Aussie Finch Forum

Ive been buying finch mix, canary mix, pannicum, white millet, panorama, japanese millet and canary seed.
Any left overs go to the chickens and if they dont get it the Bakery Bunch will clean it up!

grenadier wrote:To Blue Butterfly if you buy Budgie mix in my opinion you are far better off.

Will add budgie mix too, thanks grenadier

I have noticed that some of the pet shops are selling sprouted seed in small lots, the shoots on the seed are around 50mm high and have heard that when it gets to that size it taste sour, i have been told that its best just after the seed has sprouted

shouldnt call what I give to my birds sprouted seed. need to rename it cracked seed. I give it to the birds as soon as the seed cracks open, as soon as the seeds crack I keep enough out for a couple of days feeding and the rest is put in the freezer for later

Thats when they get the most out of the seed

Starting up the topic again on Sprouting Seed, i purchased some sprouting mix 1kg of white, 1 kg of black from birds r us to give ago at sprouting!

the question i have is when the seeds chit, is that the time they are moved to the freezer to stop the seed from shooting more??? because i am unsure on how it stops the seed from sprouting more? does the cold temperature make the seed go into a dormant phase?

so its just a matter of keeping a watchful eye on the seed to see when it chits then freeze it to stop it from growing a longer shoot??

any feedback would be great

Jarryd

Thats what I have been doing. Soon as I see even one tiny shoot I pack it up and into the freezer. I figure as soon as it defrosts it will spring back into life again.

Just reread your post and realized you said you had bought sprouting mix, I haven't used that I just soak about a kg at a time of my normal seed mix.

Thanks di, yeh I wanted to give the sprouting mix ago, gona follow mike's way as much as I can! See how it turns out, then il use my finch mix seed and compare.

Freezing would more than likely kill the sprout. As the water inside the sprout freezes and crystallizes, it punctures the wall of the cells, the same way frost will kill off some plants or new shoots. Nutritionally, it would retain most of the nutrients as their is little deterioration before the freezing process is complete. And yes it is more nutritious to use it before the formation of the cotyledon (seed leaf), as the newly emerging plant uses its reserves from the seed until the leaf has formed.

I recently finished my article on Sprouting on my site - might answer some questions

http://www.gouldiansgalore.net/sprouting.html

can u guys help me with Sprouting seed because i have done it but it smells and gets moldy quickly any tips would be fine