Hydroponic Fodder

[D L Bahler]

First a little background:

I m in the middle of establishing a business (you know, at the part where you don't have any money, and aren't quite sure where you are going to get it!)
We will be producing, in small batches, handmade artisan style cheeses. I learned to make Cheese in the Swiss Alps from folks who have been at it for over 40 years, whose family has been at it for many generations. They are a part of a cheesemaking tradition that goes back thousands of years.
Well anyway, back to the point,
We will be imitating their methods as closely as possible; we make the cheese in a large copper vat over a wood fire, we have our own cows and use fresh, unpasteurized milk that is no more than 18 hours old for our good cheeses. And a lot more specifics that don't mean anything to you if you don't know anything about large scale cheese production.
But most central to the character of Alpine cheeses is the food that the cows eat. They only eat the grasses of the high mountains, no grain or processed feeds. These grasses are rich in herbs and incredibly dense in vitamins and such.
We can't copy this situation in Indiana, our grasses don't compare. While we do want to go grass fed (it affects the enzyme balance of the milk and protein structures that are important for cheese) we can't hope to get the same quality as the Alps.

or can we?!?!?!   ???

Thank the Lord for the Aussies. Yall came up with the perfect concept that solvs a lot of our problems.  8)
Add on to our challenge of replicated the alpine flora, we also have the problem of soaring land prices in Central Indiana. Good farm ground recently topped $9000 per acre in some parts. That would require an investment of aroun $100,000 just to get enough land to run our cows on. No way do we want to do that. I'm good just asking for the $20,000 to $25,000 investments to get the things we need to setup on the farm facilities we already have. Don't feel like quad- or quintupling that amount any time soon...

But sprouted fodder, there's the ticket.

I intend to build my own system tailored to my desires. Partially because we will be adding an extra level to the system -the sprouting of herb seeds along with the grains and such normally grown in order to alter the flavor and vitamin balance of the milk produced (to be more like Alp milch, which is the best single thing on earth  ;D)

I'll post pictures as things progress, and show yall how my system is set up. Once we get it going, we'll have to experiment with the rotation schedule, seed ratios, mineral content of the water feed stock, watering amounts, etc.
Our facility for this is to be hidden. We don't want anything jarringly modern with any of our cheese stuff, which is otherwise built to look like an old Swiss farm. Probably it will be housed in a leanto attached to the milk stall.

I intend to use a sliding shelf type of system, where you put the fresh seed in one end of the shelf assembly and pull the ready sprouts out of the back end.

I'll post design drawing for what I'm looking at when I have them ready. Until then, yall shout out any ideas you have.