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

[Kiki]

There are plenty of pictures in @gtaus' article »My $10 Inexpensive DIY Fodder Tower with Dollar Tree Dish Bins« and my »Fodder Album«.

(I didn't want to click one more time to go somewhere else to view )

 

[gtaus]

I've grown fodder for years and know how they eat it but I can't seem to get it to grow mold free. So I'm thinking of growing it greens only in the future.

No doubt I don't want to feed anything moldy to my chickens, either. I have had good luck with barley seed and almost no mold growth at all. I tried growing some wheat fodder but that had a lot of mold - so I had to adjust the amount of grain I used in the bin and I also used a capful of bleach in both the initial soaking the twice daily watering. That seems to have corrected the mold problem with the wheat fodder, but it was a trial and error approach.

I just switched to growing barley fodder again, so I hope the mold issue will not be present. I really had good luck with my barley seed last year.

On a different recent thread, there is a guy who is using Hydrogen Peroxide instead of bleach to control mold and he is reporting good results. That may be another option to consider. If I can find that thread again, I'll post a link.

 

[gtaus]

Fodder is awesome!

Have you seen This video?

Yes, I have watched that video a number of times BEFORE I even considered growing fodder for my backyard flock. I think it points out a number of concerns one much address before they venture into feeding fodder to their livestock. Mind you, her original intention was to use fodder as the main feed for her livestock on the farm. It did not work out that way for her.

I don't disagree with most of her well thought out points, but I do question one point she states over and over. That is that the dry seed is more nutritious than the fodder it grows. From what I have read elsewhere, growing fodder unlocks the nutrition in the seeds and make it more easily digestible for animals. In my case, for chickens, they eat a seed and poop it out about 2 hours later with lots of the seed undigested. When they eat fodder, they digest more of the material and get more nutrients out of it before it ends up making compost for me.

I also agree that growing fodder, to make it worthwhile, should not be an all time consuming chore. The fodder tower system I use takes me less than 5 minutes per day to grow a dollar tree bin full of fodder. The rack system allows me to water the top bin and the water cascades down the tower to the bins underneath. So I literally spend 30 seconds, twice a day, running water on my tower system. I mention this, because I have seen other approaches that are indeed time consuming with using smaller containers and washing/rinsing each and every bin a number of times per day. They can grow some beautiful fodder, but that approach is very hands on and time consuming.

Some people like that intensive hands on approach. but I preferred a less time intensive method - which is why I built a fodder tower out of scrap wood and use the dollar tree bins.

Also, in her video, she originally intended to feed fodder to her livestock 365 days a year as their main feed. For my small backyard flock of 10 chickens, I only grow the fodder in the "winter" months when fresh grass is not growing here in northern Minnesota. For me, that is about 6 months out of the year. I only use fodder as a supplement to their well balanced commercial layer feed. I feed them about half a dollar tree bin of fodder each day, which amounts to 1/2 pound dry weight of seed equivalent. In other words, it's only a supplement to their diet.

In conclusion, she mentions that there are still many reasons to grow fodder such as providing variety of feed to your animals. True, my chickens prefer their barley fodder over their commercial feed, and it is the only greens they see for 6 months out of the year. Do they need fresh green fodder to survive? No. But if chickens can be happy, then I think you can see it when they tear into some fresh fodder. It brings out their inner chicken traits of scratching and pecking, whereas eating commercial feed - not so much. For me, there is value in that.

 

[gtaus]

• I flood the tower only once a day, not twice, so the grains stay much drier.

I got my wheat fodder mold issue under control after the first batch. I think I was using too much wheat in the bin. In that first batch, I was using 1.5 pounds of wheat seed per bin. The seeds seemed to remain damper, longer, between flooding the tower twice a day. When I reduced the wheat seed to 1 pound per bin, the seeds dried out between flooding better. So, that, and using a bit of bleach, my wheat fodder mold issue was solved.

I like the approach of maybe only flooding the tower once a day. The trick, of course, is to not let the seeds completely dry out and stop the fodder from growing.

 

[gtaus]

I can only assume, but 65F is way warmer than my garage, which is in the mid to upper 40's. Since the temperatures have dropped i have fewer issues with mold, and the few white spots i sometimes have in the bins disappear after two days in the bright sun. I let the bins green up for two days in our dining room window, facing straight south. The wheat literally explodes into green leaves, destroying the mold entirely.

