DIY Fodder Sprouting System for Your Small Farm (2024)

FAQs

What are the best seeds for fodder system? ›

The most popular fodder seeds are barley, alfalfa, millet, oats, wheat, grain rye, ryegrass, buckwheat, field peas, clover and sorghum. Fodder Rule of thumb is "2% of the animal's live body weight of fodder per day." One pound of seed can produce eight pounds of fodder.

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.

Fodder for chickens is a nutritious and economical food option that is created by soaking and sprouting whole grains, such as wheat, oats, barley, or rye, over about a 7-day period indoors, without the need for soil. This process unlocks the grains' nutrients, resulting in a high-quality feed that is more affordable.

Pros of Having a Fodder System

Fodder is nearly completely digestible, so your feed budget benefits the animal instead of going straight through the ground! When the grain is sprouted, and grown hydroponically, nearly all the starch in the grain is converted to sugar and is better utilized by the animal's rumen.

Fodder beet is by far the highest yielding forage crop you can grow. The energy rich fodder beets are complementing the use of grass or protein rich legumes in the diet of cattle.

Cowpea Fodder Seeds

Fodder Cowpea is an important quick growing legume, which is used as fodder crop for Green fodder, Hay making, Open-grazing & also Silage mixtures with Maize/Sorghum. It's suitable for dry land areas during rainy season & susceptible to water logging conditions.

- Did you add bleach to the soaking water to kill mold spores? - Make sure you use fresh grain that hasn't been heated for good germination. - Add a little more bleach to the soaking water to kill all of the mold spores. - Don't soak seed too long or the seeds will start to ferment.

The usual set up is to have a bank or rack of 12' long growing channels stacked six levels of four channels per level, for a total of 24 channels. During that first 8 days, very little light is needed as the energy for growth is in the seed itself. The fodder must be harvested by 7-9 days.

What is the yield of fodder per acre? ›

The yield per acre varies from 350-400 Q per acre in single cut or 200-240 Q per acre in Page 2 multiple cut. The fodder is highly succulent and wide leaves makes the fodder all the more relishable by the dairy animals.

Every system is a little bit different. If you have severe mold problems with your fodder system, you can use a higher concentration of culture to bring it under control. Once the mold is controlled, gradually drop back to the prescribed rate. If the mold reappears, just increase the culture again until it goes away.

Fodder is wet and causes some limitations. In a high silage (high water) ration, the addition of wet fodder may decrease feed intake. Also, it needs to be fed fresh and seems to grow unwanted microbes if the time between harvest and feeding is too long.

The seed that we recommend most often are barley, alfalfa, millet, oats, wheat, grain rye, ryegrass, buckwheat, field peas, clover, sunflowers, sorghum and more. Fodder Rule of thumb is "2% of the animal's live body weight of fodder per day." One pound of seed can produce eight pounds of fodder.

You can plant pigeon pea with cereals such as sorghum and millet or with short-duration grain legumes such as cowpea (niébé, Vigna unguiculata). The fodder produced is of good quality; you can feed it to your livestock together with grasses or your crop residues.

Wheat, Oats, Millet, Barley, Grains, Peas, and Alfalfa are some of the best animal fodder seeds.

NutriFibre® delivers the highest total protein and energy production per hectare compared with all other grass species. This is why NutriFibre® enables farmers to economise on the purchase of feed concentrates, thereby lowering the cost of your milk production.