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I buy 50# or 100# bags of barley at our local feed store. The first year I had excellent germination results. The second year I started off with poor quality seed and had to mix that in with the chicken scratch - it was just not good enough for growing fodder. About mid-winter, the mill got a...

I posted the prices I paid locally at the time I wrote this article. Since then, because of the pandemic, our prices have about doubled, and the quality has gone down at the same time. My main goal was to provide fresh greens to my laying hens in the winter at a reasonable cost. If a 50# sack of...

I had tried other grains, but had the best results with barley seed. Having said that, the barley seed I got last year was very poor quality and I did not have great yields until I got a different supply. I have tried oats and wheat seeds. They all grow fodder. I thought barley seed was the...

I live in northern Minnesota and nothing grows outside during our long winters. I have to grow my barley fodder inside my house, in my spare bathroom, where the temp is ~64F. Outside, the temps get down to -35F in the dead of winter. Nothing would grow outside on my patio. When spring comes, I...

Strickly a supplement. I live in northern Minnesota, and my chickens do not have access to any fresh greens for about 6 months out of the year. Growing fodder in these Dollar Tree bins was just a way for me to bring some fresh greens to the girls when nothing else is available to them. I have a...

I buy my barely at our local feed mill, but the quality varies depending on where they buy it and what it was intended to be used for in the end product. Evidently, the barley grown for malt was a lower quality product and I had lots of mold issues with that batch last year.

If you want to try growing fodder, this is probably the least expensive way I have seen to start. Just some scrap lumber and Dollar Tree dish bins. BTW, I started growing my barley fodder last week and will be feeding my first batch to my chickens later this week. Last winter was a great success...

I hope it works out for you. If you don't have success with the 14 hour soaking time, I'd reduce the initial soaking time to maybe 2 hours - this is based on feedback I got from @WannaBeHillBilly who discovered oats sprouted best at only 2 hours soaking time. More than that, his oats would drown...

I get my feed and grain from a local feed mill. I just asked them what grains they sell for people who are growing fodder. They told me that they had barley for growing fodder and that was their most popular grain. They also had oats and wheat, but their customers reported less success with them...

OK, first of all, you need to verify that the barley you are getting from the brewery is "viable" - meaning that the grain can actually sprout. In some processes of drying or preserving grains, the grain is treated so that it can no longer spout. For example, at my local mill, their whole kernel...

Very nice setup. I am planning on building a run something like yours - out of 2x4 frames. But the top cannot be flat where I live due to heavy snowfall. Still considering options for the top.

Great idea for the transport cages.

I don't know of any other way that is easier to grow fresh, green, lush grass fodder for your backyard animals than using a fodder tower similar to the one I have offered. I live in northern Minnesota, and for a good 6 months of the year, my small backyard flock has no access to greens. For very...

Hope it helps others looking to provide fresh green fodder for their small animals, especially in the winter like where I live.

My initial tower was almost 7 feet tall, but when I moved it into the house to grow fodder, I had to cut it down to about 5 feet to get it into the "second bathroom" shower stall. It still holds 7 bins, but the top bin is only used for the initial water bath and the bottom bin is used for the...

Dear hubby need not fear about making a fodder tower out of scrap lumber like I did. It's super easy to build. My chickens absolutely devour the barley fodder I give them every morning. But in northern Minnesota, there is nothing green for them to eat outside, so the fodder is appreciated.

Thank you for the kind comments. This would be an excellent Science lesson at school and if you made it into an experiment, you could try different soaking times, record the temps, and measure the germination and growth rates of the different soaking times.

I buy my barley seeds at a local feed mill. A 50 pound bag of seeds cost me about $7.25 and produces over 250 pounds of barley fodder. My local feed mill also sells oat and wheat seeds for fodder. They sell other grains that cannot be used as fodder, so you have to ask them specifically if the...

Thank you. @WannaBeHillBilly has done additional experiments with other seeds for fodder and has posted some interesting, informative threads.

My chickens prefer the fresh green lawn grass they grew up with as chicks. However, lawn grass is not available for about 6 months out of the year where I live. So my chickens devour the barley fodder grass I give them every day.