Make Fodder to save $$$

hey everyone welcome back to Ozarks Homestead and farm today I want to talk about fodder and how you can make it save money and have healthier animals [Music] so exactly what is fodder well the definition of fodder is livestock food stuff that's the basic definition of fodder but for my purposes I'm going to use it for my goats horses and chickens but you can feed it to any livestock cows sheep goats rabbits chickens pretty much anything and basically what fodder is any whole grain that we can take and germinate and grow so you take it from the grain State and you germinate it so today what we're going to try because it was pretty much the only thing that my local Feed Store had was feed wheat so got some feed wheat from the local feed store and uh give you a closer look at it show you what it looks like up close so it's just uh some seeds all right so you can do this with lots and lots of whole grains I'll put a list running along the top of the screen here so you guys know I'll also put it in the description of the video if you want a closer look at it I'll list all the whole grains that you can germinate as fodder for your livestock but like I said it's all they had it's what we're gonna go with this time so what you need to do this is a container or tray this is a standard 1020 Garden tray it's a pretty flimsy one I mean it's not very thick plastic but it is what I had on hand it is what I'm going to use for this I've got two of them so the first thing that I need to do is determine how much seed I need to cover the bottom of this so we're going to do a dry run I'm going to put some seed in here and cover the bottom and then we're going to put it into this bucket for step two that my friends too much so I'm thinking that this will probably be enough for both trays so it actually kind of did work out so I'm gonna go ahead and dump this in here we're gonna throw a couple hand pulls in just because I don't want to be short so now that I've determined how much seed I'm going to need for these two trays the first step in germinating your fodder or whole grains is you need to soak these for 24 hours in warm water so this is all going to take place inside in my basement because it's about 36 degrees out here today and it's very cold outside so to germinate your seeds you're going to need warmer temperatures I'll have a thermometer in there I'm going to probably keep it about 70. but we'll see how that goes so we'll go in soak these seeds and get set up in the basement okay so it's tied in here so probably not going to get me in this video sorry about the confined space but we have to do this in the Glamorous basement bathroom because I have a shower in here and this process requires water and I don't want to make a mess anywhere else because it's too cold outside we're not doing it outside so what I probably forgot to mention is that I don't know if you can see but there is holes all up in this tray so I went ahead and burnt a bunch of holes and all these channels so that the water will drain out the whole concept or idea is is that you're gonna soak these seeds for 24 hours in warm water you're going to spread them out in those trays and then you're going to water them keep them moist for seven days for the for this seed to grow it's a pretty simple concept but it will have some amazing results which you'll see later so first thing I want to do is establish myself some warm water here okay oh yeah yeah I got my leg all the way all right so there we go so I basically just covered the seed in here I want to make sure that it's completely covered and we are going to soak that for a minimum of 12 hours up to 24 hours I'll just do it sometime tomorrow and let you know how many hours we're into it so I've got my seed soaking I've got my trays that I want to do um I chose two trays because I only had two trays and I figure it's a pretty decent amount to start with feeding my birds with so um because this is live and it's an ongoing process again you're gonna have to do it every day but we're just gonna for the sake of this video in this experiment we're just going to run this process through to show you how it's done so see you tomorrow [Applause] all right hey everybody welcome back to the Glamorous basement bathroom where we're going to continue with this process it is day two the wheat has been soaking for 24 hours almost on the dot it was yesterday afternoon about the same time while we soaked it so closer look at it it's just nothing special soaked in the water so what we're going to do is we're going to take it we're going to spread it out in our 10 by 20 Garden trays that I've poked holes in the bottom you can buy those with the holes already in them but mine weren't so I have to do that so let's go ahead and I'm just going to dump them in here since they'll get a drain out and again we're in the shower because the water can drain down into it down the drain [Applause] so let's see how well that works in here and then I'll show you what it looks like [Applause] foreign let me bring you guys down here and give you a closer look okay so here are the two trays and you can see here that it's just enough to cover the bottom so on both of these so looking down see the bottoms right right about there so it's about a quarter an inch depth just enough to cover the bottom and then I had some leftover just a little bit in this bucket which I'm going to leave in there to see how that does as well now this bucket doesn't have any holes in it so I'm going to have to be careful on how I water it so basically for the next seven days I'm going to keep this wet by spraying it or watering it two to three times per day and that's about it okay so here we are it's day three don't worry you didn't miss anything exciting on day two it's the same thing as today which I'm about to show you so day one you soak 24 hours day two you just gotta keep them moist basically day two through seven all you gotta do is keep moist a lot of people recommend watering twice a day but it really depends on the climate that you're at you just don't want these to dry out here in the basement I'm doing it three times a day I do it in the morning when I wake up midday and then at night before I go to bed so how I'm watering these because it was in the shower I could have used the faucet but there's just too much water coming out of there so I decided to go with just um a one gallon