Last year I first gave Foddering a try. The concept is very appealing, turning 1 lb of nutritious seed into 5-6 lbs of more digestible highly nutritious fodder by just adding two ingredients, water & time. The system became more and more refined during the winter until I thought I had a fairly efficient system as outlined in my Chicken Fodder post this past January. Over on BYC the thread “Growing Fodder for Chickens” is what got me started on Fodder and the thread is full of fantastic information, but beware it has just reached 2500 posts and is still join strong!
How I began this year
This years Fodder season started up about a month ago when temps finally fell below 80 degrees. Last years setup was working OK but the warm temps and winds dried things out too quick and cut into productivity.
After some thought and a bit of fiddling around I came up with this indoor rack along with slightly modifying my process.
Seed
The first ingredient is the seed. Last year I tried several different kinds and have settled on Red Wheat as the primary ingredient and soak mix My Sweety Karen gets me that is mostly safflower. Barley and Oats caused way too many issues with mold last year.
2 Cups
Bucket
2 Cups of seed go into a pail with water and a splash of bleach to soak for 24 hours.
Holy Pail
Two Buckets
Rinse Multiple Times Daily
After soaking for 24 hours the seed goes into one of 2 perforated buckets that act as colanders allowing the seed to drain. While in the pails the seed gets rinsed as often as I remember to daily.
The new improved indoor rack
After spending 2 days in the colander buckets the sprouting seed gets spread out in the bottom of one of 8 perforated prep trays to be rinsed once a day. The newest tray goes into the bottom of the rack and works its way up to the top as the oldest of 6 trays get used. 2 trays are always empty, I have found that rinsing the used tray out then letting it sit in the sunshine for a couple days has helped cut down on slime/mold issues.
All of our Critters go GaGa over Fodder!
The Fruity Chicken 
I have been accidentally growing fodder on my stone porch – the birds are dropping enough seed that the rain and time do the rest. The birds love it, but I find it a bit slimy 😉
[…] know I have posted about fodder before, in this post in November I really thought I had it all figured out. WRONG, just like anything else in agriculture I am […]