What is fodder and what is it good for?
Fodder is the process of germinating seeds and feeding the resulting sprouts (and remaining seeds) to your animals. By feeding the sprouts to the animals the animals will benefit from both the seed's energy and the plant's energy. They will also enjoy eating some fresh greenery during the cold months, when nothing fresh grows outside and foraging. Side effects of feeding fodder may be a more active flock, healthier birds and an increase in egg production, even though it is winter.
How to grow fodder and isn't that a lot of work?
There are several methods to grow fodder, for small amounts you can grow fodder in jars, like described in last year's thread »
Starting a Fodder adventure« from
@FnWeirdo.
To grow larger amounts of fodder using a fodder-system is recommended. There are commercial solutions available, but those are expensive and are built to grow really large amounts of fodder, like for dairy farms. But there is an affordable solution available right here on BYC:
@gtaus built himself a fodder-tower out of some scrap-wood last year and published the instructions in his article »
My $10 Inexpensive DIY Fodder Tower with Dollar Tree Dish Bins«. I built one for myself, have used it last winter with great success and just started to grow fodder this year for my ducks.
With the fodder tower in place i can grow one large bin of greens for my ducks per day, spending less than 20 minutes of time per day:
Morning:
- Take the top-bin out to feed the ducks
- Weigh grains into a jar and cover them in water
- Pour water into the top bin and let it flow through
- Place the fodder-bin into a south-facing window so it can green up
Evening (after feeding the :
- Clean the fodder bin that was just used
- Move the remaining bins up one level
- Empty the water-catch bin at the bottom
- Pour the soaked grains into a cleaned bin and place it into the bottom rack
Now you made me curious, is there more information available?
Yes, there is:
I want to grow my own fodder now, where to buy the grains and what kind of grains?
Let me start with the kind of grains first: I have tried Alfalfa, Rye, Oats, BOSS and Winter-Wheat and so far Winter-Wheat grew best and the Oats were the most difficult ones. Soak the oats too short and they don't sprout, soak them too long and they don't sprout, too cold, too dry - they are just difficult.
@gtaus was most successful with Barley - which seems to be unavailable in West Virginia.
Where to buy: Local seed- and feed-stores are a good source, fodder grains don't have graded for human consumption. And there are some large companies who sell seeds by the pound over the internet:
And of course the usual suspects, like Amazon and eBay, also you can buy bird feed at the local grocery stores and let it sprout.
No more excuses! Do something good for your animals and grow some Fodder!
