Diet  

Sprouts 

Sprouting Methods

Several ways offered by different listmembers
Doing sprouts is pretty simple with some attention to detail. Clean area,
good water and fresh air are three important factors, plus you
must have clean and fresh ingredients to start with. We use 1/2 gallon wide
mouth jars for ours, but you can buy smaller sprouting kits at
most health food stores.

For your sprouts there are many ways to go about it. You can buy pre-mixed
formulas of grains, seeds and legumes or mix your own. We
have done it both ways. China Prairie has a very good mix, plus most any
other item you would need to do your sprouts. Most bird stores
or feed stores will have a sprout mix. If you feed a seed mix to your bird
you can use it, if it does not have coloring or pellets in it. If your
seed mix does not sprout then it is old and should not be fed in any form
to your birds.

This is a list of the ingredients in China Prairie's sprout mix: Hulled
Sunflower seed, Whole Yellow Corn, Whole Oat, Brown Rice, Hi Pro
Wheat Berry, Whole Green Pea, Garbanzo(chickpea), Mung Bean, Buckwheat, Millet, Fenugreek, Pumpkin Seed, Sesame Seed, Quinoa, Radish Seed, Mustard Seed, Red Clover Seed.

When we buy and mix our own we get them in bulk at a health food store. We
pretty much buy what ever they have. Some of the items we use are: Adzuki Beans, Mung Beans, Lentils, Raw Peas, Garbanzo Beans, Millet, Sunflower Seeds(with and w/o shell), Pumpkin Seeds, Wild Rice, Wheat Berries, Quinoa.....etc, etc.

Since about August of 98 we have been using a Pigeon Mix. A typical mix
will have the following ingredients: Milo, Canadian Peas, Wheat, Oat Groats, Austrian Peas, Corn, Rice, Canary Grass Seed, and Red Proso Millet. To this we will add Popcorn, Adzuki Beans, Garbanzo Beans, Mung Beans, Wheat Berries, Sunflower Seeds and Quinoa. One big advantage of the Pigeon Mix is the cost. We pay about .25 a pound at the local feed store.

Using the 1/2 gallon jar, I place about 2 1/2 cups of dry sprout mix into
the jar and rinse several times. Cover with water generously and
let soak. I usually let soak for 4-8 hours with a couple of rinses along
the way. At the end of the soak, rinse a few more times real good
and place container at a very steep angle so it may drain thoroughly. 

We place them in the Sprout tower available from China Prairie.
Every 4-6 hours or so rinse and place back into tower. Depending on how
warm the area is you will have sprouts starting in 12 hours or so. You do not want the sprout to grow very long. If they get much more than 1/4 inch they will start to get bitter. When you feel the sprouts are of sufficient length place about two or three drops of bleach into jar and fill with water. Let soak for 15-20 minutes and once again rinse thoroughly and drain. You can use GSE instead of bleach.  You can now place the jar in the refrigerator. Use as needed, they will store like this for about 3 days. 

I know it seems like a lot of rinsing but it works. We make a batch almost every day like this and we have never had one go bad.
Ginny
B&G Birds

I drill twenty holes through the bottom of a stainless steel dog bowl.  I
use the gallon size.  I gather my seeds, corn, Chinese red peas, green peas,
mung, sunflower seeds and some mixture of smaller seeds.  I scrub as I'm
washing clothes on a washboard as much as five times.  I do all of this in
that pan.  I fill a gallon Tupperware Square pan with water and mix 6 cc's
of Nutribiotic in this water.  Pour my mixture in that square pan and cover
very lightly with the cover.  I do not seal the cover...just lay it over to
avoid anything getting into my solution.

I leave at least 18 hours.....then pour into the stainless steel pan as the
water from my faucet runs through this mixture and out the bottom into my
sink.  I have a corner sink with a high faucet as I can set the pan on the
middle shelf between my sinks as the water runs through the mixture for a
good rinse.  I do this several times and let drain set this drain mixture
pan into the square Tupperware and still allow to drain and sometimes take a 60 cc syringe and suck up the puddle that it may make.  I slightly cover again
with that same cover just to avoid anything getting into the mixture.  I
rinse twice a day..however by the end of the second day...my mixture of
sprouts are eaten.

I do put over Howard Voren's green mixture especially if I have females
laying eggs.  
Cherane

I sprout the Pigeon mix and add everything to it I have a large trash can
that I mix everything up in a friend of mine showed me this and she has the most
beautiful birds perfect feather and have big beautiful babies....
Pigeon seed mix
lentils
mung beans
field peas
popcorn
green peas
and anything else that I see I just add it right on into the mix and just take out by the handfull so that I have a good mix to sprout.....

Hope this helps you... my birds seem to really like it...

Susan

Mung beans, barley, buckwheat, wheat berries, corn, peas and a few other
miscellaneous ones.  In the winter, I sprout different beans.  Summer time,
I don't use as many beans.  They spoil too quickly
Joey

My sprouting method is also to use GSE.  I sprout  in a conventional sprouting jar with the screen lid.  I use China Prairie, with quinoa, and add some organic shelled sunflower and hard winter wheat (human grade, organic, on all these seeds/grains). I wash/rinse this well in cool water. I then
fill to a few inches above the sprouting mix with 10 drops GSE and water. I let this soak for about 6 hours 4-6 is fine, drain well for about an hour, and let them sit for the night and the next day with just turning, no rinsing.

