That's roughly all it took for Cootamundra crop grower Ben Morton to build a system that's now feeding his cattle fresh, nutrient-dense green feed every single day of the year - drought or no drought.
Ben isn't an RFCS NSW client - he's a supporter of the work we do, and who opened his gates to our Rural Financial Counsellors for a recent field visit as part of the Southern Team Offsite. These farm visits give our RFCs the chance to see new ideas and techniques firsthand, so they're better equipped to share them with the farming clients they support.
And Ben's setup is exactly the kind of thinking-outside-the-box, budget-conscious innovation worth sharing further. No fancy infrastructure, no reliance on rain, no waiting on grain prices - just seed, water, and seven days.
Seed to feed in seven days
The concept is simple. Seed goes in one end, and seven days later, a thick, green, root-bound mat of fodder comes out the other - ready straight away for stock.
"Seven days," Ben says. "This here, what I put in yesterday, that'll be ready next Tuesday."
He's currently running barley through the system, since that's what he grows, but the process works just as well with wheat, oats or lupins - whatever a farmer already has on hand. One kilo of seed produces six to seven kilos of fodder, and the protein content roughly doubles in the process, from around 10% as raw grain to somewhere in the high teens once it's grown out.
The result is a feed Ben says the cattle fight over, even when there's other grazing on offer.
From shed shelving to a shipping container
Like most good farm innovations, this one started small. Ben's initial setup was just a handful of basic shelves in a shipping container bought second-hand. Today, the container is fitted out with metal trays, water lines and an air-conditioning unit to manage summer heat, and significantly, the temperature.
For anyone wanting to try it on the cheap, Ben's tip is simple: a trip to the local hardware store is enough to get started. "Just go and get the five-rib laser-light roof sheets from Mitre 10 or Bunnings," he says. The pre-formed channels in the sheeting make ready-made trays for growing fodder - no need for anything custom-built.
As the operation grew, Ben went a step further and imported larger, purpose-built trays from China - nine metres long, designed specifically for fodder production. It wasn't entirely smooth sailing. "They didn't want to deliver it because it was too tall," he laughs. "So we said, just lay it flat."
It's a good reminder that this kind of system can scale at whatever pace and budget suits, from a few hardware-store shelves right up to a fully fitted-out container.
Why the cattle (and the budget) love it
Beyond the protein boost, Ben points to two other big wins: palatability and waste. Cattle clean it up fast, every time. "Within an hour, this bucket was gone," he says of one feed-out. Unlike hay or straw scattered in a paddock feeder, the fodder mats get eaten in full, with next to nothing left behind.
It's also kind to the paddocks themselves. Rather than continually feeding stock out on pasture and grinding it down to dirt, Ben can bring feed to the cattle and give the country a break - particularly valuable when conditions are dry and every bit of ground cover matters.
The numbers that matter
Run as Ben has it set up, the system currently produces somewhere around 800–900 kilograms of fresh fodder a day from about 140 kilograms of seed, comfortably feeding a herd of 28–30 head. Run it tighter, with around 20 head locked up and fully fed on the fodder, and Ben says you could properly fatten cattle on this alone.
On cost, Ben does the sums against buying in barley: at $300 a tonne, and growing your own fodder, this way can work out to a couple of hundred dollars saved per animal traded through, without the system needing to be complicated or expensive to run.
Lessons from two years in the trough
Ben's been refining the system for a couple of years now, and a few practical lessons have come out of it:
· Temperature is everything. Above 25 degrees, conditions that are great for growing fodder are also great for growing mould. Ben keeps the container around 20 degrees, with good airflow circulating throughout.
· Mice need managing. A weekly tidy-up of the container is enough to keep them out.
· Handling gets easier with practice. The nine-metre mats are heavy, and pulling them out of the trays can create suction against the sides. Ben's worked out a technique - pulling the mat up against the side wall as it comes out - that makes the job much easier.
None of these are deal-breakers. They're simply the kind of small, practical adjustments that come with running any new system day in, day out.
Thinking bigger
Ben's setup is one container, but the concept scales. He mentions a fellow grower running seven containers - pulling one full container of fodder out every single day - to supply a Coles meat contract through his own butcher shop.
Looking ahead, Ben's keen to add automatic conveyor belts to move fodder straight from the system into a mixer or paddock feeder, cutting down on labour, which he flags as one of the bigger barriers for farmers considering a larger setup.
A genuine drought-preparedness tool
What makes this story particularly relevant for our farming clients is the drought-proofing angle. As Ben puts it, this is "a drought preparedness proposition" - a way to keep consistent, high-quality green feed flowing regardless of season, rainfall, or rising fertiliser and hay costs.
It's also a good example of the kind of practical, scalable infrastructure that can be considered alongside drought preparedness funding and support. If you're a farmer thinking about options like this for your own operation, your local Rural Financial Counsellor can talk through what's involved in planning and budgeting for a setup like Ben's - free, confidential, and independent, as always.
See it for yourself
Ben's system has to be seen to be fully appreciated - the size of those nine-metre mats, the speed of growth, the cattle bolting in for a feed. Watch the videos to see it all in action, straight from Ben's farm at Cootamundra.