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

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Can I get them from Amazon
I’m really keen to get some ‘ sprouting’ started but am unsure costs and seeds

I would try a local seed store first before buying something way overpriced at Amazon! I bought 100lbs of Winter Wheat at the local seed store for less than 30$. A pound or two would cost you less than 5$, compared to the "pharmacy-prices" you'd pay online.

 

[Sally PB]

Barley worked best for gtaus last year, but i cannot get my hands on that.

@WannaBeHillBilly , I just ordered a pound of barley from thelittlegraybarn for $10.
www.themadhatchery.com

Alfalfa works ok for me, but I want to try other things too. Plus, alfalfa is small. The seeds are hard to spread out.

I know $10/lb for barley would be expensive for large operations, but I have four chickens. The price is less per pound the more you order, but a pound will last me a while, I think.

 

[thelittlegraybarn]

Thanks @Sally PB You're going to be pleased. This stuff spouts like crazy. Below are some of my little biscuits after just 7 days.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

@WannaBeHillBilly , I just ordered a pound of barley from thelittlegraybarn for $10.
www.themadhatchery.com

Alfalfa works ok for me, but I want to try other things too. Plus, alfalfa is small. The seeds are hard to spread out.

I know $10/lb for barley would be expensive for large operations, but I have four chickens. The price is less per pound the more you order, but a pound will last me a while, I think.

That is exactly the problem: One pound of barley would be two meager supper bowls for my 40 ducks. I bought 100lbs of Winter Wheat in October and have already finished one 50lbs bag.

 

[urbanquackjc]

@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.

Would you recommend one grain over the other. Currently, I can only get wheat, rye or oats.

 

[urbanquackjc]

I want to try to grow fodder this year. Would you recommend one grain over another? I can currently only get wheat, rye or oats. Thanks in advance for giving me the idea!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I want to try to grow fodder this year. Would you recommend one grain over another? I can currently only get wheat, rye or oats. Thanks in advance for giving me the idea!

Same here: Wheat, Rye and Oats are available, no Barley or Millet is sold. From my own experience, Winter Wheat is the easiest to grow, followed by Rye. @gtaus as well as i made really bad experiences with Oats: When soaked for 'five seconds' too long it won't germinate anymore. Rye germinated ok, but my ducks didn't like the taste or the texture that much.

 

[Sally PB]

I want to try to grow fodder this year. Would you recommend one grain over another? I can currently only get wheat, rye or oats. Thanks in advance for giving me the idea!

One thing to consider is how many birds you have. I only have four chickens, so $10/pound for barley is a fun experiment if it's a bust, and if it works, will last a while. And it'll be enough to try more than once, in case it fails the first time.

 

[urbanquackjc]

One thing to consider is how many birds you have. I only have four chickens, so $10/pound for barley is a fun experiment if it's a bust, and if it works, will last a while. And it'll be enough to try more than once, in case it fails the first time.

I have 29 birds 23 chickens and 6 ducks.

 

[thelittlegraybarn]

I have 29 birds 23 chickens and 6 ducks.

You're gonna need a 50 pound bag at the very least.