DIY chook food

Up until recently, we fed our chooks on pellets. Layer pellets for the main flock, and pullet starter/grower for the young. But with so many chooks now hanging around, and my ever present 'could we DIY this?' attitude, I began looking for an alternative.

I discovered fodder systems and was pretty impressed. A fodder system is basically growing sprouts for your livestock. You can grow all sorts of things, but wheat is readily available and sprouts well, so that's what I use. By sprouting the grains, you change the chemical makeup of the material, thereby, increasing the available nutrients for your animals. You also increase the quantity of food, and in doing so, feed your animals less and save money!! As added bonuses, you know exactly what you're feeding your animals (and therefore what you're eating in your eggs/meat) and by buying less bags of pellets, you save on packaging. Hooray!

Wheat grains contain Vitamin B,C and E, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Pantothenic Acid, Phosphorus, Amino Acids.  By sprouting the grains, your animals get all of that PLUS vitamins A and K, Chlorophyll, Lecithin, Potassium and trace elements.  And the protein value of the feed goes from 10% to 30% (reference).

 

Lots of people grow fodder, if you want to do it, hunt around the Internet and read some other blog posts. But here is how we I do it.

For one smallish flock of birds (ie. for either my 7 roosters and 2 ducks of my 10 layers), a tray of food a day (plus some other things -see below) is a good start. So for each flock you need to set up a system. Each system needs a container with a lid (ice cream containers work well), 7-9 kitty litter trays (or similar), some old net curtains and somewhere to keep your system.

My fodder system is made of lots of bits of recycled timber and sits on the verandah.
Total cost for set up was about $30

Storing your system on open shelves is a good idea as the water used to water the top trays trickles down and waters the trays below.  You could use wire shelves from the shop, or if, like me, you believe things should be as cheap and recycled as possible, grab some pallets and scrap timber and custom make one!

I had helpers while making my pallet shelving system :)

Take your kitty litter trays and drill drainage holes in the bottom of them. Make sure you put in quite a few, but keep the holes smaller than a grain of wheat! I experimented with how many trays and found 8 is good. Apparently the fodder has the most nutrients between day 6 and 8 and after that it gains nothing and may start losing nutrients as the grass grows.

Now to grow the fodder. On day 1, put two cups of wheat into your lidded container. Cover it with water. After 8 hours (or overnight), tip the contents into your first litter tray and spread out the soaked grains. Repeat this step every day.  Use your net curtain to drape over your trays or the sparrows will find them and get very fat on your efforts (yep, speaking from experience!).

Each day, water your trays to keep them moist, but not soggy. In cool wet weather, I find once a day is enough, but on hot dry days, you need to water more often.

Day 1: Soaked grains

Day 3: Starting to grow roots

Day 5: A nice green flush

Day 8: Ready to feed!

Try not to disturb your growing wheat - it slows down the growth and you end up with messy crops. By day three you will see the wheat layer is starting to bulge and "puff" us as the roots grow. By day six, things are turning green. And by day 8 you'll have a lovely grassy crop. Keep away any wheat grass smoothie drinking folk and prepare to feed out your first crop!

The wheat will have grown into a slab of roots, shoots and grainy bits. Break it up and feed it out. Different animals treat it differently, but they all seem to like it.

I started with one system and have just started a second. Once we get our goats, I'll probably do three. And remember if you have other herbivores (guinea pigs, horses, rabbits etc), this makes a good feed for them too.

I do supplement the feed. The ducks free range and pig out on snails and slugs and the occasional scrap. All of the chooks get kitchen scraps. The meat chickens also get a whey and oat porridge (or porridge and yoghurt) to fatten them and the layers get a handful of layers pellets and shell grit. I hope to get rid of the layers pellets eventually though and replace the necessary nutrients in them with more home grown and natural foods.

Do you grow or cook for your animals?  Would love to hear about it!  And if you have any questions about this, ask away!