Fodder for feed. | Animals | Forums

I grow fodder for my chickens.  It's pretty easy to do what I need with just 8 animals and it gets them greens all year even in winter.  I grow wheat because that's what's available locally.  I hear barley is even better, but I cant get that around here.  It cost me less than $20 to get set up not including the 50lb bags of wheat that cost me ~$15.  It takes me about 5 min in the morning and 5 min in the evening.

Basically, I bought 5 of the 2 gal Home depot buckets.  In four of them, I drilled 1/8" holes in the bottom. These are for draining the wheat.

What  you are doing is a flood and drain system.  I do this twice a day and once you get going you will have some wheat (or barley fodder) for your animals daily.  My chickens prefer the fodder 4 days old.  Anything more than four days and the roots and grasses are too thick for my chickens to eat an it just becomes waste.  I've been doing it for over a year now and it greatly reduces my feed costs.

Here's a video of the method I copy from Jack Spirko.

definitely thinking about graduating to something like this.  It doesnt look too hard to build.  You can get a 5 pack of heavy duty trays with holes on Amazon for about $13 with free shipping for Amazon Prime members.

Heres a link to a timer:

http://www.theaquapo.....phf005.htm

and a site for pumps:

http://brightagrotec.....droponics/

I  havent priced out the PVC or the tote, but they cant be too expensive.

Oh, and FYI, you dont need any light for the fodder. I had it growing in my basement with almost no light all winter.  Dont fee like it needs to be set up in front of a window or anything.