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

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I got my hands on some Flax seed today! Has anybody tried flax-sprouts yet? - I will try tomorrow.

 

[gtaus]

Update on my BOSS Fodder:

Short: It was a total disaster! I noticed a strange smell in the bathroom after a few days and that smell became worse by the day. Only a few of the Sunflower seeds germinated and the rest started to rot almost immediately. I wonder if the content of those 40lbs bags that i buy for my ducks has been (heat?) treated to render the kernels unusable as seeds.
After 2 weeks i had enough and dumped the content of all five bins into the duck-yard. They looked at it, tried and then looked at me like they caught me in the attempt to poison them.
Something ate the stuff over night, maybe some desperate squirrels…

Last year BOSS fodder was a great success, no idea why this year it doesn't work. Similar to your experience with Barley, @gtaus.

I got my BOSS directly from the feed mill, but they told me upfront that the BOSS would not germinate and could not be grown into fodder. That was OK with me because I had planned to use it to mix in with my chicken scratch. I do think that some seeds are heat treated to prevent mold growth and last longer in storage. Good to use directly as feed grain, but not for growing fodder.

I just got a call from the feed mill yesterday and they told me that they got a new batch of barley seed from a different source. So next time I go into town I'll pick up a 50# bag of the new barley seed and see if that is any better for growing fodder. As I always say, if the seed you are using is not any good for growing fodder, then just mix it in as dry seed for chicken scratch. With all the "bad" barley seed I bought recently that was no good for growing fodder, I will have enough chicken scratch for half of 2021.

 

[gtaus]

As said, not very impressive, but maybe i did something wrong?
What is the best way to sprout beans?

I have sprouted beans for my personal use in salads. In that case, I soaked the bean seeds overnight. Then I put them in a mason jar with a screen top. I would flood and rinse them out 3X per day. IIRC, the bean sprouts were ready for the salad in about 5-6 days. But in no way were the bean sprouts anything close to fodder grass at that point. They were very good salad sprouts and I loved them.

 

[gtaus]

Before Christmas i bought three new seeds from the local seed store:

• Soybeans
• Field Rape
• Purple Top Turnips

I hope you have success with your sprouting experiment. At the price of $30 per pound for the Purple Top Turnips, you must really have dedicated yourself to your ducks. Lucky them you are willing to try different seeds for fodder and/or spouts.

As for myself, I am dedicated enough to my chickens to buy 100# of barley seed at $12.85 for growing fodder. The last batch of barley seed I bought was no good for fodder, so into the chicken scratch mix it will go. I plan on getting a new batch of barley seed from a different source maybe next week. Hope that new supply is better for fodder.

I had nothing but good luck growing barley fodder last year, but this year the seed has not been good and I am really struggling. Well, fodder is a good supplement to their diet and the only chance I have to give the chickens something green in our Minnesota winters. The commercial feed does contain everything they need to keep healthy, but it's not as exciting as watching them tear into a fresh mat of green fodder.

The white mold I am getting in my fodder bins is all at the base of the grass stem. Today I just cut off the grass tops and fed it to my chickens. At least there is some green in their feed today and I don't have to worry about the white mold in the bin.

Again, I am wondering if the white mold growing in my fodder bins is actually harmful to the chickens or not? The mold does not smell and just looks like cotton balls at the base of the plant. Of course we eat mold all the time in some cheese, so I do know that some molds are OK to eat.

 

[Sally PB]

Let us know what happens with the flax seeds. My barley should be here today.

Yeah, I know their pellets are "a complete diet." But they way they tear into any weeds or grass that I bring them makes me think that they appreciate my efforts to grow them something green. Especially since this is their first winter.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I got my BOSS directly from the feed mill, but they told me upfront that the BOSS would not germinate and could not be grown into fodder. That was OK with me because I had planned to use it to mix in with my chicken scratch. I do think that some seeds are heat treated to prevent mold growth and last longer in storage. Good to use directly as feed grain, but not for growing fodder.

I just got a call from the feed mill yesterday and they told me that they got a new batch of barley seed from a different source. So next time I go into town I'll pick up a 50# bag of the new barley seed and see if that is any better for growing fodder. As I always say, if the seed you are using is not any good for growing fodder, then just mix it in as dry seed for chicken scratch. With all the "bad" barley seed I bought recently that was no good for growing fodder, I will have enough chicken scratch for half of 2021.

