Nutritional Energy:  Per kg of dry matter, hydroponic fodder holds nearly 12 megajoules (mj) of nutritional energy. The total amount of digestible matter in fodder is 90% with on average over 20% protein along with all the trace elements needed such as Potassium, Calcium, Copper, Cobalt, Magnesium, Sodium, Iron, Manganese, Zinc, Molybdenum, Manganese & Selenium.

Monogastrics (horses, pigs, rabbits) and particularly ruminants (cattle, sheep, goats, deer), struggle to digest hard, dry feed; our system enables them to gain the benefits of fresh sprouting fodder, which is precisely what their systems have been designed to process.

The demonstrable changes and benefits to livestock as varied as cattle, sheep, pigs, horses, chickens, deer, alpacas, rabbits and goats have been highlighted by many of our farmers. We have included some varieties of animals that benefit from a diet of sprouting fodder with respective feedback of both scientific, anecdotal, case studies and testimonials.

Barley fodder improves the overall health of the animal.

Tudor et al. (2003) examined the feeding of hydroponically sprouted barley on a property in the Gascoyne Pilbara region of Western Australia, involving 17 Droughtmaster steers (15 Q 18 months old and averaging 330 kg liveweight) which received low-quality hay and barley sprouts over 70 days. These workers reported – Over the first 48 days cattle ate 1.9 kg DM/head/day of sprouts (15.4 kg wet weight) and 3.1 kg DM/head/day of poor quality hay and gained 1.01 kg/head/day. Energy intake was 47 MJME/head/day, which was considered by nutrition standards to only be sufficient for low weight gains of up to 200g/head/day. This high performance could not be explained by energy and protein intakes.” Traditional nutritional standards for feeding beef cattle cannot explain the liveweight gain observed. There was no obvious weight gain due to gut fill or compensatory growth. The better-than-expected performance may be associated with the readily available nutrients and associated enzymes in the 6 – 7-day old fodder being very rapidly utilized by the animal, immediately they are formed. They may not be included by the assay when in vitro DM digestibility is being measured. These nutrients could result in enhanced microbial activity and growth in the rumen, and consequently, better than expected utilization of the poor-quality hay that was also fed. Therefore, the fermentation of the young hydroponically sprouted barley may have provided far greater energy than was estimated by the in vitro DM digestibility assay.”