When we moved out here to the farm they were the thing I was most excited to start raising. I like to feed my chickens wheat fodder, but I didn't want to make a huge extravagant thing to grow it in so here is what I did.
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First I bought these stacking baskets from Amazon. After they arrived I drilled holes in the bottom of each basket about an inch apart. You can be really strategic about this, but I just eyeballed it.
Once you have your holes drilled you can plant your wheat! Soak about 2 cups of hard wheat berries in a bowl of water for 12-24 hours. You can get sprouting grains from Scratch and Peck Feeds (Code mywholehomestead15 for a discount) azurestandard.com is also a good place to get good grains. I soak mine for 12 hours, I seem to have better luck in the growing process if I don't soak them as long.
Place your berries in your basket. I plant 1 basket each day for 6 days and water it 2 times a day. Because the baskets stack on top of each other and you have holes drilled in each basket you can water the top one and it will trickle down and water them all! After you feed the top one, just rotate it to the bottom and you will have one basket a day to feed your chickens, or goats, or whatever you want to feed it to!
I have mine growing in the garage next to the window. When I first started doing this I was growing it in my house, I don't suggest doing this. It gets really stinky. Like SUPER gross smelling and you don't want that in your house I promise!
Here is the wheat as it grows in different stages. You can see the progression and it is really neat to see how fast it grows!
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 6
This is so great to learn. Thank you for doing all the work and sharing to make it easy on us!!
How much fodder per chicken or goat do you need each day? And is there a link or some place you learned from of the benefits of this food? Is this ALL you give them besides the outdoors to scratch and peck? Thank you!