Feeding fodder for chickens and poultry

Over the winter I started researching other ways to feed my chickens, I hated giving them brown crumbles  that looked like bleached Grape-nuts Cereal, and wanted to feed them something healthier and more natural.

 Bagged feed is popular for several reasons, it's a balanced diet with all the things your chickens need, it's convenient to buy, and it's easy to feed.  It can become a problem if you have a mixed flock,  age, breed, and purpose, all affect what bagged feed you should be feeding. Layers need more calcium that young chickens shouldn't have. Growing chicks need more protein, and turkeys need even more protein than them. Ducks also need niacin, which most chicken feeds don't have enough of for ducks. I was finding I had 4 different types of bagged feed to feed my mixed flock, it was ridiculous. 

This post will be broken into two posts. One on the fodder system and the other of fermenting grains, both of which I use to keep all my poultry healthy and happy.

What is fodder? Well it's the process of sprouting a grain so you have both the seed you started with and the beginning of a plant (usually a grass). This process unlocks a powerhouse of nutrients that feeding the gain alone cannot give. 

When I started growing fodder it was February and snowing outside, so I grew the fodder in my kitchen nook. I started out with little tubs I found at the dollar store and a plastic shelving system. A lot of the systems out there have automatic waters on timers and fancy drip systems. I started the old fashion way, by hand.

My system was next to my sliding glass door, though it will grow perfectly fine without day light. I would soak and drain each tray morning and night for a round 10 minutes (sometimes less).

All I could find was a bag of Wheat feed at my local feed store so I filled up my mason jar, poured the measured wheat into a white tub, filled it with water to cover and put in a drop of bleach. Soaking the grain 12-14 hours helps get the growing process kicked in and the bleach helps kill any mold or fungus that could grow on the grain and ruin your fodder.

When buying grain for fodder make sure it is 'feed' grain because otherwise it is usually sprayed with chemicals to preserve it and you don't want that in your fodder (or your chickens!).

Day 1 of wheat. You can see a tiny piece of white coming out of some of the grain.

Wheat day 2. That little bit of white from yesterday has grown a bit more.

Wheat day 3. The white now looks like a tail!

Wheat day 4. The tails are getting longer and thicker.

Wheat day 5. It's starting to turn green and it's making a root mat on the underside.

Wheat day 6. It's beginning to look like grass!

Wheat day 7. It's just a little longer than day 6.

Wheat day 8. It's done!

You can see that not all the grain sprouted and is sitting in the bottom of the tub, It's not waste, the chickens love to eat it as well. The root systems with this method are  thick and the 1 Lb of grain turned into roughly 4 1/2 Lbs Fodder.

This is a comparison of day 7 (left) and day 8 (right) to show you the growth difference of just one day.

Fodder reaches it's maximum nutrition between day 6-9 depending on the grain. After I used my bag of feed wheat I found a better deal on a bag of feed barley. Barley has slightly higher nutritional value than wheat and I noticed that it grew faster, allowing me to feed on day 6.

My fodder soaking on the kitchen counter. I used this method for 4 months before deciding I needed not only a bigger system, but one that was outdoors.

Here is  some Barley fodder I cut into pieces before feeding it to my week old chicks. They loved it and would gobble it up in minutes, ignoring their store bought feed.

Feeding fodder cut my feed bill in half. I also noticed a difference in the sheen of my birds feathers and I just felt better feeding it to them, they LOVE it.

I needed a bigger system, but I couldn't afford even the home systems for $300+.

I searched several stores and finally found the black garden trays at  Fred Meyers garden center (everywhere else sold them in kits, but not individually).

I got enough to make fodder and a few extras as back up.

I took a small drill bit and drilled holes into the shallow strips of the trays, around  1" or more apart.

                  

Not super uniformed but they will work, they don't have to be perfect.

Here's the new system set up in the green house, I just watered the top trays and let it fall to the trays below. At the bottom of the shelving unit I have my old white tubs to catch most of the water, which I used to water the plants in the green house.

Once summer started I moved this set up outside, away from the sun, and continued growing fodder until my schedule got so busy that I could water it enough in the day to keep mold/mildew away (I was down to one watering a day, which is not good for the fodder, especially in the heat). 

I have sense taken the system down and bleached everything thoroughly. Now that the weather is cooling, I'm planning on setting this up in the green house again and keeping it heated in the winter. I'll keep you updated of how that works out.