Growing Fodder

What is Fodder?

Definition of fodder

1: something fed to domestic animals. especially: coarse food for cattle, horses, or sheep

In a fodder system, a grain like barley, wheat or oats is sprouted in plastic trays and allowed to grow for seven days and then fed to livestock. Sprouted grains can be grown indoors without soil. It is essential to begin fodder sprouting with clean seed that is free from mold. The seed is soaked for 12 to 24 hours, spread onto trays, and watered two or three times daily for seven days. Seven-day sprouts are harvested every day and fed to livestock. New, clean seed is then placed in trays for harvest after seven days growth. 

What is the benefit of Growing Fodder?

The fodder that is harvested from the system is very digestible. Grain changes as it undergoes the sprouting process. Preliminary analysis of the fodder shows high sugars, high neutral detergent fiber, and comparable net energy to the original grain used.

For my purposes, Fodder is a Fresh and Healthy Snack that I can feed to my Chickens and goats thru the winter.

My Fodder system

I grow the fodder in a very small scale system in my basement. I purchased a rack with 28 bins. I drilled holes in the bottom of all but 4 of the bins. The bottom 4 bins catch the water that drains down thru all the other bins.

Ideally, I don’t put grain in the top 4 bins. This allows the water to spread out and evenly soak the other bins. If I have bins in the top row, their seeds get disrupted each time I pour water in.

The location of your fodder system has to be temperature controlled. It grows best between 65 and 72 degrees farenheit. The sprouts also need light. Since we don’t have a window in the utility room, I am getting a grow light. The regular light bulb works, but I hope the grow light will be even better.

The Process

Step one – Find Grains

This was the hardest part for us. The only thing we could find in the feed stores to try was whole oats. They didn’t have a very high germination rate so did not provide very satisfactory fodder. The oat also tended to grow mold.

We asked at the feed stores, and they suggested going to the local feed cleaning plant. I visited them and found out that they don’t sell retail, only in huge quantities. They suggested a different feed store… and the in turn suggested the feed cleaning plant…

Finally we found a farmer on Facebook marketplace that was selling bags of Barley. The barley has a much higher germination rate. The only drawback is that this barley has not been cleaned, so there is a lot of waste that we have to clean out before we can put in in the trays.

We also found that Sunflower seeds sprout quite well. They don’t form a nice carpet by themselves, but do well mixed in with the Barley.

Step 2 – Rinse and Soak the seeds.

We rinse the barley well and all the strain out all the stems and other dirt that floats to the top. Then soak it for 12-24 hours with a bit of bleach in the water to prevent mold growth.

The Sunflower seeds are harder to clean as they all float. I just pick out as many of the stems and empty hulls as I can before adding it into the cleaned Barley for soaking.

Step 3 – Spread it into the plastic trays and wait for it to sprout.

When you spread it into the trays, you want the seeds to be 1/4 to 1/2 inches deep. Any deeper than that and the seeds won’t sprout as well.

I water the trays 2-3 times per day and start a new batch each day. That way there is a new batch ready each day.

It takes about a week for the fodder to be ready to harvest. You can see the sprouts at 3, 4 and 5 days below.

Step 4 – Lift up the carpet of fodder and feed it to the animals.

This Fodder is ready to feed to the livestock

The Chickens love it. The Goats are not sure yet…