Fodder

A fodder factory set up by an individual farmer to produce customised cattle feed

Fodder or animal feed is any agricultural foodstuff used specifically to feed domesticated livestock, such as cattle, goats, sheep, horses, chickens and pigs. Most animal feed is from plants, but some is of animal origin. "Fodder" refers particularly to food given to the animals (including plants cut and carried to them), rather than that which they forage for themselves (see forage). It includes hay, straw, silage, compressed and pelleted feeds, oils and mixed rations, and sprouted grains and legumes.

The worldwide animal feed industry consumed 635 million tons of feed (compound feed equivalent) in 2006, with an annual growth rate of about 2%. The use of agricultural land to grow feed rather than human food can be controversial; some types of feed, such as corn (maize), can also serve as human food; those that cannot, such as grassland grass, may be grown on land that can be used for crops consumed by humans. Some agricultural byproducts fed to animals may be considered unsavory by human consumers.

Common plants specifically grown for fodder

Round hay bales

Newton of Cawdor stack of bales, sweet-smelling fodder stored for winter

Cut green fodder being transported to cattle in Tanzania

• Alfalfa (lucerne)
• Barley
• Birdsfoot trefoil
• Brassica spp.
  • Kale
  • Rapeseed (canola)
  • Rutabaga (swede)
  • Turnip
• Clover
  • Alsike clover
  • Red clover
  • Subterranean clover
  • White clover
• Grass
  • Bermuda grass
  • Brome
  • False oat grass
  • Fescue
  • Heath grass
  • Meadow grasses (from naturally mixed grassland swards)
  • Orchard grass
  • Ryegrass
  • Timothy-grass
• Corn (maize)
• Millet
• Oats
• Sorghum
• Soybeans
• Trees (pollard tree shoots for "tree-hay")
• Wheat

Types of fodder

Various types of legume (left) and grass (right) fodder

• Conserved forage plants: hay and silage
• Compound feed and premixes, often called pellets, nuts or (cattle) cake
• Crop residues: stover, copra, straw, chaff, sugar beet waste
• Fish meal
• Freshly cut grass and other forage plants
• Meat and bone meal (now illegal in cattle and sheep feeds in many areas due to risk of BSE)
• Molasses
• Oligosaccharides
• Seaweed
• Seeds and grains, either whole or prepared by crushing, milling, etc.
• Sprouted grains and legumes
• Yeast extract (brewer's yeast residue)
• Native green grass
• Bran
• Concentrate mix
• Oilseed press cake (cottonseed, safflower, sunflower, soybean, peanut or groundnut)
• Green maize
• Green sorghum
• Horse gram

Health concerns

Barley is a crop sometimes grown for fodder

In the past, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or "mad cow disease") spread through the inclusion of ruminant meat and bone meal in cattle feed due to prion contamination. This practice is now banned in most countries where it has occurred. Some animals have a lower tolerance for spoiled or moldy fodder than others, and certain types of molds, toxins, or poisonous weeds inadvertently mixed into a feed source may cause economic losses due to sickness or death of the animals. The US Dept. of Health and Human Services regulates drugs of the Veterinary Feed Directive type that can be present within commercial livestock feed.

Sprouted grains as fodder

Fodder in the form of sprouted grains and legumes can be grown in a small-scale environment. Sprouted grains can greatly increase the nutritional value of the grain compared with feeding the ungerminated grain to stock. Sprouted barley and other cereal grains can be grown hydroponically in a carefully controlled environment. Under hydroponic conditions, sprouted fodder at 150 mm tall with a 50 mm root mat is at its peak for animal feed.

See also

• Cannon fodder (metaphorical usage)
• Factory farming
• Forage
• Grain
• Pasture

External links

• Animal feed legislation and guidance
• Animal Feed and Ingredients Glossary
• FAO Feed Safety guidelines
• Fodder Plants at Agriculture Guide An article from Agriculture Guide