My simple laundry sink fodder growing setup.

[ScottM]

Go for it, my 8 girls tear through a biscuit of fodder in minutes.

 

[Phottoman]

. I can get sun flower seeds but no idea if they a the "boss" type as they are used to feed parrots but I will try them to see if they sprout.

I have been doing the fodder thing for about few months now. I bought some Sunflower Seeds intended for wild bird food at Walmart a few weeks ago and I add it to the Wheat that I am raising. I have three different types of seeds that I am trying, Barley, and a combination of Wheat and Sunflower Seeds. You don't need to shell them, they will float on top of the soak when you soak them, but they DO grow, and they are rather pretty to see.

I also have 45 pounds left of a fifty pound bag of corn, it sprouted, but no where as well as I wanted, then I read that too much corn was not good for the chickens. I am still trying to figure out what I am going to do with all this corn on hand.

This is a very simple racking system I built, from 1" X 2" X 8' pine I bought at Home Depot. It took about eight pieces to build this, the bottom tray is empty, it drains into a bucket that I empty once a day. The second tray up from the bottom has last nights seeds that I finished soaking for twenty four hours. As I feed fodder from the top of the rack, each successive tray goes up one rung and I turn each tray so it tilts down to empty into the tray below it.


This second picture shows three days of growing fodder, from the bottom going up you can see wheat/sunflower then Barley in the middle tray, then wheat/sunflower in the top of these three trays.



The lowest tray here is the top tray from the above picture, so this would be days three, four and five.


Days five and six.


Days six, seven and eight.


This is tray five (fifth day starting from the bottom of the stack). The grass you see is the wheat, and the leaves are from the sunflower seeds. If you click on this picture, as I understand it, it will become larger for you to view, and yeah, those leaves DO look pretty. The one time I grew a full tray of sunflower seeds, the chickens attacked it like there was no tomorrow. Nine chickens (one year old this month) destroyed the entire thing in less than twenty minutes.


The trays I am using are my third set of trays. I started with some aluminum trays that I bought at a Dollar Store. They were about 11" X 24" (as I remember them) but they were so flimsy that they only lasted a few growing periods, they bent something terrible, so I went to Walmart and tried several of their storage bins. Those were better, but they were small compared to what I wanted to feed my birds, about 8" X 14" and very deep. I drilled holes in them but they never seemed to drain properly. I had LOTS of seeds in the bottom of each tray, and the chickens loved those seeds too, but I just never got it "right" with those bins.

Then I went to the current trays. These are garden trays, very flimsy also, but I take better care of them. I buy them on line, bulk, for about a dollar each, and if they last me a couple of months, I will be happy.

I hope these pictures will answer your question on sunflower seeds.

Skip

 

[Costa Rica Art]

This is tray five (fifth day starting from the bottom of the stack). The grass you see is the wheat, and the leaves are from the sunflower seeds. If you click on this picture, as I understand it, it will become larger for you to view, and yeah, those leaves DO look pretty. The one time I grew a full tray of sunflower seeds, the chickens attacked it like there was no tomorrow. Nine chickens (one year old this month) destroyed the entire thing in less than twenty minutes.


I hope these pictures will answer your question on sunflower seeds.

Skip

Thanks, Skip, I'll be sure to get a couple of kilos of those sunflower seeds (I only get to the other town about once a month so I'll need to figure out how much to get to last between trips). I'm in the process of looking for some kind of tray that will work for sprouting fodder for our flock. It will be fun to watch them dive into the first batch of sprouts. Some days I can get heads of lettuce for less than a dime when they are getting a little old, the chickens go crazy on them. Lucky too that I can get 10 over ripe bananas for less than a quarter, those go really fast. One thing Costa Rica has in a lot of fruit that gets over ripe, you just have to be there when the cull it out. I do prefer to have a good thing like sprouts going for feed on a regular basis then add in treats when available. Thanks for the great photos and, yes, they do expand to almost full screen when you click on them.

 

[chickengmaw]

Mine are doing fine as well. I soaked in water for 24 hrs. I had some growing trays, so I punched some holes in them. Drained and rinsed my seed. Spread them out and rinsed them twice a day. I have them one the floor by our table, right by a sliding door. Its about 68 in our house and I noticed a small white shoot on Sunday. I was so excited, to see that. Its now the fifth day and the shoots are almost 1/2 inch tall. They love the sun and are facing toward it. Tomorrow I will turn them around, so they can straighten up. Oh yes I forgot to mention, I also mist them a little if they start looking dry in between rinsing. I also have another batch growing. WoooHoo

 

[glenny]

Very clever and space saving! Thanks for sharing this technique. I've played around with all sorts of trays, etc but they are messy and take up lots of space. Your method is streamlined!

 

[chickengmaw]

Skip, just wondering how deep did you plant the wheat seed. I am using barley and I put in a 1/2 inch, I have some sunflower seeds I will give those a try too.

 

[Phottoman]

Thanks, Skip, I'll be sure to get a couple of kilos of those sunflower seeds (I only get to the other town about once a month so I'll need to figure out how much to get to last between trips). I'm in the process of looking for some kind of tray that will work for sprouting fodder for our flock. It will be fun to watch them dive into the first batch of sprouts. Some days I can get heads of lettuce for less than a dime when they are getting a little old, the chickens go crazy on them. Lucky too that I can get 10 over ripe bananas for less than a quarter, those go really fast. One thing Costa Rica has in a lot of fruit that gets over ripe, you just have to be there when the cull it out. I do prefer to have a good thing like sprouts going for feed on a regular basis then add in treats when available. Thanks for the great photos and, yes, they do expand to almost full screen when you click on them.

