If this works out well, and I end up doing larger amounts then I will break it down and most likely work out a page for it, but for now, this is proving to involve some work and I thought I would share the process with you..

So I wanted to pre-soak or pre-sprout the seeds before traying them, this is super simple, measure out the amount of pds you want, a quart jar is pretty much a pd of seed, and dump into a clean (I gave it a little pre-soak/switch of bleach water in a five gallon bucket) as it is said to help with possable mold issues, and then I filled up to twice the level of the grains and left it for a while I went and did some chores, then I poured off the top half the water/chaf/bits etc and refilled it with fresh water till the bucket was 3/4th full and moved it into a warm corner of the house, that night, I drained it and filled again with fresh water, letting it soak for a total of around a day, then drained for an hour or so, and into the trays.

Now most folks are going out and buying the thick black pastic seed trays and I think thats a great idea but they need to be the heavy duty ones and I just happened to have a idea on these, you see I am going to need to sprout these in my cellar, for a couple reason, cement floor, easy place to set up the stands to hold the trays, even warmth, not hot or cold, access to water and one of the few places that with no critter access.

Do you remember when I got that huge pile of wire trays at that amazing sale this spring, those heavy duty trays are just begging to made into sprouting tray’s, just some heavy duty garden pastic with holes for drainage added and bing, bang boom, awesome reusable and darn near none breakable sprouting trays, because the shelves also have draining, I can water the top trays and have it drip/filter down to the bottom trays, I will add them to the daily chores and hopefully I won’t have to move to a pump system but will if I need to.

Each tray at the correct level of grains holds 2 pds of grains, which should ideally end up being a “bisquit”- why do they call it this? of 12 to 16 pds of fresh fodder

So we will see if it works as I hope.. now to figure out the amounts for each day.. so Miss Piggy measures out at around four hundred pds, that means she needs 1 percent of her body weight in fodder but she is milking so that raises it to 2% so eight pds per day, and the wee ones are currently 10 pds this week, again because they are growing, they are listed at the 2% rate, so .2 percent of a pd per piglet, that would mean 1 pd per five piglets, and I think I would like to aim for .3% and will need to continue to raise it per week as they grow..

So that means for them I need 10 to 11 pds per day of green sprouts, so that means if I get a proper sprout rate, 2 pds of barley per day..

Brandy in some ways is easier to figure out as she is not expecting, growing or milking.. Because I don’t want to short her, she came in at around 1300 to 1350, and so for the sake of feeding her, I am going to move her to a flat 1400 pds..  so she needs 14 pds of fodder per day, so 2.4 pds of starting barley, or basicly one properly done tray..

Girl is measuring in at 1200 pds but she is expecting and then will be milking so she needs twices as much..  will end up with two stands five high, two trays on each level if this works out well..