Fodder Works System at Oak Creek Whitetail Ranch

hi guys uh we want to do a kind of a recap on our fodder system uh we did some videos a couple years ago when we first started doing the the fodder but we just want to kind of show you where we're at and how things have changed you know this is uh we're fixing to feed this this morning so this is fixing to go out and it's just uh these are just the mats that we do anybody that doesn't know about fodder it's just a hydroponic growing system this is the roots it's all root there's no dirt this is barley and sunflower seeds but it's uh these racks every hour it feeds for about 20 seconds it it that it'll this layer will water for 20 seconds this layer of water 20 seconds this one and it'll go over it in each rack so we can produce about a ton a day now of fodder it's freshly grown we feed this year round winter spring fall it doesn't matter the deer getting fresh ground sprouts every day and they really love it i i think nick it's easier to check your pens yeah no doubt about it i mean hey the deer you got 30 deer in a pan i guarantee you're going to have 26 to 28 of them coming running at you and then at least the other ones are probably going to be a little standoffish but you're still not going to see them because they're going to be they're just the later ones to come in so i think it helps out a lot just being able to check on the deer because they're there every day if they're not you know you got something wrong you know you got to go check on them so other than that i think it works out really really well i i we we talked about it and not too long ago he was asking he said you still think it's worth doing i said yeah i said you ain't gonna see me stop you know it's we've come out and figured out how to do it and do it quick um the whole process from feeding it to reseed and everything we're looking at about an hour's time frame so and that's one person so and that's for checking on your animals and everything like that you know to be able to check on 90 plus percent of your animals within an hour's time frame that's unbelievable in my opinion because i know it you know for me to walk into a pen and go physically check on each one because they won't come to me that's really time consuming so it saves us a tremendous amount of time for us for them animals just about come to us and then us only have to check on those couple that maybe don't come down that one day or whatever so uh this is considered a mat this this thing that i just pulled out earlier is considered a mat uh it's costing us 78 cents in seed that right to make this map and it's producing about 18 pounds of feed at the end of that six days it's a six day process and we'll show you how you know how it grows in that six day process these are about 2 000 calories so per animal they're getting about 286 calories per hour on just the fodder alone and our feed you know by the time we feed and feed the fodder feed our tmr mixer they're running about 400 or 4 600 calories somewhere 48 50 45. about the average just 4 600 calories yeah that's what they're eating right now so our our tmr mixture is running about 850 calories per pound and then this is running uh 200 what do we say 286 well you know 200 aces per deer so i don't know how that breaks out but about per pound that's on dry matter i think it's right around the 750 to 800 mark is that what it is if i remember right but it's it's actually what a lot of people don't get is yes there's 18 pounds of material there there's two gallons worth of water within that 18 pounds and you know everybody says well you know it's that's a lot of water yeah that's hydrating your animals it's keeping them running that's it's basically like forcing water down into them which is a great thing especially during the summer time winter time when they don't want to get up and drink you're they want to eat this stuff so it's like they are getting a great good fresh drink every time that they eat that and that water goes into them very easily and then they're also getting you know some really great nutrition and it's actually a wonderful probiotic that what we found is this this keeps their stomachs working properly and i just can't say enough about that because i mean it just does so much for their for their digestive tract it speeds their digestive tract up but on the on the turnaround side of it it just it's that's a good thing it keeps that material moving through the animal instead of just sitting there and sitting there and sitting there and then trying to digest it it lets them get get things moving keep things moving and that's what that animal needs so especially with the white-tailed deer because it's like we're talking 20-24 hours and whatever's been digested it's been digested so we need to be able to make sure these animals as the feed comes in it keeps moving it keeps getting processed and that's what we're looking for so this is one of the great benefits of the hydroponic fodder for the whitetail deer whenever they easily accept it and they that helps them digest because not only is it when it goes into the animal it does a couple different things and it literally every 20 minutes we're looking at