My Duckies love BOSS in their supper-bowl and eat every last seed in the evening.
I am pretty sure those 40lbs bags are heat- or somewhat-other treated, i opened a new bag today and examined the old one closer and it says »not suitable for sowing« on the back-side. Just weird because last year the BOSS was sprouting and they were all over it.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I have sprouted beans for my personal use in salads. In that case, I soaked the bean seeds overnight. Then I put them in a mason jar with a screen top. I would flood and rinse them out 3X per day. IIRC, the bean sprouts were ready for the salad in about 5-6 days. But in no way were the bean sprouts anything close to fodder grass at that point. They were very good salad sprouts and I loved them.

I love to add soybean- or mungbean-sprouts to my Asian or Indian style meals that i cook! But i always had to buy them either in tins or fresh (for a crazy price!) in the »organic« department, so i definitely want to learn how to make my own bean-sprouts.
I will try your method with the jar,. Where did you kept the jar, no, better how did you kept it, cold or warm?

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I hope you have success with your sprouting experiment. At the price of $30 per pound for the Purple Top Turnips, you must really have dedicated yourself to your ducks. Lucky them you are willing to try different seeds for fodder and/or spouts.

As for myself, I am dedicated enough to my chickens to buy 100# of barley seed at $12.85 for growing fodder. The last batch of barley seed I bought was no good for fodder, so into the chicken scratch mix it will go. I plan on getting a new batch of barley seed from a different source maybe next week. Hope that new supply is better for fodder.

I had nothing but good luck growing barley fodder last year, but this year the seed has not been good and I am really struggling. Well, fodder is a good supplement to their diet and the only chance I have to give the chickens something green in our Minnesota winters. The commercial feed does contain everything they need to keep healthy, but it's not as exciting as watching them tear into a fresh mat of green fodder.

The white mold I am getting in my fodder bins is all at the base of the grass stem. Today I just cut off the grass tops and fed it to my chickens. At least there is some green in their feed today and I don't have to worry about the white mold in the bin.

Again, I am wondering if the white mold growing in my fodder bins is actually harmful to the chickens or not? The mold does not smell and just looks like cotton balls at the base of the plant. Of course we eat mold all the time in some cheese, so I do know that some molds are OK to eat.

Since the temperatures got significantly colder i don't have any problems with mold anymore! I also keep the seeds drier, flooding only once per day with about ¾ of a gallon.
However, the downside is that the wheat grows significantly slower, so i no longer get the long green leaves before feeding the fodder to the ducks. I am missing just one (!) damn bin! - I had 12 last year, nine in the tower and three in the window, so that they had two to three days to green up, now i have only two bins in the window and that is not enough time to grow lush greens.

Yes, i am a bit crazy about my ducks, i imagine that if my ducks are happy their eggs do taste better. And i really enjoy when they all jump at the supper-bowl like a swarm of hungry pirañhas and then waddle into their straw beds and sleep really good.

But I bought the turnip seeds not only for fodder, i am planning to grow turnips next spring together with beans in the same bed and in fall after the veggie garden has been plundered. I love to eat turnip greens! (So do the ducks! ) And i will keep some Turnips in the cold cellar and feed them to the ducks during winter.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Let us know what happens with the flax seeds. My barley should be here today.

Yeah, I know their pellets are "a complete diet." But they way they tear into any weeds or grass that I bring them makes me think that they appreciate my efforts to grow them something green. Especially since this is their first winter.

I consider their pellets as their »basic diet« good enough to survive and feel full, but not good enough to be happy. And as i said to @gtaus i imagine their eggs taste better when my ducks are happy ducks. The young ducks from September have now fully understood how the feeding procedure in the evening works: While the glutton's are occupied testing the supper-bowl, they sneak into the duck-run and occupy the optimal start positions for the dinner-run…

As for the flax-seed, here is a picture of the dry seeds in the bin. I use the bin itself to measure the amount of seeds i need to use, the seeds should just cover the bottom.

And here are the seeds in the soaking glass. I need to watch them closely to make sure that they don't swell up too much, so today i the ideal evening, waiting for the hillbilly neighbor's to blow themselves to smithereens…

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Gaaah! Flax seed makes pudding too!​

Its not looking good for the flax-seeds: After a little over two hours they have made almost the same pudding-mess as those Chia-seeds…