GeezerVison

This article needs more citations. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Fodder" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Fodder (/ˈfɒdər/), also called provender (/ˈprɒvəndər/), is any agricultural foodstuff used specifically to feed domesticated livestock, such as cattle, rabbits, sheep, horses, chickens and pigs. "Fodder" refers particularly to food given to the animals (including plants cut and carried to them), rather than that which they forage for themselves (called forage). Fodder includes hay, straw, silage, compressed and pelleted feeds, oils and mixed rations, and sprouted grains and legumes (such as bean sprouts, fresh malt, or spent malt). Most animal feed is from plants, but some manufacturers add ingredients to processed feeds that are of animal origin.

The worldwide animal feed trade produced 1.245 billion tons of compound feed in 2022 according to an estimate by the International Feed Industry Federation,^[1] with an annual growth rate of about 2%. The use of agricultural land to grow feed rather than human food can be controversial (see food vs. feed); 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.

• Alfalfa (lucerne)
• Barley
• Common duckweed^[2]
• 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

• Biochar for cattle^[3]
• Bran
• 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
• Grass or lawn clipping waste^[4]
• Green maize
• Green sorghum
• Horse gram
• Leaves from certain species of trees^[5]
• Meat and bone meal (now illegal in cattle and sheep feeds in many areas due to risk of BSE)
• Molasses
• Native green grass
• Oilseed press cake (cottonseed, safflower, sunflower, soybean, peanut or groundnut)
• Oligosaccharides
• Processed insects (i.e. processed maggots^[6])
• Seaweed (including Asparagopsis taxiformis which is used mainly as a supplement to reduce methane emissions by up to 90%)
• Seeds and grains, either whole or prepared by crushing, milling, etc.
• Single cell protein^[7](can also be made from atmospheric CO₂)
• Sprouted grains and legumes
• Yeast extract (brewer's yeast residue)

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. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, regulates Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD) drugs, which may be used in commercial livestock feed only under the professional supervision of a licensed veterinarian.^[8][9][10]

Increasing intensities and frequencies of drought events put rangeland agriculture under pressure in semi-arid and arid geographic areas. Innovative emergency fodder production concepts have been reported, such as bush-based animal fodder production in Namibia. During extended dry periods, some farmers have used woody biomass fibre from encroacher bush as their primary source of cattle feed, adding locally available supplements for nutrients as well as to improve palatability.^{[11][12][13][14][15]}

Fodder in the form of Sprouted cereal grains such as barley, and legumes can be grown in commercial quantities. Sprouted grains can significantly increase the nutritional value of the grain compared with feeding the ungerminated grain to stock.^[16] They use less water than traditional forage, making them ideal for drought conditions. Sprouted barley and other cereal grains can be grown hydroponically in a carefully controlled environment.^[17] Hydroponically grown sprouted fodder at 150 mm tall with a 50 mm root mat is at its peak for animal feed. Although barley is a grain, barley sprouts are approved by the American Grassfed Association as livestock feed.

• Cannon fodder (metaphorical usage)
• Circular agriculture
• Factory farming
• Feed manufacturing
• Food-feed system
• Pasture

• Zhou, Yiqin. Compar[ison of] Fresh or Ensiled Fodders (e.g., Grass, Legume, Corn) on the Production of Greenhouse Gases Following Enteric Fermentation in Beef Cattle. Rouyn-Noranda, Qué.: Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, 2011. N.B.: Research report.
• Ritthausen, Karl Heinrich (1872). Die Eiweisskörper der Getreidearten, Hülsenfrüchte und Ölsamen: Beiträge zur Physiologie der Samen der Culturgewächse, der Nahrungs- und Futtermittel (in German). Verlag von Max Cohen.

Look up fodder in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Fodder.

• UK Food Standards Agency, Animal feed legislation and guidance Archived 2010-12-13 at the Wayback Machine
• FAO Feed Safety guidelines Archived 2010-12-02 at the Wayback Machine