Anyway, on these other forums, people are using shelving units and plastic trays with holes drilled in them for growing their fodder.  I don't like to spend money, especially when I'm not sure something is going to work for me.  So I came up with an easy, no-cost method to try it out.  It also fit within the space that I have available right now. 

 This was a good way for me to get started with fodder feeding with no investment on my part.  The corn was gleaned from the neighbor's field after they harvested and the gallon glass jars are ones that I use for storing milk.  I would not have been able to do this if my cow were in milk this winter.

I will be replacing this with a shelving system within a month or six weeks, so well in advance of my cow freshening.  I'll design my shelf unit based on what others are doing.  The photos follow my explanations.

The red container is what is going to Buttercup for this feeding, the gallon glass jar is the next feeding's sprouts waiting to be rinsed, and the tan container is corn I've just shelled waiting to be soaked:

This is Days 1-3 of growing.  This is next to my wood furnace so that it is warmer for the beginning of sprouting.  Starting at the back, the tan container is Day 1 of soaking. The middle container is Day 2, the water has been drained, the corn rinsed and an ice cream lid on top of the container so that it doesn't dry out.  The jar at the front is Day 3 and has plyban rubber banded over the mouth of the jar so that the sprouts stay nice and moist.  At the back of the photo on the right is a half gallon jar with a sprouter lid (plastic mesh) - I'm also sprouting lentils for us to eat and to share with the chickens.

On Days 4-8, the jars are on their sides in a big roaster pan.  I still leave plyban on the jars to help keep them moist:

On Day 9, the sprouts get separated for more growth, with half of them going into a small plastic container.  They get fed to the cow on Day 10.

This picture just shows how 2 cups of corn can nearly fill a gallon jar in ten days:


Karen

http://www.facebook.com/MrsKsCreations

Back in the day,when I was growing up. The local (small) cheese factory would give the whey away to anyone who would take it. We used to go pick it up and add it to wheat, barley ect in 55 gallon drums and feed the sprouts and whey to the pigs. they loved it and great weight gain with it.never tasted better pork then what was rasied this way either.

HOW MUCH IS RECOMMENDED PER FEEDING? WE FEED 3X'S A DAY. WHAT NUTRITIVE VALUE IS THERE WITH THE SPROUT AND BECAUSE THERE IS SPROUTS WOULD THE SPROUT ACT AS FORAGE/ROUGHAGE? IF SO DOES IT CUT DOWN ON HAY USEAGE?

I READ AN ARTICLE ABOUT USING HYDROPHONICS TO RAISE SHEETS OF GRASS/ HAY AND WHEN IT GOT SO HIGH THEY REMOVED THEM FROM THE GREENHOUSE AND ROLLED FRESH GREEN GRASS OUT IN THE FEED LOT WHEN THE GROUNG WAS SNOW  COVERED. IT WAS PRETTY SLICK.

This link is a brief overview of the nutritional benefits of feeding fodder:  http://fodderfeeds.com/Animal.htm

My main reason for doing this is because we don't have any grazing for our animals at all.  We feed the lawn clippings in the summer and I also cut taller grass from the ditches, etc., but that is only for the summer. 

I'm really interested to see how this will affect her when she is in milk, but I've already noticed that her breath is sweet now, rather than smelling of methane.  I won't replace hay with fodder, but I have cut out the cracked corn she used to get.  She still gets sweet feed (has whole oats and some cracked corn in it) and beet pulp.  It has increased the efficiency of her rumen enough that I no longer see any oats or corn in her manure.

I obviously inspect the sprouts as I feed them - I've never seen any mold whatsoever on them, so I'm not concerned about that.  As for potato sprouts, they'll also kill people.  Potatoes and tomatoes are from the nightshade family and contain poison in the green parts of the plant.

Right now I'm really only getting enough sprouts to feed to the milk cow, with a handful or so going to the yearling calves.  Eventually, I want to feed all of our grain sprouted and will be ordering some barley soon.  Unfortunately, oats and corn are the only whole grains I can get locally.

Karen

http://www.facebook.com/MrsKsCreations