Fodder For Livestock – Make Your Own DIY Sprouted Fodder System

Posted by SLN Staff on Mar 29th, 2015 | 1 comment home title

Fodder For Livestock – Make Your Own DIY Sprouted Fodder System

Feeding your livestock can be a real challenge when you don’t have enough grass on your pasture. During the cold seasons and droughts, there could be shortages of feed and grass for animals to graze on. Buying hay is expensive and prices are subject to change which could run up your feeding cost.

A healthy alternative to your pasture grass could be young grasses grown with your own fodder system. You could easily build a system that grows young grasses within a very short time with minimum resources and water, in a hydroponic system.

In this blog, we will show you how to grow your own micro-green fodder. We will explain how you can build a fodder system to feed your livestock, especially your cattle, goats, alpaca, chickens, sheep, horses, and similar animals.

Why fodder?

With uncertain weather conditions, it has become a major concern for farmers to come up with cost effective feeding system for animals. If there have been long cold winters, droughts, or storms these conditions could negatively impact pasture production. In these conditions, it is best to prepare an alternative feeding system for your livestock.

Micro-green grasses are ideal for your livestock. It has all the nutrients your livestock need for healthy growth and production. Sprouting fodder could be a dependable and sustainable way of growing animal feed, which is also cost effective.

Growing fodder from seeds is not a new concept. It’s easy, does not require a lot of resources, it’s cost effective, increases productivity of animals by improving the nutritional value of feed and it’s possible to harvest young grasses within a very short time.

Basics of fodder system

You could easily grow a large number of cereal grasses including wheatgrass, alfalfa, barley, etc. by sprouting seeds in an hydroponic system. It usually takes 6-8 days to get harvest size grasses from seeds. Follow these simple steps to get started.

Soak seeds: Take whole grains or seeds and soak them in water for 6-8 hours.

Spread them in shallow trays: Take a shallow tray with holes for drainage. Drain your seeds and spread them evenly.

Water your seeds: Water your seeds a couple of times a day, keep them moist and drained during the growth cycle. Keep temperature between 60-75 O F. And watch your seeds grow into young plants!

Harvest: When your plants grow to harvest size, feed your animals. They can consume the whole thing, seed, root, root and leaf!

Issues with mold and fungus

To get rid of mold and fungus, wash all your trays, seeds, and equipment with clean water, Use a 1% bleach solution on trays and equipment. A low humidity environment, clean water and good air circulation is needed to fight mold and fungus. Always select high quality seeds or grains for sprouting.

Conclusion

Feeding your animals with a well-balanced natural diet can be a key factor in increasing your farm production and profit; while keeping your feeding costs low. Microgreen fodder systems are an easy way to grow a wide variety of juicy and luscious microgreen grasses such as alfalfa, barley, and wheat indoors. They need very little care and water to grow. Micro-greens are higher in nutritional value and the balanced nutrition your animals need for normal growth and endurance.

Do you want to grow your own grasses with microgreen fodder system? We will show you how. Get your DIY plans for proven livestock feeding systems from us. You can also get Feed in A Box Microgreen (fodder) and find out how great it is!! Please contact us at 303-495-3705 or Click here to book a meeting with us.

Have you tried our DIY system already? If you have, please let us know how well they are working for you. If you haven’t tried it, now is the time to build a DIY system and try it yourself.

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Source: Sustainable Livestock Nutrition