Yes, last year when you mentioned that you were finishing off the fodder in front of your dining room window, I set up a small three bin tower in front of my south facing kitchen window to let my fodder finish off (no watering). I found that those 3 days allowed my bins to dry out well while still allowing the grass to grow. That was a real benefit to my situation here in northern Minnesota because on those -20F days, the fodder was drier and did not freeze up like a green popsicle - so the chickens could eat it all up before it was frozen.

I have also noticed that small amounts of mold seem to vanish when exposed to the sunlight, which is great in the fodder bins. I also want to mention that when I grew my first batch of wheat fodder and had to throw it on top of the compost bin because of all the mold, I went out a few days latter and discovered that all the white mold had died. So, I guess sunlight is truly the best disinfectant!

 

[gtaus]

At least give us some »Soylent Green« biscuits…

Thanks for the visual..... and for the shout out to a classic film.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

No doubt I don't want to feed anything moldy to my chickens, either. I have had good luck with barley seed and almost no mold growth at all. I tried growing some wheat fodder but that had a lot of mold - so I had to adjust the amount of grain I used in the bin and I also used a capful of bleach in both the initial soaking the twice daily watering. That seems to have corrected the mold problem with the wheat fodder, but it was a trial and error approach.

I just switched to growing barley fodder again, so I hope the mold issue will not be present. I really had good luck with my barley seed last year.

On a different recent thread, there is a guy who is using Hydrogen Peroxide instead of bleach to control mold and he is reporting good results. That may be another option to consider. If I can find that thread again, I'll post a link.

Hydrogen Peroxide! - That is an excellent idea! H2O2 works much better against mold spores than chlorine, to be exact, Oxygen radicals destroy fungi much better than Chlorine radicals do. Chlorine is more efficient against bacteria though.
Have to pick up some medications tomorrow and will buy a bottle of H2O2.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I got my wheat fodder mold issue under control after the first batch. I think I was using too much wheat in the bin. In that first batch, I was using 1.5 pounds of wheat seed per bin. The seeds seemed to remain damper, longer, between flooding the tower twice a day. When I reduced the wheat seed to 1 pound per bin, the seeds dried out between flooding better. So, that, and using a bit of bleach, my wheat fodder mold issue was solved.

I like the approach of maybe only flooding the tower once a day. The trick, of course, is to not let the seeds completely dry out and stop the fodder from growing.

1.5 pound of wheat per bin! - I am using 250 grams, that is a bit more than ½ pound. When i put much more into a bin, the root mat becomes so thick that the ducks can't tear it apart.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Yes, last year when you mentioned that you were finishing off the fodder in front of your dining room window, I set up a small three bin tower in front of my south facing kitchen window to let my fodder finish off (no watering). I found that those 3 days allowed my bins to dry out well while still allowing the grass to grow. That was a real benefit to my situation here in northern Minnesota because on those -20F days, the fodder was drier and did not freeze up like a green popsicle - so the chickens could eat it all up before it was frozen.

I have also noticed that small amounts of mold seem to vanish when exposed to the sunlight, which is great in the fodder bins. I also want to mention that when I grew my first batch of wheat fodder and had to throw it on top of the compost bin because of all the mold, I went out a few days latter and discovered that all the white mold had died. So, I guess sunlight is truly the best disinfectant!

Yeah! Mold! - I have new problem with my fodder "ripening" in the dining room window: Fruit flies! Since late autumn we have some kind of a fruit fly / ladybug pandemic here in the area. The ladybugs have all died or been eaten by the ducks and i though we finally got rid of the fruit-flies after the first frosty nights, but now they have discovered the fodder bins in the window.
Fortunately the wife hasn't discovered them yet, but i somehow need to get rid of those. Not that the ducks mind about some extra protein, but we humans dislike little flies in our beverages…

 

[gtaus]

1.5 pound of wheat per bin! - I am using 250 grams, that is a bit more than ½ pound. When i put much more into a bin, the root mat becomes so thick that the ducks can't tear it apart.

Yes, I measured out 2 scoops/cans of seeds and it was 450 grams, or 1 lb. I like the thick root mat and my chickens love tearing it apart. They have no problem. But, obviously, chicken feet and pointed beaks are very different than a duck's webbed foot and flat bill.