My simple laundry sink fodder growing setup.

[Phottoman]

This is NOT the best picture nor the best editing, but it's what I have available. I took this picture to show what I am working with in this corner of a very crowded room






If you click on the picture, it will enlarge it so you can read my poor attempt at labeling, but as you can see, we are REALLY crowded here.

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[myfivehens]

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?

Wow, 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 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

 

[myfivehens]

Oops, I remember now...you said they free range all day and then they get a tray at night.

 

[Phottoman]

Wow, 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 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 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.

Skip

(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)

 

[Phottoman]

OK, I said I would take pictures of all the birds coming to me when I fed them their fodder.

I didn't get a chance to even call them yesterday. They were all outside waiting for me when I went out back, but here is a series of pictures taken to show their reaction to the fodder.




As I walked out the back door, there was a herd of wild animals waiting to pounce on me. Lucky for me I had my "Lucky "Fodder" with me to fend off these vicious animals, I just hope that before I wake, I can secure at least a part of the Lucky Fodder to start another batch tomorrow, before I fall back to sleep.




As you can clearly see in this picture, they don't always wait until I have the fodder on the ground before jumping on (and sometimes into) the tray.




I tried to make this one large piece of fodder, but it broke in half, so there are two pieces, but you can see the birds waiting for it inside their run.




Every one is now headed into the run to eat today's fodder.

















And this is what it's all about, right?

Although there are only five eggs here now, I had already picked up three eggs earlier, so ... eight eggs for the day, from nine ladies.

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[WoodlandWoman]

Those are such great pictures! Both the indoor shots of your growing set-up and the live action shots. You have some lucky chickens there.

 

[myfivehens]

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.

Skip

(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 must not have communicated that very well 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!!

Love the pictures by the way, you have some happy chickens!

 

[wormrun]

I am so happy to hear you sprouted oats. I have not opened my bag yet, but I have opened and sprouted the barley, hard winter wheat, soft white wheat, boss, and triticale. I was see your setup has LOTS of air circulation. I'll read on and see how you started sprouting the oats before you placed them in your setup.

 

[wormrun]

Yes, soak them in the shell and they burst through on one end by the next day. Just do it!

 

[wormrun]

I have sprouted winter hard wheat, soft white wheat, boss, triticale (rye wheat blend), and barley. I will be attempting oats next. I hear you can most any of the grains as long as you follow the sprouting rules.

1. Do not use seeds for planting, yes it sounds like a contradiction but seeds for panting are typically treated against fungus, even organic seeds. This fungicide kills animals.
2. Use animal feed or people sprout seeds
3. Barley comes in two forms naturally, hulls and hull-less. When everyone talks about sprouting barley they typically get the variety with hulls. If it comes from the grocery store, it is pearl barley and the hulls were removed (not the same as hull-less). Just get animal feed (Grade) barley with the hulls or whole.

That's about all I've got on this subject for now, I'm in week 4.