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Germination silo
You can offer
seedling food
all the year round. For production I use a conventional
germination silo
. The birds eat everything from the swelled seed to germ buds of 2 cm. They prefer that kind of food especially during the brooding period.
You have to be careful with the production of seedlings, because they tend to get mouldy. So it is important to clean the equipment you are using for germination of seeds every day carefully with hot water and diluted acetic essence or vinegar.
For prophylactic purposes one can use germicides, which inhibit the growth of mould on the seedlings.
Production of seedling food: At first you should wash the seed mixture. Therefore you could use a finely woven sieve or colander. Now poor the wet seeds into one bowl of the germination silo. The base of that bowl should not be covered completely. Afterwards add some water to the top level bowl. From there the water slowly rinses through all the bowls and keeps the seed wet. Store the silo at a dark, cool place.
Wash the seeds with water again after 24 hours. You can feed that so called
swell food
directly, especially to sick, very young or old birds. But, of course, all other Lineos like it as well.
To obtain
seedling food
, i.e. seedlings, simply leave the seeds germinating 24 or 48 more hours. It is important, to water or wash them regularly. Thus the seedling food keeps fresh and does not spoil that fast.
You should remove the offered seedling food not later than about 10 hours from the cage/aviary. If you are able to estimate the amount of food, the birds ingest, after a while, you can adjust the amount. By that one can prevent the remaining food to spoil.
Seedling food in a bowl
Seedling food; the white fluff are fine root hairs
I use the seedling food mixture of
Futterkonzept
with the following seed composition:
7 Millet types
Dari seed
Milo seed
Barley
Canary seed
Niger seed
Flax seed
Oat
Buckwheat
Kardi seed
Of course you can try to germinate any other seed, for example sunflower seeds.
Sunflower seedlings
Last update on February 21st, 2005
Production of seedling food: At first you should wash the seed mixture. Therefore you could use a finely woven sieve or colander. Now poor the wet seeds into one bowl of the germination silo. The base of that bowl should not be covered completely. Afterwards add some water to the top level bowl. From there the water slowly rinses through all the bowls and keeps the seed wet. Store the silo at a dark, cool place.
7 Millet types