Texas

[MelTX]

Greetings chicken listers! long time no forum. Starting the New Year with prep for the coop to be built and adding decorative touches to the chicken supplies.

This is our soon-to-be feed bucket and we added some hen stencils to dress it up a bit. The coop will be started soon, my carpenter/builder has the plans and will begin getting things going within a couple of weeks. Then we can start looking for someone who has a couple of Buff Orpington pullets for sale, hopefully around 5 weeks old.

When finished, our backyard mobile coop will look like this (but a different color)


Can't wait to get my chickens. Only able to get a couple, but my son will love them. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

[jajeanpierre]

I've been reading up on sprouting seeds for me and there are a ton of videos on You Tube for sprouting just about every seed there is. I saw a way someone did it for their chickens on a blog and it didn't use dirt. I will find it for you.

Sprouting seeds is really easy. Make sure you start with seeds that don't have any treatments to improve germination.

Soak your seed in water for 12 to 24 hours. I just soak them over night in a big container. I change the water frequently. Once they have been soaked in water, all you need to do is keep rinsing them so no molds or bacteria grow. The seeds need a lot of air circulation. I rinse my seeds thoroughly many times a day. You can also rinse with a chlorine solution but that isn't necessary if you keep rinsing them many times a day. I keep them in a strainer over a big bowl, so all water drains out but they remain moist. You can cover them with something to increase humidity, but that isn't really necessary if you rinse many times a day. Most seeds start to sprout after just a few days. You can feed it when they are swollen, before you see a sprout, and they should have many of the benefits of a sprouted seed.

The trick to sprouting seeds is to change the water frequently and rinse frequently. Day 1, I soak in water. Day 2, they are just rinsed and not submerged in water. I generally soak only over night. I start feeding them after a few days, even if I don't see any sprouting.

 

[TexasLisa]

Greetings chicken listers! long time no forum. Starting the New Year with prep for the coop to be built and adding decorative touches to the chicken supplies.

This is our soon-to-be feed bucket and we added some hen stencils to dress it up a bit. The coop will be started soon, my carpenter/builder has the plans and will begin getting things going within a couple of weeks. Then we can start looking for someone who has a couple of Buff Orpington pullets for sale, hopefully around 5 weeks old.

When finished, our backyard mobile coop will look like this (but a different color)


Can't wait to get my chickens. Only able to get a couple, but my son will love them. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Welcome from Rosenberg!!

Lisa

 

[Brookshire11]

Cupcake not pancake ?*!?

Here i was thinking "Pancake....how creative!" Lol

yeah how do you sprout oats??

A saw an article on Fresh Eggs Daily about it

 

[Ms Jellybean]

Here i was thinking "Pancake....how creative!" Lol
A saw an article on Fresh Eggs Daily about it

That is where I saw it too, I think, but I can't find it.

I read this one a while back and it is really easy to sprout this way. I need to get a new mesh strainer....

I ordered a seed sprouting kit from Williams Sonoma to use for me. I'm going to sprout chia seeds. I am also going to get a yogurt maker so I can make yogurt out of almond milk for me. I found vegan starter.

 

[boxofpens]

yeah how do you sprout oats??

Sprouting is super easy. I've even sprouted bird seed for them. I use an old Jiffy seed greenhouse thingy for sprouting. I poked some holes in the lid, then turned the lid upside-down to rest inside the base. I soak about a cup of seeds (oats, wheat, bird seed, whatever) in a plastic container overnight. (About 12 hours or so). Then I drain them and spread them out on the lid that I punched holes in.

Then every 24 hours I rinse them with water and drain them:

I just leave them in the lid, and slowly pour water over them to rinse them. I usually pour just enough water to cover all the seeds, then let the water drain out. If it doesn't drain completely, I'll punch more holes in the lid so that all the water drains out. I usually have to dump the water out of the base once or twice as it's draining. You want the seeds moist all the time, but NOT actually sitting in water. After a few days of doing this you'll see some sprouts. Usually at that time I'll put them by a window so they green up a bit. Some seeds can take about a week to get started. Just keep rinsing daily. You should see sprouts eventually. Just about the time you think you're not doing it right, there they are! Cold weather helps keep fungus away. I can't sprout in the summer.

Here's a picture of my sprouts right now. I have the Jiffy lid tilted so you can see the simple set up. The tall green one's are oats and ryegrass, and the brown seeds are wheat that I started about 3 days later. I have them on a plastic tub in front of a window.

No soil, just tap water and seeds. Other people have different set-ups, and rinse more often, soak longer, etc. This works for me and is 1x per day. You can feed to chickens at any point.

 

[bnjrob]

When you're sprouting grains, through about day 1-4 they still have more "grain" nutrient to them, once they are older than about day 4, they are then "greens" instead of grain.

So that should help you decide when you want to feed them to the chickens - whether you are wanting them to eat grain or if you are trying to give them green sprouts to make up for a lack of grass/greens to eat during the heat of summer and the cold of winter.

 

[lovingmyhens]

  Welcome from Rosenberg!!

Lisa

That sounds like a plan!! The coop looks really nice. What do your other chickens live in?

 

[lovingmyhens]

We'll somehow this last post got posted to the wrong person. Lol
I'll try again

 

[Teri Metcalf]

Here's Hawkeye, sitting in our cedar tree trying to decide on supper. Mourning dove or chicken. Bob chased him off right after he took this pic.