Growing fodder for chickens

[LeslieDJoyce]

About soaking times ...

Upstream in this thread (or the one on sprouting, I can't remember for sure which) another BYCer reported doing a soak-time test for best germination rates of a particular type of grain (barley?) and reported soaking for 6 hours (???) produced the best sprout percentage. I have also read that oats prefer warm water rinsing, while I've had better luck sprouting rye grain with cold water rinsing. So it does depend on what you're sprouting.

Essentially sprouting for sprouts and sprouting for fodder are the same except for fodder we lay the soaked or sprouted grains out in flats and let it sprout longer. The goal of the soaking time and temperature is to get the best germination rate, and people sprouting for people food have worked a lot of this out really well, so looking to them for advice is useful.

A site about sprouting for humans says this (http://www.sproutpeople.com/grow/soak.html):

How Long is Long Enough?
A few seeds do not Soak at all and though most do, they Soak for varying duration's. The norm is 8-12 hours, but some soak for only 20 minutes, some occasionally soak in warm or hot water and for more or less time - Check the seed information pages for the seeds you are sprouting.

Here is the link to their index page for sprouting based on seed type ... http://www.sproutpeople.com/seeds.html ... from there you can click for more details on soaking and sprouting times. I looked, and most of the things we're sprouting for fodder here are all lumped together in one mixture, the Amber Waves of Grain mix, and there is this note at the sprouting details for that page, "Note: Though when sprouted individually some of the seeds in this mix require less Soak time, they will do fine in the context of this mix when soaked 6-12 hours."

And here is a link to another site about sprouting for humans with a pretty printable chart for sprouting different things. http://younaturally.net/goto-guides/sprouting-soaking-different-seeds/

I'm sure there's a lot more info like this out there.

 

[mg15]

Then maybe they just need to be in a warmer spot.

I think they are getting too much air, because of the screen. Maybe lay the screen down onto a flat tupperware.

 

[Chicks Galore3]

Thanks for helping me everybody! I was wondering if the screen was the problem. I will definitely look at those links, LeslieDjoyce!

 

[Overoberyl]

I think they are getting too much air, because of the screen. Maybe lay the screen down onto a flat tupperware.

I was thinking that too, and maybe the depth of the seeds needs to be greater? With too shallow a layer of seeds plus the screen I'll bet the water is draining too quickly...

 

[Mrs. Fluffy Puffy]

Dear Mrs. Fluffy Puffy,
You are correct. Your seeds will start to "hatch" tails as that would be the root and
with a little light the two leaves will follow.
When I did my first batch of hatching BOSS I thought that I would like to put those lovely sprouts on my salad. Well, after about fifteen minutes of shelling the sprout, I had ....umm... maybe 20 sprouts. So, I have now bought for myself, a bag of shelled sunflower seeds, that I intend to sprout.
Kind regards,
mg

I have my tray of BOSS in a miniature green house on the back porch. I rinsed/watered it this afternoon, it was still moist. How many times should I be rinsing it daily? 3X or something like that, or is once enough? I want fodder, not sprouts....so not quite sure what to do. By the by, this BOSS is for the birds, not me. Once we get a bunch of organic seeds, we'll be sprouting and growing fodder for ourselves...talk about green smoothie. Yum!

Yup so before i went to bed i soaked them and before i left for work in morning!

OK, when you say soak..what do you mean? I've just be spraying my seeds down at the kitchen sink, and then making sure all the axtra water is drained off. Do you have your seed tray inside a tray that doesn't have holes in the bottom, and then have it soaking in that? Confused.

For the birds you can sprout untill the root and plant are 1/2" or less. If you want to use the BOSS in soup salads sanwiches omlets or stirfry, let them grow to 4" or more and cut the sprout off with sissors leaving the shell behind. I grown to 6" or more they get sorta tough.

Good info..thanks! : )

It seems slow to me. I like the screen idea, and that *should* work fine even with a "quick" rinse 3x per day. But if the sprouts aren't to the "Yikes, I'd better mow the lawn" stage after 8 days, they aren't doing well, and yours are barely sprouted so are growing very slowly indeed. This could be due to several different factors. It could be too cold where your sprouts are. Maybe they needed longer/shorter pre-soak. Maybe the seeds had been treated with anti-sprouting agents? Dunno, really!

