooner than later (current estimate is May 2021). Until then, I encourage everyone to wear a mask in public, watch your distance, and wash your hands. It's the best we can do for now for our public health.

My local community is experiencing a spike in COVID-19 and as such many businesses are once again closed, schools are going to distant learning, and masks are required in all public places that are open. I hope your community is doing better. Stay healthy.

Wear a mask if you can! - I cannot, at least not for long. Company wanted me to fly to Chicago and i had to leave the plane before boarding was finished. I can barely control my claustrophobia sitting in a metal tube with fresh air available. The face mask pushed me over the cliff. Infection rates are pretty low in WV and more people die of drug and alcohol abuse here than from any virus, seriously any virus.
I mostly keep to myself and the ducks and go only to places where wearing a mask is not required. I have a confirmation from my doc that wearing a mask will put me at risk, but i'm tired of explaining myself to angry people.
I had a very high fever, dry cough, loss of smell and taste in March this year but to everybody's surprise my CoVid test came back negative. Chinese made test-kit?

 

[Sally PB]

I was thinking about trying out the Chia seeds that I use for baking bread, but if they turn into goo

It's day 4 of the chia seed experiment. Yup, still a puddle of goo. I have been adding some water to keep the goo from solidifying. I do see little roots sprouting, so maybe the goo will turn into a good rooting medium. My seeds are in small margarine cups with no drainage holes. I'll keep you updated on the progress.

 

[gtaus]

I have a confirmation from my doc that wearing a mask will put me at risk, but i'm tired of explaining myself to angry people.

As a nurse, I understand that a small percentage of the population may have a legitimate health reason confirmed by a doctor not to wear a mask. We need to respect those cases just as we do with - say - handicapped parking which has to be signed off by a legitimate doctor. Unfortunately, there are people who are printing off bogus disability cards from the internet stating they do not have to wear a mask. And some people will wear a mask to get into the store and then take it off once in the store. Those type of people make it difficult for people with valid reason from a doctor not to wear a mask.

Anyway, as to fodder, 4 days ago I switched over from wheat seed to growing barley fodder again. So far, no problems with mold in the barley fodder. That is a good sign. Hope to start feeding my first batch of barley fodder to the chickens this weekend. I still have 4-5 days of wheat fodder on the racks. I thought I had the wheat fodder mold problem under control, but this morning the bin of wheat fodder I was going to feed the hens had a lot of mold in it so it got chucked out into the compost bin. I had to use the next wheat fodder bin instead.

As to mold in fodder, I wonder how much mold is too much mold? Is mold even an issue for chickens, or will they just not eat the moldy parts? If they do eat the moldy parts, will it make them sick? I am asking this because there are some people on the internet that are feeding waste food from restaurants to their chickens, and I would suspect some of that food may have become moldy. Also, I know that the chicken's digestive system is very short and only takes about 2 hours from beck to butt, so they are less apt to get poisoned from any food. Wild bird will eat days old dead carrion, and do not seem to have ill effects. So, I am wondering if I have been too cautious about having any mold in my fodder? What do you think?

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

As a nurse, I understand that a small percentage of the population may have a legitimate health reason confirmed by a doctor not to wear a mask. We need to respect those cases just as we do with - say - handicapped parking which has to be signed off by a legitimate doctor. Unfortunately, there are people who are printing off bogus disability cards from the internet stating they do not have to wear a mask. And some people will wear a mask to get into the store and then take it off once in the store. Those type of people make it difficult for people with valid reason from a doctor not to wear a mask.

I just have a letter-size piece of paper from WVU stating that i have tested negative for Covid19 and due to other issues with my health are exempt from wearing a mask with the stamp from CAMC and the signature of my doctor.
Even the police accused me of showing a fake certificate around until they called my doctor and got the confirmation. The officer did not even apologize, just said i should not push it…

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Anyway, as to fodder, 4 days ago I switched over from wheat seed to growing barley fodder again. So far, no problems with mold in the barley fodder. That is a good sign. Hope to start feeding my first batch of barley fodder to the chickens this weekend. I still have 4-5 days of wheat fodder on the racks. I thought I had the wheat fodder mold problem under control, but this morning the bin of wheat fodder I was going to feed the hens had a lot of mold in it so it got chucked out into the compost bin. I had to use the next wheat fodder bin instead.

As to mold in fodder, I wonder how much mold is too much mold? Is mold even an issue for chickens, or will they just not eat the moldy parts? If they do eat the moldy parts, will it make them sick? I am asking this because there are some people on the internet that are feeding waste food from restaurants to their chickens, and I would suspect some of that food may have become moldy. Also, I know that the chicken's digestive system is very short and only takes about 2 hours from beck to butt, so they are less apt to get poisoned from any food. Wild bird will eat days old dead carrion, and do not seem to have ill effects. So, I am wondering if I have been too cautious about having any mold in my fodder? What do you think?

I have thought a lot about mold too: That mold that i have in my bins is less than one dime in size, white and doesn't smell bad, definitely not like moldy food, it smells more like earth or compost and it dies off in a few hours when exposed to sunlight. I think it might be that kind of (good?) mold that one can find on several kinds of cheese, like brie. And in the end yeast is also just a fungus and we all love beer, don't we? (Not me, i hate beer!)

I seem to have more problems with those dang fruit flies than with mold here...

 

[gtaus]

I think it might be that kind of (good?) mold that one can find on several kinds of cheese, like brie.

I, too, was thinking of Brie cheese. In fact, some cheese isn't good until it smells really bad. So I really don't know what mold is OK to eat and what mold is not good to eat. You can't necessarily go by the smell (from the cheese example). All I know is that I always threw any food with mold on it out to the compost bin, except for mold on cheese, which I was told just to cut off and eat the cheese.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I, too, was thinking of Brie cheese. In fact, some cheese isn't good until it smells really bad. So I really don't know what mold is OK to eat and what mold is not good to eat. You can't necessarily go by the smell (from the cheese example). All I know is that I always threw any food with mold on it out to the compost bin, except for mold on cheese, which I was told just to cut off and eat the cheese.

It depends on what mold is growing on the cheese… My wife stores brie cheese together with cheddar, so that the mold from the brie can spread to the cheddar. She says it tastes delicious.
The mold in the fodder bins just seems to be linked to the temperature and the cleanliness of the seeds, at least here. I have small pockets of white mold around "foreign" objects in the bins, like tiny pieces of wood, a dead bug or straw, but only when it is warmer in the garage than it should be this time of the year.
I am searching through the bins after i have spread out the wet seeds and remove anything that is not grain, usually four to five things and it got better. I also let the cucumber jar, that i use to wash the grains overflow, so that everything floating will be removed. If it floats it won't sprout - at least with wheat.
Haven't been able to test H2O2 yet, it is sold out everywhere here.

 

[Sally PB]

chia seed experiment. Yup, still a puddle of goo. I have been adding some water to keep the goo from solidifying. I do see little roots sprouting, so maybe the goo will turn into a good rooting medium. My seeds are in small margarine cups with no drainage holes. I'll keep you updated on the progress.

I thought I would post an update on the chia sprout experiment.

It didn't work at all. They turned into blob of goo, some sort of sprouted, and some just rotted and stank. So I asked my friend Google.

Remember the Ch-ch-ch-chia pets? They were probably made out of terra cotta. A couple of websites said to put the seeds in a terra cotta plate, like a plant pot bottom, but without the hole. Soak that, and it absorbs water. Keep it moist -- sitting in a shallow pan with 1/4" water, or spray it several times a day.

I'm gonna try that. We'll see.