Keeping Chickens: Growing Fodder
Growing Fodder for Chicken Feed
Fodder is a nutrient-dense, inexpensive food source for livestock throughout the winter months. Growing fodder is incredibly easy in small spaces and it has a great conversion rate of one pound of seed creates four pounds of fodder.
Feed fodder to your chickens, rabbits, pigs, cows, and goats throughout the winter months where fresh, nutrient rich, green grasses are hard to come by. Let it grow longer for larger animals, or keep in short for your smaller livestock like chickens and rabbits.
Growing Fodder is Easy
Growing fodder is an incredibly easy way to grow livestock feed. It is done by soaking and sprouting grains. By letting the sprouts mature for a few days, greens will develop. Letting it get a few inches in length will develop a nice, thick layer of vegetation for your livestock.
Similarly to how growers produce microgreens, growing fodder needs no soil, no fertilizer, and no light. And it only takes seven days!
What You Need
- Grab any container with drain holes. This could be an old tupperware containers, a seedling flat, or anything large and shallow that you can poke some holes into. It doesn't matter what it is! As long as it drains. We use a 20" x 10" seedling flat.
- Get some whole seeds, like barley, oats, wheat, or rye.
- A medium bucket or large bowl
- An area with access to water
- Another tray to catch drainage or an area where trays can drain.
- A grow light or sunny window, optional. Great way to get nice green growth.
What To Do
To make one tray of fodder...
- Scoop out four cups of your seeds, place them in a bucket or large bowl. Cover with water for 24 hours.
- Strain soaked seeds and pour them into one tray. Spread evenly.
- Gently water twice per day. No needs to shake them around or otherwise disturb them.
- Once grains begin to sprout and get about a half inch long, put them in a sunny window or under grow light if you'd like nice green growth.
- Once the greens are a couple inches tall, pull the fodder from the tray and cut it into smaller squares to toss to your flock.
- Sanitize your tray and reuse!
Check out more chicken keeping tips!
Chicken Keeping: Broody Hen
Broody Hen
A broody hen is a hen that has started to set on eggs to hatch. She will gather eggs of her own, and others, and spread out over top of them. A broody hen may only get up from the nest once or twice a day to eat, sleep, and poop. Here's what no one will tell you about keeping chickens, a broody hen style.
Why Do Hens Go Broody?
Hens will go broody in order to hatch out chicks. They will sit on top of eggs and protect them, rarely leaving. Typically, hens will go broody in the spring and summer, an ideal time for raising chicks.
How to Know if your Hen is Broody
When you see your hen setting on her eggs, she may seem very spread out. Some hens will set on 12-14 eggs at a time. If you leave and come back after an hour or so and she is still there, it is likely that she is broody and is set on the eggs, instead of just laying an egg.
When you go to reach for her, she will puff up, similar to a dog raising is hackles. If you continue to try to move her, she will likely raise a fuss, shriek, and try to peck you. If you get her to the ground, she will remain puffed up and make a low clucking sound. Continue to keep an eye on her, as she may try to attack you.
A broody hen may also remove her breast feathers to add to her nest and won't roost with the rest of the flock.
What to Do if a Hen Goes Broody?
You Want Chicks
If you have a rooster, you want chicks, and your hen is in a spot where chicks would be able to safely get in and out - leave the hen where she is. In 21 days or so, she will hatch out some chicks!
If you don't have a rooster and you want chicks, purchase some hatching eggs and swap them for the eggs under your hen.
Caring for Mama Hen and Future Chicks
If your hen decided to go broody in an elevated nest box or an otherwise unsafe place for chicks, consider moving her to a better location. Keep in mind that this may break her broodiness. If it has only been a day or two, the chicks haven't started to form. If her broodiness breaks following the move, it won't be such a loss.
If it's been over seven days, you have a decision to make. Personally, I would risk breaking her broodiness to move her to a safe space rather than have her hatch out chicks in an unsafe space.
