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The link you directed me to is what I was reading last night. I found it really interesting. Not being someone who is specialized in such things it was a bit of difficult reading but I did understand the bulk of it and the argument against the fodder. Numbers don't lie after all. There was one argument in the comments from a guy named Kyle who is from a fodder system company that made interesting arguments of why the analysis was one sided but why should i believe him when he is trying to sell someone the system in the first place. The part that gets you is that you get all these people who do use it with such amazing results. The cost of feed is absolutely ridiculous nowadays so you can't blame someone for searching for a way to save a buck lol. The scientific studies was what i was after to show me why it wasn't a good thing and I managed to find it and I accept the information presented. Afterall an agronomist would know better than I LOL. This still doesn't answer the original question of the post though, WAS MY MATH CORRECT LOL I'm horrible at math and the post was really created to see if I was doing my math correctly. i.e. the process in which I was coming to those numbers (regardless of whether or not it was an advisable practice) I really appreciate you taking the time to write such a thoughtful post. I hope you have a great dayI am glad you are questioning the cost associated with feeding fodder. There is a lot of smoke and mirrors surrounding the practice. I'll be upfront and say that I think it's a terrible practice. Do it as a treat? Great but not as a sole feed practice. Your animals will starve to death. It is all about numbers. Understand that to analyse feed stuff, it is first dried to remove all the water. Here is the first lie of fodder. They do not tell you that the analysis they post is for DM and not as fed. Huge problem. If average fodder is 85% non nutritive water, how can the values be higher than the original product? For any animal to survive and produce, they need energy (calories) not pounds of feed. Potential customers zero in on the promise of #6 of fresh feed from one little lonely pound of seeds.
I think this is one of the easy rebuttals to the practice of feeding fodder to understand. The one think they should of included is DE (digestible energy). Once you know the moisture content, simple to add it back and calculate the fresh fodder energy value.
http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=11721
I'll speak about the practice of feeding fodder to horses and we can extrapolate the info to chickens.
On the Fodder Solution site, they boast that the average horse (1000#) will eat 5-10 Kg of fodder a day. Jill average horsewoman thinks that sounds reasonable. An average horse should eat 2% of their body weight a day in forage or about 20#. 20# of hay, 20# of fodder. Same thing right? No. Not even close. Hay averages 8% moisture. Fodder averages 85%. On 20# of product, hay dry matter would be about 18.4# while the fodder would be close to 3#. Who here believes that a 1000# animal can survive on 3# of stuff a day? Another smoke and mirror on their site is a reference to a study (again on horses) where the horses were fed this 20# of fodder and did super on it. The study was well done and the pictures show some nice animals and positive results. Oh by the way, the horses were also fed ad lib low quality hay. Well that doesn't change anything does it? Would you say fresh fodder is more like hay or fresh pasture? Fresh pasture obviously. If the average horse out on pasture consumes close to 100# of grass a day, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that this horse would also eat 100# of fodder a day? That's a long way from 20#. So use that approach with your chickens. Let's just say an average hen eats 4 oz of feed a day. Moisture content is less than 2%. How much fodder would you need to feed to get 4 oz of "stuff"? 4 oz divided by .15= 26.7 oz. Your hens would need to eat 1.6# of fodder a day just to get enough energy for basic survival.
It sounds like you really just need to get in there, do it and come up with your own results. Don't you think though that if the practice of growing fodder was as good as they make it out to be, the entire planet would be doing it? It could solve world famine in 6-7 days.