About this book

This is a book about hydroponically sprouted micro-greens also known as FODDER. Specifically it is about growing micro-greens as a form of feed for your farm animals. I will show you how to grow fodder from all sorts of seeds that are easily acquirable by most farmers.

I will cover the basics of what fodder is including the different types of seeds that work well in a fodder system. This book will also explain the various types of fodder systems and how to create a few of them in your garage.

Knowing how to sprout fodder is only half the battle. For that reason we will also take a look at the different dietary needs for each type of farm animal with a focus on fodder mixing and matching to get us as close to a complete diet as possible. We will then look into how to fill the gaps with proper supplementation for each animal.

Who should read this book

If you are a farmer, large or small, or if you maintain livestock in some form or fashion, you might want to think very hard about getting into fodder to increase the nutritional value you are feeding to your animals and increase the amount of money that stays in your wallet!

Getting into fodder doesn’t necessarily mean purchasing this book. There is a great deal of fodder information out on the web. And you, like me, can get very deep into this topic very quickly without this book. But if you are looking for a manual that details the types of fodder, how to grow it successfully, and how to eek out that last extra pound of fodder from your seeds - you might consider picking up a copy of this book.

Roadmap

TODO: Brief explanation of each chapter and what it addresses

Developed in the open

This book has been developed in the open. Each chapter has been submitted for free to the public for a review. With this quick feedback we have been able to produce great information on this somewhat new topic.

We will continue to follow this open concept even after publishing the book. If you purchase this book on leanpub.com/fodder you will gain access to content updates as they become available. These updates come with the book for free.

About the author

You might think that an author on fodder should be a grass growing king of farmlands on high with a list of spectacular achievements that can be listed here. Nope - that’s not me!

Andrew Siemer of Friendly Pastures

I went from high school, to Ranger Battalion in the army, to building big systems on the internet. I have worked since 1998 as a software engineer. I currently work for one of the largest ecommerce company’s in the world as an architect. And I only just recently got started with farming and ranching 3 years ago.

After watching movies such as Food Inc. I quickly started thinking that I needed to feed my family healthy hyper local non-industrially produced food. We were living in CA at the time. We spent a couple years looking for a small farm property there but quickly learned that that was never going to be in our cards. So we moved to Austin Texas and bought a small 15 acre hay farm.

The hay farm quickly changed into a chicken and egg producing, produce growing, hog raising operation. I got involved with the Aquaponics Association where I took over as the Regional Director to help grow their membership and spread the word of all things aquaponics. I stood up a few aquaponic green houses. And quickly found that maintaining hundreds of animals was not a cheap task. As droughts hit us, and our animals started to reproduce I found myself in need of a better, cheaper, more consistent way to feed my animals.

Fodder! I started doing the research. Built my first system. And, like every other system I have come in contact with, got hooked on growing fodder in a more and more efficient manner. I have since built myself several ever-expanding fodder systems. I have also built fodder systems for others in addition to training other farmers about all things fodder.

This book is a summary of all the information I have learned while tinkering on fodder systems for my farm and friend’s farms.