I had thought of growing at least some of my own feed next year for the chickens, and this looks like a great way to start. I do wonder though, how much you would need to grow this way to make a noticeable dent in a feed budget. Enough to really help out feeding 6 laying hens would probably be easy enough, but what about larger animals such as sheep, goats, etc.?

Hi Denob

Here is what I have figured out for the larger critters

Each tray at the correct level of grains holds 2 pds of grains, which should ideally end up being a “bisquit”- why do they call it this? of 12 to 16 pds of fresh fodder

So we will see if it works as I hope.. now to figure out the amounts for each day.. so Miss Piggy measures out at around four hundred pds, that means she needs 1 percent of her body weight in fodder but she is milking so that raises it to 2% so eight pds per day, and the wee ones are currently 10 pds this week, again because they are growing, they are listed at the 2% rate, so .2 percent of a pd per piglet, that would mean 1 pd per five piglets, and I think I would like to aim for .3% and will need to continue to raise it per week as they grow..

So that means for them I need 10 to 11 pds per day of green sprouts, so that means if I get a proper sprout rate, 2 pds of barley per day..

Brandy in some ways is easier to figure out as she is not expecting, growing or milking.. Because I don’t want to short her, she came in at around 1300 to 1350, and so for the sake of feeding her, I am going to move her to a flat 1400 pds.. so she needs 14 pds of fodder per day, so 2.4 pds of starting barley, or basicly one properly done tray..

Girl is measuring in at 1200 pds but she is expecting and then will be milking so she needs twices as much.. For the chickens, that is pretty easy, if they weigh five pds each, and one pds of barley turns into 6 to 8 pds fodder, one tray per day is going to easily meet your birds needs..

These systems are proving to be really valueable to folks

opps, reply went before finished, valueable to folks that lack space, lack extra water, and it increases the ability to feed fresh to everyone, I am working on using it to reduce the raising costs on the piglets and then will ideally use it to help feed my milk cow..

Wow, fantastic information!
This brings up another question though...
Many of us here are or are looking into raising some form of livestock, be it poultry, rabbits, or larger animals.
It isn't as easy as all that though...there is a lot, and I mean a lot, of stuff you need to know about raising animals before you even think of actually doing it.
Is there an online resource that would help people figure out what they may be getting into before they actually get into it?
Looking at issues such as feed requirements, grazing area, watering needs, etc?

Well, I think that each provincal goverment does a very good job answering all your basic questions in what you are talking about, they cover everything from the amount of space, the amount of feed/water, bedding, to required or recommend care, vaccines, shots, what is lacking in your soils, covering pasture improvements, wind blocks, etc etc, for a free site that provides the overviews when you put all their articles together and for keeping up on the latest information, I find the provincal sites are good ones to start with..

Once you have the legal requirements in size for the rabbits you are looking at, then you can have those base figures and you can do all your extra fiddling around it, personally I find that most times small farm homesteaders will tend to give more room/space then what is legally required but its always good to have that as your start info.

As for the fine tuning, talking to those in your neck of the woods is the best, provided they are doing it the way you are wanting to do so.. lots of folks will give great advice but if its not how you want to do it, its not all that helpful in the end..

backyardherds is a forum where you can get all sorts of oppinions on each category of livestock. LIvestock is a bit easier then having kids. They poop, eat you broke, keep you awake at god awful times and spend too much time at someone else's house, but you can eat them if they get on your nerves or you decide that maybe you should have waited a bit longer before getting them.

I had thought of growing at least some of my own feed next year for the chickens, and this looks like a great way to start. I do wonder though, how much you would need to grow this way to make a noticeable dent in a feed budget. Enough to really help out feeding 6 laying hens would probably be easy enough, but what about larger animals such as sheep, goats, etc.?

I have 3 chickens and get 3 eggs a day which is plenty for me, every evening I let them out and they eat the some grass and then off they go searching for bugs and spiders. I have various things around the yard that the bugs love to live under, like tubs, wood boards ,plastic sheeting and plastic pots. The bugs love it to be moist as well. So every evening the chickens follow me around the yard as I lift only a couple of these things and let them gorge on the bugs living underneath. As Bear Grills says, bugs have way more protein than meat per gram which is what chickens need to produce eggs. I seem to have a soft spot for my chickens and love some of those strange noises they can make when they find a taste bug.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what's being done is essentially making your own cover crop is it not?