That evening I rinse and rinse and rinse the sprouted mix, fill to cover sprouts with water and 10 drops of GSE. I let this sit for about an hour, drain completely and immediately pop it in the refrigerator.  I use this up in one to two days, but it will stay just fine if kept cold for 3-4 days.
I feed sprouts with the soft food in the am, and these bowls are removed and washed after 2 hours, 3 hours max. Most of my birds have eaten all the sprouts by that time anyway. The only birds that get sprouts for the afternoon and evening meals are those that are feeding babies.  In the heat
of summer I may shorten the sprouting time, and not give it a whole night and day out. I've not had any problem with sprouts spoiling, but I am very cautious and smell and taste them myself. If I accidentally leave the sprouts out more than the one night, I throw the whole mess away, because its just not worth the chance of any problem.

My understanding is that you shouldn't sprout soy  beans because of some
enzyme contained in the bean, but I cannot remember *exactly* why.
Wild Prairie

This is how I do it - if anyone has any suggestions as to how to make it safer, I'd appreciate it! I'm thinking, as I am probably going to be "outgrowing" my colander and bowl soon, of using one of those lift and sift cat pans (new, of course), with a layer of screen at the bottom. This way I
could add GSE to the rinse water, as well.

I usually mix about 50% sprouts and 50% mixed vegetables and feed mid-morning. I then pull bowls right after lunch. I would say the longest they stay in the cage is probably 3 hours, not even that long for the birds I have outside.

Liz

However, I am able to put out fresh sprouts on a daily basis and have
them remain sweet for 24 hours. (not that there are usually many left)

I make mixed sprouts daily from well washed organic seeds/nuts/beans. My
soak is distilled water with hydrogen peroxide, as is my twice daily
rinse.

I use food grade h2o2.  Not sure why that's important, but apparently the
kind you get in the drug store may have impurities.  You can get food grade
at the health food store, which costs a fortune ($18 for 16 oz) where I
shop, anyhow, or order it from someplace like www.oxytherapy.com, and get
it for $50/gallon.  What you get is 35% h2o2.  You then water it down to a
3% solution  by removing 10 oz of water from a gallon of distilled water
and then adding 10 oz. of the 35% h2o2.  Then you have your gallon of base
solution.  For sprouting seeds, you add 1 oz 3% to each pint of water.
That works out to 1 cup of 3% per gallon of distilled water to make your
sprouting water.

Anyhow, I ordered a gallon of 35% h2o2 in sept of 98, according to my
notes, and have a little more than half of it left still. (I make about a
gallon of sprouts per day.) Keep it in the freezer.

I gather that you do not rinse it off prior to feeding?

No, I don't rinse it off.

In this weather the sprouts are usually ready by the second day.  I
don't mix anything with them when I feed, just top dress with a sprinkle of
seeds, and I am careful to feed them in a bowl which is relatively wide
and flat, so that there are no deep dark damp corners where mold would
thrive. Also, I am very careful that the sprouts are "dry" when I feed them.
They are still fresh, but they just aren't wet.  Since they have drained for
twelve hours since the last rinse, only the ones on the bottom of the
sprouting container are damp or wet, and those don't go to the parrots.
This is the first summer when I have fed sprouts almost exclusively, and
so far I have had no problems. By comparison, when I feed fresh corn on the
cob, if I leave it twenty four hours, it will start to get moldy.

A couple of notes:  Garbanzo beans and corn, both of which make great
sprouts, both seem to sometimes harbor mold.  Now and then I will lose a
whole batch to mold (just a tiny bit and the whole batch goes to the
guineas!) and when I dig through to see where it started, it is almost
always centered around a garbanzo or corn.

You can tell if you have mold by smell...your sprouts should always
smell wonderfully fresh. Your nose will tell you right away if there is a
problem.  And if your sprout container is warm when you handle it,
warmer than the surrounding temp, so that you notice it, there is mold growing
somewhere in it, I promise.

Some folks advocate adding orange juice or ascorbic acid to the sprouts
before they feed them to retard spoilage.  Haven't tried it so can't
comment.  You could probably also add GSE.  I do know that when I have
tried a final extra rinse with my hydrogen peroxide solution, thinking
that would give extra "last minute" protection, that in fact what I got was
moldy clumps in the corners of the bowls twenty four hours later. So I
don't do anything that adds moisture to the sprouts when I serve them.

Genny

A simple way to sprout Flax (or Chia, Pysllium, and Cress) is to use 1
large terra cotta plate (saucer shaped, and UNglazed) and two large
dinner plates...these are the basic *tools.*

Soak the unglazed terra cotta saucer in water for 15 min. or until it
stops bubbling....this is to saturate the terra cotta with water.

This water saturated plate is set on a dinner plate.  Lightly sprinkle a
layer of seed into the terra cotta saucer.  The bottom layer of seed
will stick to the terra cotta, shake off the excess seed.  Pour a little
water into the dinner plate.  This will be absorbed to the seed.  Cover
the terra cotta saucer with the remaining dinner plate.  What you have
is a *sandwich* of plates with the dinner plates on the outside.

After a day or 2 check and change the water in the bottom plate.  Also
check the progress of the seeds/sprouts.  IF the sprouts appear to be
growing unevenly or appear dry, lightly mist them with water, using a
fine mister.  IF they appear to wet, remove the water from the bottom
plate for a day. Check the sprout daily for the next 4-5 days. ***They
are always covered during this time**

On the 4th or 5th day remove the cover and expose the sprouts to
sunlight (on a windowsill or partial shade outside) to green the leaves.
You will still maintain water in the bottom plate, and also mist the
sprouts once a day.

After the sprouts are the desired height, you can *harvest* them by
pulling them from the terra cotta.  They will come out in *Mat* form,
and then you can put them in a zip lock and refrigerate, and use over
the next few days.

Scrub down your saucer in a light bleach water solution, and allow to
fully dry (preferably in sunlight) before re-using.

Susanne 

Shar