more bacteria being grown off of this than what a lot of your other materials are going to produce so this is a wonderful probiotic good bacteria yeah so let me show you a biscuit everybody stay put this is kind of a this is what we call a mat this is growing out three three of these mats so we're putting about two and a half pounds of feed in each of these mats and this goes on the back side of the seat seed not feed sorry this goes on the back side of the of these racks and it just pushes it forward and day six this is what we're feeding so and we'll show you from day one growth day two growth all the way up to day six growth right here in this video other than that um we our system is fireworks we bought it straight from fireworks we we really looked into trying to build their own and all this and looked at a lot of people that built their own everybody had trouble we went ahead and bit the bullet and bought it from fireworks and we don't have any trouble i mean we i mean once we figured it out got the right chlorine in the water and we don't have a bleach problem or a mold problem it's see it's really easy and yeah the seeds the big thing because it's like one of those things that your seed quality can make a huge difference on your mold issues and you whether or not your mat is going to stay together because if your mat doesn't stay together it becomes a pain to feed uh we tried the winter week for uh i was probably eight months or something like that we had really good luck with it when we started but some of the winter week started having issues when it got warmer because the mold spores within the seats started sprouting and whenever you bring them into the system it just created even a worse situation and the mats just went to just a complete mess so basically long story short we went to barley which was our next best option and that's what most of these systems they were afraid to use and that's the reason why is because there's a lot less problems with mold growth this is some seasons coming out of south dakota region north dakota region and we love this seed that we're getting from our local distributor and they they always grows you know six eight inches tall and in six days time frame and we just does so well produces a good seed mat and stays together really well for us we've gotten some seed out of it from even uh missouri virginia um just and all the barley seed we've used it doesn't matter if it's spring or fall it all grows it just depends on how much height you're going to get out of it but it all grows with some of it's been it might be two inches tall but the math is so hard to just they can't believe that the animals can tear it apart but they do they tear it apart and eat it ain't no ain't no problem for them so this has saved us so much money when we were paying five and six hundred dollars a ton for feed with our tmr mixture and the way we're mixing our feed and the fodder we are down to two hundred dollars a ton maybe about two 240 something 240 a ton so it's saved us a lot of money it's allowing us to get those deer to to maturity a lot cheaper and the big thing it does is actually as you feed this it actually replaces some of their feed that they're going to eat naturally and they get more out of that feed so that's a big cost savings because for every you know a couple pounds of this they eat they're going to knock off a quarter to a half pound of their grain mix which you go well that's not that's not necessarily a good thing it it is because this is actually going to provide as much nutrition if not more than what that grain mix is so and in my opinion it provides more especially once you get the animals started because then it's more digestible as well you've seen it i mean they mow the pins now themselves i mean they go in there and they just eat they eat all day long eating grass and you wouldn't ever think a deer would eat grass but they start eating and eating and eating and they just don't stop so their animals are healthier because their their their stomach their rumen is working and they're they eat constantly all day long so i think it's it's helped us with their health welfare of our animals they're just they're just healthier animals bigger horns yep no doubt about it y'all stick around we're going to show you how the day the day one two three all the way through six processes day one the barley and sunflower seeds are added to the fodder day two the seeds sprout and start their growth day three the fodder has grown to little over an inch tall two to three inches of growth on the fourth day really starting to grow fast day five the fodder is four to five inches tall heading into the last growing day the final day six to eight inches tall and it's ready to be taken to the deer

Channel: Oak Creek Whitetail Ranch

Views: 10,448

Keywords: fodder, fodder works, fodder for deer, deer, big bucks, monster whitetails, what do deer eat, hydroponic fodder, barley, green fodder, livestock, hydroponics, sprouts, barley grass, hydroponic farming, forage, fodderworks, hydroponic system, agriculture, hydroponic, farming

Id: MwFaJBf-MHM

Length: 10min 0sec (600 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 07 2020