The lady that got me started in fodder bought an access of trays with me in mind. She got them on line (I think it was on eBay) and I bought ten of them from her for $10 (ten dollars). I HAVE weighed the full trays, and they come in at about eight to ten pounds per tray after eight days of watering, and two days of soaking (one day in bleach and one day in plain water). The soaking is done in smallish two gallon plastic buckets I got from the local market(s), Smiths and Safeway.
I bought 50 pound bags of wheat, barley and oats, and I have a few pounds of Black Oil Sunflower Seeds (BOSS) that I bought at Walmart. I use a different seed each day so the girls have a variety of seeds to enjoy, wheat one day, barley the next and oats the next. I throw a hand full of BOSS in every other tray, only because I like the looks of the sunflower seeds as they grow. The amount of seeds I use varies from day to day because of the different weights of the seeds, but a rough estimate would be approx. 8 oz. of seeds will provide nearly 8 pounds of fodder.
I have several plastic cups that I brought home after enjoying (?) Carl's Jr. or McDonald's meals (about 16 oz, give or take) and I use about 3/4 of these cups of dry seeds per tray.
I would suggest 10 seed trays to start. I have had several that developed holes (punctures) on the wrong side of the drain holes simply from abuse when I turn the trays each day, bumping them in the wrong place as I move them up one "rung" of my "fodder tree." These have been easy to handle once empty, I just mark where the hole is with a sticky note, and once I empty and wash that tray, I use a hot glue gun to "fill in" that hole.
I didn't start out with the "Fodder Tree" I mentioned, for the first month or so I was stacking the fodder trays in the kitchen with pieces of 1" X 2" scrap lumber I had. I also started with several different trays looking for "The One I Wanted" before settling on these trays. I would stack the trays with holes on alternating sides so that water would drain from the one above to the one below and the water would go to the opposite side as it fed the seeds, then that would drain to the tray under it, all the way to the bottom. I had stacks of trays in the middle of the kitchen floor, but didn't move them until the second time I tipped over a nearly full tray of grown seeds or a nearly full tray of water. It took me a while to learn that all that moving was sure to cause accidents, and the mess wasn't worth the effort to clean up, but I did each time.
Now it takes less that fifteen minutes A DAY to keep this going, watering only in the morning, and at night I wash the days tray, and refill it, move all the seeds up one rung and water. Simple.
I have posted these photos before, possibly in this thread, but the lumber cost me about $5 for all I used, if that, and the time was about an hour to make this wrack, Your millage may differ.
Good luck
(edited to add) Your question about weight, I forgot to mention this is for nine birds, and they get fed daily one tray, so my guess would be ... just a tad over one pound per chicken per day finished fodder. Does that help?
I will start with a pound of fodder per bird and see how that goes. One more question...did you say you feed them this in the morning and at night? So half a tray in the morning and half at night? I know I'm probably asking some silly questions but I have a hard time diving into a project until I have a really good idea of what I'm doing
No, no no no no. I think now you are going way too big in your estimate of what I said, so I will say it againWow, this is a huge help! Thank you so much for taking the time to share all this!! So, my 4.5 pound guess was way off
No, no no no no. I think now you are going way too big in your estimate of what I said, so I will say it again
I use a plastic mug/soda cup I got from McDonald's from one of their Large Drinks. It holds about 28 oz of liquid. I fill this <about> 3/4 full. The actual weight of the seeds will be somewhere around 8 oz, dry seeds. This will vary from seed to seed, but most times without trying to be any where NEAR "exact" in a measured amount, I use about 3/4 of this cup PER TRAY. My trays are very close to 11 1/2" X 22", and in about eight or nine days, this will produce somewhere NEAR 8 to 10 pounds of fodder. I use this to feed nine birds, and they devour the whole thing in usually ten minutes or less. Who ever gets the last blade of grass from this usually gets chased around the run until it is taken away by another, or can be hidden in a corner so it can be gulped down.
And I changed the picture in my last entry, so you might want to go back and see that (again).
When I was feeding just straight dry food to the birds, I was going through about two 50 pound bags per week (or close to that) and the wild birds probably ate most of that. Now a 50 pound bag of seed, using approximately 8 oz per day, gives me close to eight to ten pounds of fodder and that will last me 100 days, And the cost of feed has dropped considerably, I now buy one bag of 50 pound feed every three weeks or so, and I have better screening on the run to keep out the wild birds.
As for how often I feed the fodder, it is ONCE a day, in the evening, normally an hour or so before dusk (use your imagination). I don't want them going to bed with a full tummy, and they get locked down when I feed the fodder, it makes it so much easier to round them all up after a day of free ranging, and I close the door on the run so they are safe and "tucked in" all at the same time. This is also when I collect eggs, and btw, egg production has doubled since I started using fodder, for whatever reason.
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(edited to add: If you give them too much of ANYTHING, they will only eat as much as they need. That's when you should cut back. If you don't feed them enough, they will be hungry all the time and possibly gorge themselves, but I have never heard of this happening)
I meant finished fodder when I said a pound per bird, which is what you recommended in the earlier post. I have some sprouting right now to experiment with my baby chicks, in the meantime I'm going to work on getting a rack with trays set up. You have been SUPER helpful and have given me some great guidelines to start with! Thank you!!
