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I've just started trying this, and the birds don't seem very interested. I read somewhere that there's a protein only produced when seeds are sprouting, but in a nutrion book I read years ago they didn't mention anything about that. It talked about a particular type of sugar that's unique to sprouting, but since all sugars are changed to glucose anyway I don't understand any advantage in that.

Also, after sitting in a damp cloth long enough to sprout there also develops white fuzzy clumps of little hair like stuff. Is that mold or something? Is it good for the birds to eat it, or bad?

The seed is most nutritional when it just breaks out of the shell, called chit. If your seeing small white hairs it may be the root structure which would be fine but over sprouted, or it could be mold which would be VERY bad to feed to your birds.

Here's a very good series of video's talking and showing you how to sprout your seed. http://www.fabulousfinch.com/cart/pages ... ideos.html

And an article: http://www.fabulousfinch.com/how-to-spr ... birds.html

good luck

Here's another link, from ABBA seed. I use their soaking seed and their method and it works great for me. All of my birds love it and flock right to it in the morning when I put it in. I remove uneated sprouted seed in the evening.

http://www.abbaseed.com/Seed_Products/SOAK/soak.html

I also think that the white fuzz is mold and you should NOT feed it to them. Mine never gets any mold or spoils, and once soaked I can keep it in the fridge up to a week.

You need to be very carefuly when you soak seeds. I use Virkron on my water to keep the seeds safe. I think some use a VERY small amount of bleach and then rinse.

dfcauley wrote:You need to be very carefuly when you soak seeds. I use Virkron on my water to keep the seeds safe. I think some use a VERY small amount of bleach and then rinse.

Good point, Donna! I actually forgot to mention that I use a few drops of Sparkle in the water when I soak the seeds. But I rinse well with filtered water before storing them in the fridge and again before serving.