Anyone having problems sprouting Red Wheat

[Morrigan]

I hope someone can help me. I've been raising sprouted wheat/fodder for my chickens for a year now. I was using a white wheat berry and having no problems -- beautiful, healthy, well-rooted sprouts in 3-4 days. (I'd soak for 24 hours first, then dump them into trays with holes, watering and fully draining twice a day)

This time, however, the feed store sold me red wheat. It was advertised as doubled washed, uncracked and feed quality. Using the exact same system, I'm getting about 1/3 to 1/2 the amount of sprouting. Many of the blades of wheat grass are also emerging a reddish color, instead of green. Almost no root mat, and if I let it go more than 3 days, I fear I'm inviting mold. It smells much sweeter to me than the wheat I was suing before.

I had problems before with red wheat sprouting very poorly and being prone to mold, but I chalked it up to a bad bag, particularly when I discovered weevils in it. Although this bag isn't quite as bad, I'm wondering if red wheat in particular is just harder to sprout or requires a different technique that white wheat.

I've got a huge bag of it now, so I'd like to make some use of it. I didn't ask for red wheat, it was just what the feed store had on hand.

 

[lazy gardener]

If your red wheat has weevils, most likely, they are eating the embryo of the seeds, as that's the most nutritious part of the seed, making it unable to sprout.

 

[Morrigan]

If your red wheat has weevils, most likely, they are eating the embryo of the seeds, as that's the most nutritious part of the seed, making it unable to sprout.

That's what I figured for the first bag of red wheat I got. It clearly had weevils in it. The bag I have now, I'm not seeing any weevils. That doesn't mean they weren't there and then got cleaned off, I guess.

I'm trying to figure out if red wheat is inherently harder to sprout than white, or if the mill is just selling bad batches of red wheat that I've been unlucky enough to get.

 

[lazy gardener]

I'm wondering if it's heat treated, but the fact that a percentage is sprouting leads me to believe that it's not heat treated.