Fodder · Garden · Poultry · Rabbits

Moldy Seed

After being deeply irritated by the last few weeks of fodder issues, I’ve decided that it’s the seed itself.

The last batch of bag giving me problems was started 2 days ago, and I just picked four or five patches of white fuzzy seeds off of it. Bleh.

I have rearranged the fodder shelf, with the soaking seeds up top, and the harvestable growth at bottom. It seems to use less water that way. The water just rinses through the seeds, while the sprouted and growing seeds have a root mat that traps water. I will have to consider that for the final outdoor design, as well, where I intend to have an automated pump doing the rinsing for me.

It’s starting to become warm enough to accomplish one of the least desirable and fun tasks for raising any animal — mucking out the barn. 😛

It does need to be done, although the temperatures and rains of the last couple of weeks have slowed that down.

My goal with the rabbits is to get that as automated a process as possible, preferably in such a way I can dump the manure into a worm bin. Worm bin then can turn out harvestable worms and worm casting, for either sale or use.

It is nice that the grass is finally green. The brief spate of snow last weekend left me despondent.

Also need to spend some time building out more nestboxes. The flock has expanded (chicken math!), and the single large nestbox is no longer sufficient. The girls are definitely showing signs of being overcrowded for nesting purposes. What I will most likely do is split that one in half, add an entrance to it, and then build another level underneath it.

Among other tasks today: starting seeds I should have started a month ago. :\