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

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Sorry about the four-letter-word starting with "c" becoming an ear worm.

So far, I've only had luck sprouting it in dirt, but then it molded about the time the sprouts were an inch tall. I have a couple more ideas. I'll let you all know if I have any success. If not, well, I have about 10 years worth of the stuff to add to smoothies, oatmeal, etc.

I really do hope you'll be successful! Not for because of your birds, but for you.

 

[Jennc-123]

So... I'm in Canada. I can get you your white bins for $5 + shipping

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

So... I'm in Canada. I can get you your white bins for $5 + shipping

Those bins are still being sold on dollartree.com but i would have to buy 36 to get them shipped for free to the nearest store. I need maybe 6 at the moment.

 

[Poultry4Health]

@WannaBeHillBilly, Thanks for the shout out.

I started growing my winter fodder a little over a week ago. I had some wheat seed left over from last winter and tried to grow it in my fodder tower. My first batch was a disaster - the wheat fodder grew well, but it was full of mold. So, I had to dump the first batch into the compost pile. I adjusted down the amount of wheat per bin, added some bleach to the soaking solution, and the follow on bins have been better and my chickens seem to love the wheat fodder.

Don't know if the mold problem is due to the wheat seed itself, or if it is the fact that I bought the seed last year, etc.... At any rate, I just used the last bin's worth of wheat seed from my storage bucket today and will switch over to barley seed (last year's seed) to see if I get better results and less mold. If I still see mold problems with the barley seed, I'll be heading into town to buy some new barley seed. I had no mold problems last year growing barley fodder with fresh seed.

Both last year's barley and wheat seed were stored in plastic garbage bins out in the garage, so the seed is still good. If nothing else, I'll use that old seed and mix up a new batch of chicken scratch. Also, I still have some oats and BOSS to mix in the chicken scratch. A bag of cracked corn will finish the scratch mix. Like I tell people, growing fodder can be easy, but if you decide not to use the seed for fodder, you can always feed it to them in a scratch mix. Nothing goes to waste.

Anyway, hope your new fodder thread catches on fire and encourages others to give growing fodder a try. My hens love the fodder greens and that is all the green they will get until next May when our grass starts to grow here in northern Minnesota. Finally, just want to mention that I use my fodder as a supplement to a well balanced commercial layer feed and not as a substitute feed. Fodder is the only variety they get all winter here. But they love it.

I tried but the mold put me off.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Where are you growing the fodder? - A cold room, like a basement or a garage is much better than the warm kitchen.
Did you wash the grains in water with a little bleach and discard everything that swims?
I also use a bit of bleach for the rinsing water.
How do you grow, do you have a fodder-tower? - It is very important that the grains are not swimming in the water or are soaking wet the whole day. I am flooding my fodder-tower only once in 24 hours and that has reduced the mold to almost none.

 

[Poultry4Health]

Where are you growing the fodder? - A cold room, like a basement or a garage is much better than the warm kitchen.
Did you wash the grains in water with a little bleach and discard everything that swims?
I also use a bit of bleach for the rinsing water.
How do you grow, do you have a fodder-tower? - It is very important that the grains are not swimming in the water or are soaking wet the whole day. I am flooding my fodder-tower only once in 24 hours and that has reduced the mold to almost none.

In my car porch. Airy place. I want to use bleach but not sure about its concentration. Different videos suggest wildly different concentrations. What's your experience?

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

In my car porch. Airy place. I want to use bleach but not sure about its concentration. Different videos suggest wildly different concentrations. What's your experience?

I have no exact dosage, i have the bleach in a squeeze bottle and just add a "spritz" to the water. It is hard to overdose the bleach this way.

 

[gtaus]

I tried but the mold put me off.

You can grow fodder mold free. Last winter I grew barley fodder and had no problems with any mold. Don't let a bin or two of fodder with some mold growth put you off. There are ways to control mold growth and/or eliminate it completely. Usually, a touch of bleach in the water will do the trick.

 

[gtaus]

I want to use bleach but not sure about its concentration. Different videos suggest wildly different concentrations. What's your experience?

I have been using less than a capful of bleach in my water for both the initial soaking and maybe every other day for a watering. It's not very much bleach, but I don't think you need much.

 

[JRies]

I just want to say thank you to the person who put this out there.
Iv been raising fodder for my birds for almost a year now. Took allot of trials tubs what have you but I raise it in a oversized Bath tub I will never use.
My Geese are grazers but we had a drought this year. I spent most of the summer planting winter wheat and barley for them. Our fill in has been fodder
time it takes now that winter has set in is worth every second I put forward.
I only do Barley its the easy one and they like it. not just the geese but in the morning my runners call out till they get it and my geese eate theres every night they would rather forage and play in there pond during the day.. Its not a full food source but it is a great pasture food when the birds cant get it. And mine all love it.
Again thankyou to
WannaBeHillBilly

that shared this with all "here" it is Fodder season all year round.
and my waterfowl appreciate that.