Mt. Ord Trip
The communication towers on Ord.
View towards Bartlett Lake
View to the southwest.
Roosevelt and Four Peaks
A john in the woods.
Lichen.
What mountain top expedition would be complete without a little radio action? (check out the antenna mounted in the bed.)
Some Wildflowers
View of tonto basin.
Fodder trial 2
Here we go again. This time I am using 9oz of grain, soaking for 24 hours, and I put a couple drops of bleach in the soak water to try to counteract any mold. I wont put up photos every day. Just the final weight on Monday. Hopefully a longer soak will make a little bit of difference.
End of fodder test
Well, I got 39oz of fodder to my 10oz of barley. Not quite the 8:1 I have heard about, but 4 times isn’t bad for a first run. There are quite a few grains not sprouted, I would say up to 20 percent or more. Maybe a longer soak or a different container would make a difference. For now hopefully the chickens will enjoy it.
I think they do, of course they always run up to me when I go out there, but it looks like they have been eating the barley.
Fodder day 2,3,4
Here are photos of the fodder growth, I split the 10oz of seeds into 2 1 gallon ice cream tubs. Hopefully that will allow just the right amount of room for them to grow. The seeds were layered roughly 1/2 inch deep in the tub. I had drilled 1/8 inch holes all over the bottom of the tubs for drainage.
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Half way through, hopefully they grow more the next 4 days than they have the last 4 days. The ulitmate goal is for the fodder to weigh 8 times as much as the seed, thus turning a 50 lb bag of grain into 400 lbs of feed. Usually 50 lbs feeds my flock for 3 to 4 weeks as they mostly eat grain. However with all the weeds we have been feeding them and they have been grazing on they are slowing down a bit on the grain. But with a good fodder system 50 lbs will feed for 6 months or more, cutting way down on the cost of feeding these eating machines.
Uh oh!
Should I be worried?
