8. DIY - Building a small system for chickens and rabbits
Some families keep a couple chickens for egg laying reasons. Or perhaps they keep some rabbits as pets. Either way, these animals can benefit from small scale fodder production too. In this chapter we will explore all sorts of ideas around small scale fodder production. And then we will walk through the steps on how to produce a small fodder system for our in home use.
8.1 Who would this type of system be right for?
Let’s take a quick look at a few scenarios that generally applies to many home or small farm operations. We will use chickens in the examples but each scenario is applicable to chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs, pot bellies, etc.
Confined animals: If you have chickens that are kept in a coop and never allowed to free range, fodder is a perfect way to get a more natural diet into your birds.
Free range: If however you do allow your birds to forage then fodder will make a great supplemental feed for your birds. The difference that you need to think about is how much food the birds are getting on their own vs. how much the animals are dependent on you for its food.
Severe climates: If you raise your animals in areas that have severe winter or summer weather where freezing temperatures impact the grazing ability of your animals (dormant grasses) or really hot temperatures that kill off your grasses, then fodder should be considered as a cheap reliable source of high value nutrition to supplement these weather driven issues.
8.2 Some example systems
8.3 The build
Making the trays
Storage bins with holes stacked
Seeding the trays
Cut a lid to the shape that allows you to fill the tray 1/2 deep
Stacking the trays
Stack trays on a plate drying mat so that the water drains into your sink