Fruit sounds like a great way to start. The problem in my house is that fruit wont last long enough to feed to the chickens, we all like it so much that we eat it instead of having any for the girls.

If you are lucky enough to have just about any of the "big" stores near you, I think you can find sunflower seeds anywhere, and the trays I found on eBay, just do a search for "gardening trays." You do NOT need anything fancy, just get the 22" X 10.5" or similar trays and you'll be doing great. I just did a search for them and came up with 1,047 active listings, and the shipping isn't too bad either.

Good luck and keep us posted.

Mine are doing fine as well. I soaked in water for 24 hrs. I had some growing trays, so I punched some holes in them. Drained and rinsed my seed. Spread them out and rinsed them twice a day. I have them one the floor by our table, right by a sliding door. Its about 68 in our house and I noticed a small white shoot on Sunday. I was so excited, to see that. Its now the fifth day and the shoots are almost 1/2 inch tall. They love the sun and are facing toward it. Tomorrow I will turn them around, so they can straighten up. Oh yes I forgot to mention, I also mist them a little if they start looking dry in between rinsing. I also have another batch growing. WoooHoo

I never noticed that mine were "drying out." I water them twice a day. I only add water to the top tray. I started out with just adding a gallon each time, morning and night, but I also notice that the bucket only has about a quart to a quart and a half of water about an hour after watering, so I increased that to about a gallon and a half of water twice a day. I am using cardboard waxed 1/2 gallon milk containers to bring the water to my seeds. I fill three of them and carry them altogether in a five gallon bucket to the seeds to water. I would suggest you move them away from the sliding door, they do NOT need that much sunlight and it's possible that is why they are looking dry. You only need light on the second-to and last day, they will turn green very quickly if you have them away from that door. When I had mine in our kitchen, they got plenty of light to turn green, and like your's, they leaned toward the light. There is nothing wrong with that, and I have read that some people use the only space they had available, in a closet. Misting during the day MAY cause your plants to start molding, or growing mildew, and THAT is something you DON'T want.

Very clever and space saving! Thanks for sharing this technique. I've played around with all sorts of trays, etc but they are messy and take up lots of space. Your method is streamlined!

Thank you, and it was easy to build. I probably should have shot some pictures as I was building it, but never thought about doing that until I was finished.

Skip, just wondering how deep did you plant the wheat seed. I am using barley and I put in a 1/2 inch, I have some sunflower seeds I will give those a try too.

Almost every time we go out to eat at either McDonald's or Carl's Jr. I get the large plastic drink containers, I really don't know what the volume is on these things, I would think somewhere around 32 liquid ounces, or close to that. With the Barley seeds I fill it to about an inch or so from the top and dump that into my soak (with a 'glob' of bleach). With the Wheat and Sunflowers I use about 3/4 of a cup of the wheat and add a fist full of sunflower seeds. I was using the same amount of wheat for the first several attempts, but they are so small, and seem to swell from the water as large as the Barley seeds, and over crowded the tray, so I cut back. I think (for me at least) that 1/2 inch may be OK, but just a tad too thick. Try cutting it back so you have a layer of three to four seeds thick max, then watch your root mass. If it is too thick water seems to get 'trapped' and this isn't good. We're not doing full aquaponics here, just trying to get some seeds to grow. It really AIN'T no biggie. If your 1/2 inch is doing good for you, continue what you are doing.

Skip

 

[Drapery Mary]

Oooh I like that idea...I started out doing this with holes in the bottom of milk jugs when I only had 4 chickens but now that I am up to 20+ chickens (11 babies) I am going to need a bigger grow area. I can only fit 6 jug bottoms on the McDonald's type tray I sit them on after I drain them. (Sometimes I stack them double)

 

[Costa Rica Art]

Fruit sounds like a great way to start. The problem in my house is that fruit wont last long enough to feed to the chickens, we all like it so much that we eat it instead of having any for the girls.

If you are lucky enough to have just about any of the "big" stores near you, I think you can find sunflower seeds anywhere, and the trays I found on eBay, just do a search for "gardening trays." You do NOT need anything fancy, just get the 22" X 10.5" or similar trays and you'll be doing great. I just did a search for them and came up with 1,047 active listings, and the shipping isn't too bad either.

Good luck and keep us posted.

Trimmings from pineapples, banana peals, watermelon rinds, musk melon rinds, any fruit trimmings the chickens will devour.

Finding things here in Costa Rica is mainly by chance, the big stores here are small compared to the USA stores. Buying things on eBay and having it ship here doesn't work very good, it takes forever and you can get hit with a 34% import duty. I'm thinking a few of the plastic dish pans will work, they aren't as big but the flock still gets out in the yard all day so the sprouts will be another treat but one that will be a regular thing once it is figured out. Nice day today, all the chickens and older chicks are out and about, a bug anywhere near the yard is doomed!!!!

 

[Chickensmart.com]

Thanks

great idea!