I have 3 chickens and I want to grow some fodder for them because I hear when you sprout your seeds that you get way more nutrients out of it, it doubles in weight, and chickens love it!

Anyone else growing fodder for your chickens? If so there are some things I would like to ask:)

• How much should I grow for 3 chickens?
• How do you grow it?
• What seeds do you use?
• Do your chickens love it?

Let me know along with some photo's if you got them! -

So I think I may have to write an article about how to grow fodder.
We just started a couple of weeks ago and it is really easy.
My chickens and Rabbits both love it!
We are growing wheat, barley, and BOSS (black oil sunflower seeds)Sometimes mixing grains and sometimes straight wheat or barley. I prefer the wheat over the barley because it is cleaner and does not have as much chaff. Also the wheat grass is much sweeter then the barley. We have not tried to do straight BOSS.


For 3 chickens you probably could get away with starting with just one cup of grain, if you are just using it as a supplement to the pellet's.
We are just supplementing our pellets for 5 adult rabbits and few babies buns along with 5 chickens. We start with 2 cups of grains.

There are all kinds of videos on YouTube with instructions but we just soak the seeds over night in water and a small squirt of bleach to kill the mold spurs that can be on the grain.



We germinate 3 days in jars with lids I made with plastic canvas so we can drain it easily.


Soaking

Rinse morning, afternoon and evening


2nd night, you can see sprouts starting


3rd night, sprouts and roots starting

After it sprouts on night 4 we put it in 1020 trays with drain holes





Night 4


Night 5


Night 6

Night 7


Night 8 and we feed in the morning.

Awesome Panda!! What are 1020 trays?

Please please please write an article on this! I think this will really help our members save on feed cost:)

1020 trays are the black trays that some people use to put pots in or start seeds in.

They come solid or with drainage holes in them.

Ah!! I see:) Never knew the names of those! Ha ha ha!!

Nice job! I love the pictorial! Matt is right, you should transfer these photos with your instructions just like they are to an Article. I for one will definitely be giving this a go. It will give me a little something to do while wishing this cold weather away, and my blue babies and Bun Jovi will be oh so very happy. My birds get to range, but there's not a lot of anything out there for them right now.

Okay, so here's an idea that I'm testing but I'm sure it's going to work, I just don't know how well yet:)

Yesterday I started to soak some wheatgrass seeds in a white bowl. When I got up this morning and check them I noticed they were doubled in size which means already my chickens would get more out of the feed:)





Today I took those same seeds that I soaked and put them in this center block hole that I placed on another paver:) It has good drainage and the seeds will not take root in the pavers so the fodder mat will be easy to remove whole.





I am noticing that the center blocks are a bit deep so the sun gets in there but not really good. This is just an experiment so we will see what happens! As you can see in this image I only have four holes for the seeds and I am putting one cup of feed in each hole. With one cup the seeds come up about 1" on the center block. I'm just a little worried about aeration so I am wondering if one cup is to much for the blocks. From what I have read people are taking seed and turning it into 80% more feed by sprouting seeds.

I am sure the chickens would love the germinated seeds even before they grow the green grass.
When we put it in the tray it is about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick.

I was just thinking the thicker it is the more chance of it growing mold because of less air. I think I'm going to run with this idea so I went and bought a bunch of BPA free containers and I'm going to try and make a shelving system:) I need to make sure to supply Oystershell for my girls because that will not be in this feed. I would like to grow as fresh food as I can for them and sprouting will save on feed costs!

A little article written by you Panda would be great;)