fodder for goats

[treeclimber233]

Has anyone seen the fodder feed in the feeding horses section? Anyone here do this? Sounds interesting if it is really a plausable thing.

I see there is already another post about this. Sorry

 

[Harbisgirl]

I don't myself but I know of lady who does. She has a description of her setup on her blog http://quartzridgeranch.wordpress.com/

 

[Oakroot]

Lots of very high end farms feed hydro grown fodder including some of the biggest jumper and racing barns in the world.

 

[vegaburm]

I would love to do this, but the space for it and time are definitely an issue!

 

[animalmom]

I have one of the fodder systems that Melwynnd is producing. I was quickly impressed by the simplicity and ease of use. My daily time involvement is very, very minimal. If I spend more than 5 minutes a day I would be incredibly surprised. I should time my actual hands on involvement. The process is easy... measure out your grain of choice, we use wheat, rinse, rinse again, soak for 30 minutes or so, drain and let the seeds sit until the next day. I mean really, how long does it take a person to rinse out some seeds, put them in soak, come back later and drain? This system is not a time sink at all.

Next day put the seeds in one of the trays, level out the seeds and put the tray in the rack. From that point is is automated. This is a well thought out system.

I can't answer the question on if your goats will eat the fodder as my goats don't get a chance to do so. All the fodder goes to the geese who scarf it down.

The footprint of the fodder system I purchased is 22" x 24" and is about 45" tall. I purchased the six tray system.

This product does what it is intended to do with very little oversight from me. I think it is a good system for the backyardherd owner. I am not associated with the manufacturer, nor do I receive any compensation for my opinions. I really like this product. It does what it says it will do. My only complaint is I should have bought the 12 tray system so that the goats could get some fodder too. Didn't think the geese would lay claim to it all.

 

[vegaburm]

Yes, with one of the systems it does not look bad, but this link on this post was not with one of those. She said the seeds had to be watered 3-4 times a day, and I know in my life that would never happen. With the setups, space is an issue for me, finding a window somewhere where my cats won't jump in it and make a mess would mean putting it in my bedroom, with all the other things my cats need to stay out of. With so much clutter there already I don't want to do that. Now all I need to do is kick out one of my children and start using their bedroom for this sort of stuff and snake racks. Lol.

 

[doxiemoxie]

My question is where are you purchasing the seed and what cost?

 

[treeclimber233]

I have messed around with starting with the fodder. I have found it does not need to be watered 3-4 times a day. Knowing I was leaving (deer hunting) for 4 days I just left my 3 trays sitting in the room. It was molding so I did not want to feed it to my animals anyway. When I came back the seeds that sprouted were still alive and growing. Granted it had a terrible sprout rate. I tried the first time with whole oats and got a 10-15% sprout rate. Horrible I know. Now I am trying to sprout annual rye grass. It took about 5 days to sprout and is finally growing. I need to figure out how many seeds to put in my containers because after the seeds swelled up there is about 1 inch (maybe deeper) of seeds in the tray. I did not buy the system because I want to see how it works first. Maybe make my own. It looks simple enough. It really does not seem to take much time at all.

 

[animalmom]

We are using "whole wheat for feed" seeds and are very pleased with the sprout rate. Locally here in North Central Texas a 50 pound bag costs $12.95. The wheat feed seed is just wheat seed with nothing added, not processed, not steamed, not rolled, nada. We get it at a local feed store and they get it from Oklahoma.

When we first started with our fodder system we bought a few 50 pound bags of wheat seeds that were suppose to be planted. Thought that was a good thing, but it was $5 - 7 more expensive that the whole wheat for feed. Gets confusing.

Our sprout rate for the more expensive seeds and for the less expensive "for feed" seeds is identical. Can't complain about that! Any seeds that fail to sprout go to the chickens so there is no loss at all.

We do our fodder system outside where it is closer to the greedy geese. It is sheltered on the one side that would get the worst weather by a wall and we have a three sided "greenhouse" enclosure around it to protect from wind and low temperatures. We also put an aquarium heater in the water reservoir to keep that from freezing. The husband didn't want the system in the house and it just made more sense to us to have it closer to the animals even though it meant we would have to do something to protect from freezing.

We like the system.

 

[terrilhb]

I just found a site for fodder on FB. It is calle Fodder Group.