Thursday, January 31, 2013

Not much in the way of outdoor chores got done yesterday. While it was, in fact, warmer, the wind was like razor blades. Frozen razor blades. The kind of wind that takes your breath away and you have to turn around so you're facing away from it just to get a quick breath.

So that was fun. I got the chickens fed and watered. I opened their door so they could go outside and they weren't interested at all. I took the dogs outside and dumped our reclaimed water in the gardens. And that was it. The rest of the day was spent inside.

I did get a lot of work done inside, though. I finally got my sprout station set up in the laundry room. It's the best place for indirect sunlight for them. It's not overly warm in there, but I think it will do the job.  I took some pictures of my sprouting so you can see how I do it in case you're interested in starting to sprout for some of your animals or even your family.

This is a temporary set up. I wanted to start sprouting without spending any money, to make sure it was going to work for us. Over time I will buy shoe boxes or some other types of containers to do this on a larger basis next winter. Right now we have 13 chickens. I'm hoping we'll have some new additions by next winter, meaning we'll need more sprouts. And I honestly think that we could grow more sprouts now and they would not go to waste.

What I'm sprouting right now is my scratch mix. Corn, oats, and some assorted bird seed. Again, over the summer, I will be changing that mix to oats, wheat, and black oil sunflower seed. I'll also be changing the scratch mix I'm using, but I will talk about that more in depth at a later time.

This is the tub where I keep the jars. I think it's a sweater box. I have a ton of these boxes lying around. Of course, most of the lids are long since lost, but for this, I don't need the lids. The metal thing in there is something Mr. S. found in the shed. The previous owners left a lot of stuff here and we don't even know what this is for, but we found a way to use it.

The box needs to be tilted to facilitate the draining of the jars. Right now, I'm using an old paper towel tube. I will find something more permanent, as I'm not sure the tube can take the weight of the fully loaded jars.

This is three days worth of sprouts in jars. I use 2/3 cup in each jar. These are lined up to be rinsed. They need to be rinsed two or three times a day. Ignore the basket full of laundry in the background there.

I measure the seeds into a big cup, and fill it with water, so that I can pick out the chaff. This can be difficult as not only does the chaff float, but the black oil sunflower seeds also float. When I set up the system for next winter, the BOSS will be added separately, after I pull out the chaff.

This is the seeds in the jar, about to be rinsed a few more times and then soaked in about that much water, under the sink, for four hours. Some people soak for longer, but I'm finding my sprout production is just fine even with shorter soaking. I'm sure that depends on what you're soaking, and I may need to change that when I change my sprout mix next winter.

Once the water is in the jar, I cover them with a circle of plastic canvas and a canning jar ring. This allows me to rinse and drain them easily.

I did not take a picture of my whole set up. I'll try to include one later. If you're interested in sprouting for your livestock, there is a long discussion of it with tons of information, pictures and even a few videos here. It's primarily about cows, so those folks let their sprouts actually grow into "grass" that looks like sod mats (called biscuits) but without the dirt. I feed the sprouts to my chickens on day four, because that works well for them. We don't need the longer wait for chickens.