When (and if) you move the broody hen to a new location, she will need food and water close by. Feel free to add electrolytes to the water since she will be spending 23 hours a day on the nest.
You Don't Want Chicks
If you don't want chicks, you can try a few steps below to "break" the hen's broodiness. If you succeed in either method below, you will notice within 24 hours that the hen's broodiness has broken.
- Go to the coop and remove the hen from the nest any chance you get. You will likely need to do this to multiple days. Watch out, she will like raise a fuss and peck you.
- If that doesn't work, try to remove the hen to a separate space. Ideally, this would be somewhere without a nest box. Typically, a dog crate or separate hoop/mobile coop would work well.
Breeds for Broodiness
Like cattle, some hens are naturally good mothers. Here are some breeds that would be great to add to your flock if you want a hen to hatch out some chicks.
- Orpingtons
- Cochins
- Silkies
Breeds that Don't Go Broody
Through breeding, hatcheries have been able to reduce the instinctual broodiness. Here are some breeds that are known to be less broody than the rest.
- Leghorns
- Sussex
- Sexlinks
Preventing Broodiness From the Beginning
To prevent broodiness, there are a few things you can do.
- Collect eggs every day. During broody season, spring and summer, you could even collect twice a day.
- Pay attention to the timing of your hen's laying schedule. When they are done laying for the day, you can block off the nest boxes. Since you likely won't wake up and get out there before they start laying, you can remove the blocks when you shut your chickens up for the night.
- Keeping only young hens. I know this isn't ideal or desirable for everyone, but it is a way to prevent having broody hens. Older hens are typically the culprits for broodiness, so keeping young hens through their first or second laying season will decrease your chances of dealing with a broody.
Check out more articles like this, with practical applications on chicken keeping - especially our post "What No One Tells You About Keeping Chickens".
Chicken Keeping: Molting
Chicken Keeping: Molting
What is Molting?
Each year, chickens go through molting. This is when chickens will drop many of their feathers and regrow new fresh feathers for winter. This happens to hens and roosters and is triggered by shorter daylight, so you can expect your birds to molt in the fall.
Your chickens will look ragged. Don't worry! Molting doesn't hurt your chickens, this is a natural process. You should not make attempts to stop molting. This molting and regrowth is a sign of a healthy bird that is going through a resting stage after the laying season.
How Long Does it Last?
Typically, a chicken will typically molt for 7-8 weeks. Don't be concerned if the molt lasts 12-14 weeks.
What To Expect
When your chickens are molting, they will drop the majority of their feathers and regrow new shoots that will turn into feathers. You'll start to notice feathers dropping around the head and neck first.
As they regrow their feathers you will see the shoots of their feathers coming through as blue or black, depending on the feather of your birds. Don't mess with these. If you notice a bird is picking at their feathers or other birds are picking at a chicken's feathers, remove the affected bird to isolation and treat the wound with Wonder Dust.
Your chicken coop will look like someone had a pillow fight.
What to Do to Help
Adding Protein
Help your chickens regrow their new fresh feathers and get back to laying eggs by bumping up the protein in their diet. Chicken keepers can add protein to their bird's diet by buying a layer feed with a higher protein content, adding mealworms, seeds, eggs (yup, you read that right), worms, fodder. I've heard some folks have luck with cat food, too. Chickens are omnivores, so feel free to get creative! More protein is the goal.
Still Keep an Eye Out for Illness
When birds are molting hard, it's a little shocking and it can be easy to miss more subtle cues of illness. Be sure to keep an eye out for any of your chickens that isolate themselves from the rest of the flock, are hunched over and puffed up, eye closed, look generally lame, have a sneeze, are gaping, or have runny poops.
Let them Recover
Let your chicken's molting process continue uninterrupted and support them through plenty of food, water, and clean shelter. Your chickens just worked very hard throughout the laying season and this is nature's way of giving them a break from laying eggs. Allow them to have that rest.
Learn More
To learn more about your flock, check out our guide "What No One Tells You About Keeping Chickens".