I see that the crude protein is higher then the base dry barley (correct?) using this method. To me, this method seems to be involved (with the day or two of rinsing and such to force germination) and extra cleaning to avoid molds in the feed, and somewhat energy intensive. To sprout the barley (or even any grain) would require that the trays be inside a reasonably warm space if it's cold out. Otherwise, if temp isn't any issue then one could simply seed some of this into a pasture and let the animals at it in a controlled rotation I would think.

Just trying to understand the basics of this is all, as I'm relatively new to these kinds of things. I know the how's of factory style farming, but I'm really trying hard not to follow that style of production. I'm looking at this sort of thing (this method) as a way to possibly supplement or even feed 2 (or more) piglets or pigs over a winter till I could turn them back out to pasture again or put them in the freezer.

Runs With Scissors

Hi Runs with Scissors

Not a cover crop per say, as it grows in a far thicker mat then you could ever sprout out as a cover crop, plus no dirt is being used, and therefor no dirt to wear out by such a rapid weekly turnover, even the best dirt in the world, would not be able to handle weekly green seeding and tilling and keep the same growing ability.

I keep a very cool house, you need layers but its above 0 of course, and I am finding I need that full seven to nine days per tray and I am still a pound or two under the idea grow out rate, I think its temp related, not seed related but time will give me that answer. It would not be sprouting in these below 0 temps outside.

I would not be keen to waste my time doing to many of these when I have a working pasture but for winter time use, (while yes they are taking up a space in my house) the value far outweights the time given each day..

So what I have learned myself so far is that I like to soak my barley for a full 24 hours before traying up, I find I only need to give them their light watering 3 times a day, (because of the cooler temps?) I had really bad issues with mold for the wheat but it did sprout but have not had issues with the barley, I believe it was just a better qaulity seed to start with, I have had good luck with tossing in a hand ful or two of black sunflower seeds into the mix with them sprouting as well.

The seeds are sprouting by day 3 or so, but they take me a good solid another 3 to 5 days to get to the 3 to 4 inch mat stage, while I have heard that some animals need time to get used to the idea, mine didn't, the few that are getting it jumped at the chance, it really does appear to be reducing the feed costs by about 60% or so on a daily feeding ration and the critters weights are holding and lots of energy, good stools etc..

I am unsure how much I want to ramp up production, I think for now, I will keep it to the pigs and the milk cow, but if I was going to milk a sheep, I would put her on it as well, and I might try and do even smaller amounts as extra for the last few weeks of the expecting ewes.. not to increase lamb growth but to increase the overall vit/mineral intake from a live source, instead of loose mineral mix.

As for the feeding, you still need to provide some roughage in the terms of hay, and the pigs are still getting stuff from the farm garden/slop pail..

Farmgal - I'm wondering how this is working out for you? I still haven't figured out WHERE I would have room to do this. Wanting to feed sprouts to 70 chickens would be a considerable amount of sprouts.
When sprouting for human use I've heard that soaking the seeds in water and food safe hydrogen peroxide will eliminate the mould problem. I just bought some HP so I can't say that from my own experience yet.

It is working out, in the sense that its saving money, it is working out in the sense that the eggs are amazing, the yolks are still a very dark brown, it is working in the sense of overall health on the animals

Where it's hard is finding room for it, and that I run my household cool enough that what should be a seven day turnaround is more like ten to twelve days, a real problem adding in the space which means that alot of times, they get really wiggly sprouts then fodder, sometimes I take the time to grow out the extra days, sometimes I don't, but that will change once the weather gets better and therefor the house warmer.

I figured out that if you always wash out your buckets and tubs, and then let them sit in the correct solution of bleach/water, drain and then air dry, that it seems to pretty much get rid of the issue, forget to bleach out and air dry between uses and it comes back but its such a simple fix, it just means either have a extra prepared bucket or budget in your time to meet in the middle to do the extra step.

I ordered in a pd of mangel seeds, which is to be enough for a acre which they say can yeild 40 tons under ideal conditions, I am going to plant out 1/4th a acre and see what we get, they say they will hold for winter feed, and can be used for the chickens, pigs, sheep and cow, and I understand you can make a wine from them, if you can make wine, you can make a vinager.. I will be interested in seeing what the return on them will be for us