Fodder

Fodder, what is fodder? Fodder is live food sprouted from seed. It is commonly used as a supplement for livestock feed. The seeds used can vary anywhere from wheat, barley, or sunflower seeds. Be sure and investigate the seeds as some seeds like sorghum produce cyanogens when sprouted. Not good for your animals. I like sunflower seeds as my starting material. I try and start with organic seed but when I can not get it I use non GMO seed.  Oats and millet can be used, however, you can run into them molding due to the length of time it takes them to sprout - so keep an eye on them. I start my fodder in a quart mason jar. I will add 6 ounces of sunflower seed, which I usually buy in a 40 pound bag. It is commonly used as bird food which until recently came from Eastern Europe where GMO is not allowed. An EU thing.  I will weigh out the seed, place it in the mason jar, and cover with water. I let the seed soak overnight and in the morning I drain the excess water away. At this point I start a new batch of fodder repeating the procedure just described. I offset each mason jar batch by 24 hours, usually starting a new batch every morning. At the end of the week my first jar has sprouted. I take this jar transfer the sprouted seed out of the jar and feed it to my chickens. I then clean the jar and start the process over. By offsetting this startup by 24 hours I have fodder to feed my chickens at the end of seven days and since it is offset by 24 hours I have fodder for daily feeding. As long as I do this I can feed fodder to my chickens everyday.

Seven day supply of sprouts.

Sunflower sprouts

Another major consideration is the conversion efficiency of green food. Green food has a conversion efficiency of approximately 80%. Dry food on the other hand has a conversion efficiency of only 30%. If you have the ability to produce fodder for your animals it is much better for them, more easily digested, and is a live food. Dry foods on the other hand are harder on the animal to digest and are not natural for most animals, they are used to eating green live food. This also helps to bring your cost down since the conversion efficiency is almost 3 times higher requiring approximately three times less food. Although this does entail a substantial increase in work, if you have a productive system set up and a good source of seed this is well worth the effort. Producing fodder and feeding to your animals will compensate you in cost and health of your animals over the long run.

I have also use this process to sprout wheat and barley seed. With the wheat I will start with 8 ounces of seed doing exactly the same as I did with the sunflower seed. Doing it this way at the end of every seven days I have fodder to feed to my chickens. I've also use this method to sprout barley seeds. But I find that it is easier to use the sunflower seed as my starting material. I supplement feed to about 40 chickens. The main problem I have found is getting the amount of seed just right. To much seed and it is hard to get the sprouts out of the jar. You can experiment with this and get the conditions right for the method you chose.

I have also used a commercial system that I bought online. It is intended for small flock of chickens rabbits or goats. The water soaks the seeds that are contained in a small drain pan. The system will hold up to six trays and I will offset adding seed to each individual tray in exactly the same way that I added seed to my Mason jars. This way I produce fodder for each day of the week adding new seeds on a daily basis to ensure that I have a continuous supply of fodder. The main drawback to this system is that you need input water and an outlet to drain off the excess water, but these systems allow the sprouting of more seeds. I modified this system using an aquarium pump and I drain the water into a 5 gallon bucket and recycled water back through the system. This worked pretty well but at some point the feed water plugged up my system and I had to take the system apart to clean it. I assume if you had a place where there was running water you could plumb it directly into the system and allow the water to drain down the sink this would work just fine. That way you would not need to recycle the water. I did not want to place the system in my kitchen so I did not use this method. Also I did not want to have the water continuously running in case there was any problem with overflow.

In summary, I use fodder when I can. Because of the time constraints in producing the fodder I feed them fodder as a supplement. I still feed my chickens dry food and I supplement their feed with fodder. In the summertime I do not produce fodder for the chickens and only feed them fodder when they cannot get out in the pasture to find live food. Hopefully this article can help you with some general ideas and maybe you will decide to supplement your chickens, goats, rabbits, etc; with green food.

The most commonly used unhulled seeds used for chicken, rabbits, and other animals fodder are: The only draw back is cost as you will need to buy in pound quanities!

• Barley seeds-Good for chickens, rabbits and other livestock looks like grass, sprouts quickly.

• Millet-Very small seed.

• Wheat berries

• Sorghum – Care should be taken when using sorghum. The sprouted seeds produce a cyanide type compound that the plant uses to protect itself from grazers.

• Sunflowers-Ideal for sprouts will produce in 7 days.

• Milo-Is also called grain sorghum and may also contain cyanide type compounds

• Oats

• Legumes

• Beets

• Corn.

• Alfalfa

• Clover

• Annual rye

• Kale (and its close relative, rape)

• Turnips

• Mustard

• Buckwheat

• Grain grasses