sprayer right so basically let's open it keep them wet I'm going to give you a close-up here let you check out what it looks like they're already starting to sprout takes about three days to sprout so you can see the Little Sprouts coming out of them so I just take the sprayer and give them a nice good soaking [Music] see I got these gnats in here now I don't think it really matters how much water you put on here because you got the holes in the bottom of the tray but you definitely want to make sure that you put enough because you don't want the ones underneath drying out or anything like that I suppose it would be shop I suppose it would be faster with the shower head but I think this is sufficient enough for me so that's pretty much it you just water it like that a couple times a day keep it moist and seven days later we'll see what we got all right hey everybody it's day four check in to see how this is doing pump it up a little bit so we've gone through over half a gallon of water just for reference and see I can tell you that there's been significant rise in the tray um it's more than halfway full now I'll give you a closer look here in a second and get some water going in these all right so if you can see you can see that some of the sproutings they're getting a little bit longer today on day four and also like the tray level it it's a lot taller kind of like uh everything's germinating and starting to expand it's definitely taking up a lot more room in the tray so there's our day four update all right here we are for day four this is uh day three that it's actually been germinating remember the first day was soaking and veins have changed quite rapidly so let me give you a closer look at this down here take a look we're starting to get some green color and uh starting to sprout starting to germinate and the trays themselves are pretty full it's expanded quite a bit I don't know if you can see like look so if you can see right here at the edge I mean there's the seeds are right here at the the lip of this container and they were just covering the bottom when I originally put them in so yeah definitely progressing quite nicely it's a lot Greener now and taller [Music] look at that stuff foreign livestock let's go all right so we got the handy dandy scale We're not gonna get it we'll get a tear weight later but I can assure you it's not gonna do that much wow so it's showing 14 I don't want ounces look at that there we go nine pounds one ounce see if we can get this adjust on here eight pounds one ounce eight pounds 14 ounces whatever [Music] so I think I think it'd be safe to call it at least eight and a half pounds oh man that's nice okay here's train number two we're at 10 pounds a little bean pot of some sort man this stuff is cool so eight and a half and ten and a half what is that 18 and a half 19 pounds eight and a half and ten and a half and 19 pounds of fodder in two trays so the Tearaway on two containers is nine ounces that's both of those containers I need [Applause] tear weight of the bucket is roughly one pound so we got four pounds 11 ounces with the bucket and the seed so take out a pound so we're looking at three pounds 11 ounces man look at this stuff so you just grab it and you pull it out of the tray there's no water in there it's all dry so there's no water weight here well let's take it out and see how how the birds and the livestock like it okay so we're out at the coops and the goats obviously are wanting something too but uh I need to see I'm gonna get it out of this tray and then see if I can't tear it up somehow yeah it comes off easy take it off in some pieces it's a little slimy on the bottom foreign [Music] toss them out here to the goats see what they do hey you want to try this and think about that you guys like it [Laughter] seated what's the matter Penelope do you like it no wheatgrass for you guys huh Health food's not your thing all right you guys are making me look bad it's the first introduction to it we'll let them check it out see what they do maybe the horse will like it toss them in here to these birds see what they do with it I don't know what to think of it we're packing at it we'll give them some time to check it out and see what they do with it whether it goes to waste or they actually eat it was like this on the it was like this on the first day of the other feet as well so let's see what they do with it so I'm gonna be doing a little bit better than the other birds let me go get the rest oh divvy it up what are you doing what is it you don't like it what's going on with you huh hey hey [Laughter] [Music] what do you guys think what are you doing you just want the green stuff you don't want the wreath from the bottom that's what it is he doesn't want the in your neck wait you're so wasteful okay you guys try it all right you're so wasteful what are you going how's strikeout with the horse chickens seem to like it they're going to town the turkeys are more afraid of it than anything but the first introduction we'll see we'll see but then there's a lot of other whole grains that we can try so we'll see okay all right it's been about 10 minutes the horse he's being very picky about what he's eating off of it the goats they don't want nothing with a green juice diet the chickens have literally picked it apart [Music] it's questionable and they they look excited about it but I don't know how much of it they're gonna eat the turkeys are so scared of it they haven't touched their little patch of grass back there they don't know what to think of it so there's still a questionable at best foreign looks like I don't know maybe some turkey interest I don't know it's like they flipped it over though yeah I think over time they'll get used to it there's lots of other whole grains for me to try

Channel: Ozarks Homestead and Farm

Views: 50,859

Keywords: Fodder, how to make fodder, what is fodder, what grains can you make fodder with, homesteading, Ozarks Homestaed and Farm, cheap chicken feed, how to make your own chicken feed, healthier chicken feed, livestock feed, make your own livestock feed, fodder for goats, fodder for horses, fodder for chickens, fodder for ducks, cheap duck feed, save money on feed, money saving feed method, grow broilers faster, how to make chickens lay better eggs, make healthier chickens

Id: 0ukEBV_tnoo

Length: 21min 47sec (1307 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 02 2022