Growing fodder for chickens

[ChickenPeep]

I'm looking for some help.
All the fodder I've grown so far has turned out moldy. I want to use bleach to stop the mold but I don't know exactly how to. I was thinking the best idea is soaking it in bleach instead of spraying it with it (I don't got no time for that!).
How much bleach should I use? Is there some kind of ratio? I'm really worried about using too much bleach and hurting my birdy birds.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

 

[Lacy Blues]

Use your bleach as follows:

If you soak your seeds with 2-1/2 cups of water, put in 1/4 cup of bleach. This is a 10:1 ratio and is the recommended dilution for sterilizing surfaces etc.

 

[ChickenPeep]

Sounds great, thanks!

 

[Sunflowergirl]

Use your bleach as follows:

If you soak your seeds with 2-1/2 cups of water, put in 1/4 cup of bleach. This is a 10:1 ratio and is the recommended dilution for sterilizing surfaces etc.

ChickenPeep, if that turns out to be too strong a dilution, you can go down to 2 or 3 TBSP bleach per gallon of water in an overnight soak. I did have some sprouting problems when I was soaking in a stronger solution of bleach. I was doing a similar ratio as Lacy Blues mentions and only doing a 30 minute soak in it. Then drained that and just added water back to an over night soak. But, then I had way lower sprouting success. Go ahead and try the stronger bleach solution and see how that works for you. Just know that you can lower the amount of bleach if needed.

 

[Lacy Blues]

ChickenPeep, if that turns out to be too strong a dilution, you can go down to 2 or 3 TBSP bleach per gallon of water in an overnight soak. I did have some sprouting problems when I was soaking in a stronger solution of bleach. I was doing a similar ratio as Lacy Blues mentions and only doing a 30 minute soak in it. Then drained that and just added water back to an over night soak. But, then I had way lower sprouting success. Go ahead and try the stronger bleach solution and see how that works for you. Just know that you can lower the amount of bleach if needed.

I've heard you can do this 10:1 soak for just 10 minutes and then switching out the water for however long you want to soak. Someone posted, one time, a chart of different lengths suggested for soaking each grain before sprouting.

 

[CrosStitching]

http://sproutpeople.org/sprouts/grow/instructions.html

This website has info on "the best way" to sprout... everything. I've never ordered from them before, but they have lots of info on bean, peas, grains, and anything else you might want to sprout with soak times and stuff. There's pictures of what each seed type should look like at 24hr intervals. Lots of details. Oh, and the nutritional content of each seed type.

 

[Phottoman]

I'm looking for some help.
All the fodder I've grown so far has turned out moldy. I want to use bleach to stop the mold but I don't know exactly how to. I was thinking the best idea is soaking it in bleach instead of spraying it with it (I don't got no time for that!).
How much bleach should I use? Is there some kind of ratio? I'm really worried about using too much bleach and hurting my birdy birds.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

I didn't go with any scientific facts, but I put about a cup of seeds in about a gallon of water and just pour a "glug-glug" of bleach. I have been doing this now for several months and have never had any mold problems AT ALL.

That soaks for twenty four hours, then I rinse and put into a container marked "Day One."

Twenty four hours later I rinse that and place it in a container marked "Day Two." I refill the "Day One" container from last nights soak of twenty four hours.

"Day Two" then goes into a flat, "Day One" goes into "Day Two," and last nights soak goes into "Day One," and I replace the soaked seeds with a new batch.

On day three I put the now sprouting seeds into a garden flat and stack so they will drain into the flat below, and catch the run off with a bucket that gets dumped into the kitchen sink.

If in fact, you "don't got no time for that" I would quit and go buy seeds from whomever you bought them from before you started soaking, and just feed the "old" stuff to your birdy birds. I started looking for a solution when my hens were attacked one morning by a neighbor's dog that killed nine of my twenty chickens. They were all so traumatized that I am just starting to get eggs again, almost two months later.

My birds are a "labor of love," and so darned therapeutic that I am glad they are in my life.

All of the above takes me less than five minutes in the morning to water, and less than twenty minutes at night before going to bed. The eggs I get (and will get in the future) are worth WELL MORE than the less than thirty minutes a day this takes.

And once a week I clean out their run, the coops and refill water and what little feed I leave them for "free choice" in-between the fodder once a day. I think the wild birds actually eat more of the dry feed than my chickens do.

And I wish I could go back to free ranging, but then I wish I was rich too, and that'll never happen.

Skip

 

[Kjordanov]

How long do I let the seeds soak? Lol I've been wanting to try this for A while but haven't been able to get seeds but I had a bunch of leftover seeds from last years garden so I used a bunch lol.

hopefully it'll sprout nicely for my birds, if not it can go to the wild birds and squirrels or whatever wild animal wants it lol.

 

[CrosStitching]

Could vinegar be used in the soak to prevent mold instead of bleach? Anyone tried it?

 

[Bitterroot]

Could vinegar be used in the soak to prevent mold instead of bleach? Anyone tried it?

Yep. Vinegar works, as does GSE (grapefruit seed extract). I've always used those two with soaking/sprouting, never used bleach.