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Above: Watered barley seeds in the trays contrast with the rapid sprouting that is evident when the trays are ready to feed out after six days (below).
Below: Rob McNamara's wife Sharon feeds out biscuits of sprouted barley to enthusiastic young cattle.
Below: Good shelf spacing allows for maximum sprouting of barley seed.
Smart Farmer Magazine May June issue 2007
BY PRODUCING A CONTINUOUS SUPPLY OF FODDER PRODUCT THAT IS GREEN, SWEET AND MOIST, THE FODDER SOLUTIONS SYSTEM IS WINNING MORE CONVERTS. MALCOLM McCOSKER REPORTS.
GREEN has been one of the scarcest colours on the largely parched Darling Downs over the past several years.
So when bright green, highly nutritious cattle feed appears, it may seem like some sort of illusionary miracle.
No miracle this – it’s just sound science to produce a rich green feed source that is not only keeping drought stricken cattle alive but also fattening cattle for profit.
The name is the Fodder Solutions system and the game is to germinate barley seeds in trays for six days, then feed out the mats – or biscuits – of dense seed and root material with green plant sprouts at the top.
The system has been developed and refined by partners Flavio Raccenello and former professional livestock and human and foods sprouter Terry Colless.
The basic principle is to sprout barley in trays 1100mm by 720mm in a temperature-controlled environment that minimises mould growth. Each tray is divided into three compartments so its contents are fed out as three mats or ‘biscuits’ by simply throwing the material into troughs or onto a hard standing or bare ground.
Authenticated tests confirm that the sprouted barley ‘biscuits’ contain 23 percent protein and 11 megajoules of energy.
One of the growing band of Fodder Solutions enthusiasts is Rod McNamara, who, with his wife Sharon and her sister Christine Schimke, own the 32-hectare Elelyon Park farm near Nobby on the eastern Darling Downs.
Rob McNamara shows the density of sprouts and matted root material ready to feed out to cattle on his Elelyon Park farm near Nobby.
After hearing about the system, Rob installed one of the portable Fodder Solutions about six months ago to grow young weaner cattle, principally bought-in steers, for the feed-on market, either direct sold through agents or at saleyards.
“We have photographs showing bony, drought-stricken cattle with no hair when we started giving them sprouted fodder, contrasting with later pictures of sleek, smooth cattle produced with the system,” Rob said.
The unit he bought for about $27,500 including GST was installed on a concrete floor in an old but well-ventilated shed. All he had to do was connect water, as a timer was already fitted to water each tray every two hours. Lights also are utilised to produce a rich green colour in the growing shoots through photosynthesis and air conditioning keeps temperatures between 17 and 23 degrees Celsius. At these temperatures, combined with some chlorine content in the water, the risk of mould is virtually eliminated.
This unit now produces a cycle that feeds out 18 trays (or 36 biscuits) a day, in two separate feedings, to a batch of 40 weaner steers. Rob breaks up each biscuit to give more cattle access to the feed at one time and feeds early in the morning and late in the evening to emulate the normal grazing pattern of cattle that like to graze in the cool parts of the day.
This volume of spouted barley biscuits translates to about 200kg a day, giving each animal about 5kg of the product. He estimates costs at from $42/head/tonne for the three months program. From this he can gain a dual benefit in weight combined with more money per kg. He quoted the example of buying young weaners for $1.50/kg, gaining better than 1kg/day over three months and selling the cattle for $1.90 to $2/kg.
So successful has been the system on the McNamara farm that even Terry Colless says what they are doing should be nutritionally impossible - but it’s working.
Mats ready for feeding are simply slid out of trays and onto hand wagons or the back of ute to be delivered to specially designed troughs. These have drainage holes in the bottom to let out moisture, keeping them clean and preventing any souring or fermenting of stale fluids.
Rob keeps overhead costs to a minimum by feeding close to the house, and because there is no smell problem the whole system is environmentally clean and friendly.
“We put in the feed, they (the cattle) put out the manure and we use the manure on our garden,” he said. “Success with this system depends on how much you want it to work. You can adjust feeding volumes all the way from just keeping drought stricken cattle alive to fattening with good weight gains.”
In his own location and climate Rob has found that British and European cross cattle achieve better weight gains and adapt more quickly to the Fodder Solutions system, but acknowledges that there could be variations depending on climate and cattle available. In areas with dominant numbers of Brahman cattle, that breed would perform equally well with the system.
Because of his relatively small area, Rob rotates about 40 cattle through the system over a three months period. This gives him time to bring forward another 40 cattle ready for the system before the first 40 are sold, then buying in another 40 to keep total cattle on the property at around 80.
He says good cattle care is essential. This means drenching all his cattle to remove internal parasites and erecting shade cloth covers to avoid heat stress in the animals.