Steps to successful sprouting:

Buy "the right" seed

Wash a batch of that seed in plain water, skimming out debris

Soak that washed seed (from a few hours to a day or more, depending on seed), maybe with a sanitizing agent

Drain that soaked seed

Rinse thoroughly

Put that soaked and rinsed seed in the clean growing flat

Keep seeds moist but not wet

Keep seeds darkish and warm-ish/cool-ish (depends on your seed choice) & well-ventillated in a clean environment to promote shoots and roots but not mold & mildew

Give the shoots & roots some sunshine to promote greener shoots (not entirely necessary, but I like to do it)

Feed fodder to the chickens before it gets too long and tough

Thoroughly wash your growing flat before reuse.

That's it, really.

Wonderful guide..thanks!

~ Aspen

 

[corancher]

Aspen

I soak my seeds for 12-24 hours in a bucket with water covering all the seeds. When I get ready to put them in my flats, I pour the seeds into another bucket that has 6 inch split/crack on the bottom from being frozen. The bucket works really well for the draining and I don't have to worry about my seeds going through the crack. If you are not lucky enough to have a frozen cracked bucket then people are using buckets with holes drilled or a kitchen colander to drain and rinse the seed. Rinse the seeds a couple of times and drain then put the seeds in your flats. My flats have holes in them so the water drains then I set them in flats that don't have holes just because I don't want any dripping all over the place.

I have only been rinsing my seeds once a day because I am not home to do it several times a day. It seems to be working okay with the once a day but growing slower than most have reported.

I am going to try to set up a better system this coming weekend with a old shower pan, pump, timer and drip system.

 

[Mrs. Fluffy Puffy]

Aspen

I soak my seeds for 12-24 hours in a bucket with water covering all the seeds. When I get ready to put them in my flats, I pour the seeds into another bucket that has 6 inch split/crack on the bottom from being frozen. The bucket works really well for the draining and I don't have to worry about my seeds going through the crack. If you are not lucky enough to have a frozen cracked bucket then people are using buckets with holes drilled or a kitchen colander to drain and rinse the seed. Rinse the seeds a couple of times and drain then put the seeds in your flats. My flats have holes in them so the water drains then I set them in flats that don't have holes just because I don't want any dripping all over the place.

I have only been rinsing my seeds once a day because I am not home to do it several times a day. It seems to be working okay with the once a day but growing slower than most have reported.

I am going to try to set up a better system this coming weekend with a old shower pan, pump, timer and drip system.

I soaked my seeds for 24hrs, then rinsed them very well and laid them into a seed flat, that already had holes in the bottom. Then I stuck it it my miniature green house. It was still moist this morning, so this afternoon I wetted down the seeds...all the extra water drained out through the holes in the tray, then I set it back in the greenhouse. Do I just keep doing this daily?

~ Aspen

 

[corancher]

I soaked my seeds for 24hrs, then rinsed them very well and laid them into a seed flat, that already had holes in the bottom. Then I stuck it it my miniature green house. It was still moist this morning, so this afternoon I wetted down the seeds...all the extra water drained out through the holes in the tray, then I set it back in the greenhouse. Do I just keep doing this daily?

~ Aspen

Yes. You should start seeing sprouts in a day or two.

 

[Mrs. Fluffy Puffy]

Yes. You should start seeing sprouts in a day or two.

Excited!!! This morning I brought them inside to water, and every single seed has sprouted a lil tail!!! Woohoo!!! Is it seriously this easy? Wow...my feathered babies are going to love all this fodder, and sprouts momma is doing for them.

Picked up a bag of whole oats yesterday...I'm going to try doing fodder with it, but I may experiment the FF on it instead, since I've heard it's harder to grow.

~ Aspen

 

[Lacy Blues]

I tried and tried to get oats to sprout and had varying degrees of success. Last time I tried it Kassaundra's way. Burlaps sacks. Make sure your oats are whole and not crimped or rolled. I have to report, I got a tremendous number of sprouted oats doing it with the burlap sack!