About Those Sprouts

chores,, sprouts,, feeding,, rabbits,, farm

Thought it was time to explain a bit more about the sprouts that I feed to my rabbits and birds.
Everyone LOVES them.
Sprouted grains are very nutritious, the critters get to have fresh greens on a regular basis, PLUS it helps to defray the cost of feed. I can easily triple or quadruple the amount of feed I have available, simply by sprouting it.

This is my set-up.

It's coloured oddly because I have grow lights in the top few levels.

The youngest ones are at the bottom, and the oldest at the top.

There are 3 sets of 3 trays.
Each tray is 20“ x 10” with lots of holes in the bottom.

Each batch consists of 4-6 cups of wheat, 2 cups each of: oats, black oil sunflower seeds, and green peas.

They get watered (rinsed) 3 times a day.
I feed sprouts 3 times a week, so each batch takes 7-8 days.

I found that if I only watered 2 times a day, I had much smaller root beds and much MORE mold.

I start with whole seeds:

4-6 cups of wheat
2 cups oats
2 cups black oil sunflower seeds
2 cups green peas

There is NO rule about what you can use, so use whatever you can get your hands on.
I use feed grains and not seed grains.
I have used corn in the past, but right now the corn I can get doesn't sprout well, so I'm not using it.
I have tried barley a few times, but the stuff we can get here doesn't seem to sprout well.
If too many seeds fail to sprout, they tend to get moldy, which is not good.


Wheat	Oats	Black Oil Sunflower Seeds (a.k.a. BOSS)	Green Peas

After soaking for about 24 hours, I pour them into a strainer basket.

This is what it looks like after 1 day of soaking and 1 day of sitting. If you look closely, you can see that the wheat has already sprouted, AND you can see that the sprouts from the peas are just about to burst out of the pea.

By Day 3 pretty much ALL the seeds have sprouted both shoots and roots.

Day 5: Things are continuing to grow.

By Day 7 or 8, they are ready to be fed to the critters.
They smell WONDERFUL! Like fresh sweet grass on a summer day.
You can see that they have LOTS of roots.
Each flat has grown into a carpet of greens.
When it comes time to feed the buns, what I actually do is flip each mat of greens over, and use a back saw to cut strips that I can give to the gang.
The root bed is often an inch or more thick, so it's hard to tear apart evenly.

Since birds have no teeth for chewing, I tear theirs into little wads.

Apologies for the video being sideways at the start. This is what it looks like just after I water.