How do I safely sow my barley?

One of the crops I am trying to grow here is Bere barley. It is a traditional crop for Northern Europe - likes cools climate and crops in a short summer. It is high in protein. Usually grown these days as a grazing crop (Japanese oats or blackoats rather than a grain, but I'm wanting grain if possible. We have a very local micro brewer and it would be so cool to have our own barley to make the malt from. I love beremeal too as a flour extender, and it also makes good risotto rice substitute, so lots of reasons to have a go....

Bere barley seedheads

source

Good seeds are a bit hard to get hold of - I've been separating out grains from a bere berries bag from Orkney, but it is slow work. I have a very few landrace seeds as well, so I can't afford to have too many failures. Last year was my first year trying it and I got an almost complete wipe out of the seeds. Sown a little late at the start of May, I'm hoping to do a bit better this year (!) I'm not really sure whether it was mice or birds that ate them before they even germinated, but I'm pretty sure they were eaten. The good news is that the oats sown at the same time were left almost completely alone - so the barley was a bit like a sacrificial crop. The grains are slightly larger, so obviously preferred to the oats.
So I need advice on how to protect or otherwise get my seed to survive to grow....getting a harvest from them is another matter, but plants would be a good start!

If you're only looking to protect a small patch of limited seeds, I would start them in tall paper pots and transplant to an area that you'll be able to net. I recall that the Sepp Holzer grain they were trying to reproduce at Wheaton Labs, was built an "aviary" or maybe "anti-aviary" would be a better term! I think it was designed to keep mice out as well.

I have read that some grains like very firm contact with the ground - think buffalo hooves pushing them in. So sowing the seeds and then actually compacting the surface of the soil may actually be helpful. I have not tried this myself, but I read about it, and a friend had an experience with wheat that supports it.

Jay Angler wrote:If you're only looking to protect a small patch of limited seeds, I would start them in tall paper pots and transplant to an area that you'll be able to net.

I have a suspicion that once they are germinated they will be OK (until the heads start forming anyhow) Planting out as plug plants is possible this year. It would be more work than I want to do every year, as I hopefully increase the area planted.

I recall that the Sepp Holzer grain they were trying to reproduce at Wheaton Labs, was built an "aviary" or maybe "anti-aviary" would be a better term! I think it was designed to keep mice out as well.

Mice were certainly a problem getting a harvest of the oats, so will probably be even worse on the Barley! I actually watched the little creatures climbing the stalks to get to the oat heads.

I have read that some grains like very firm contact with the ground - think buffalo hooves pushing them in. So sowing the seeds and then actually compacting the surface of the soil may actually be helpful. I have not tried this myself, but I read about it, and a friend had an experience with wheat that supports it.

My soil is very light - silty. I did think about just sowing the seeds much deeper, in the hope that some would get missed!

I would get an incidental crop of wheat because I soaked the wheat fore 24 hours before feeding it to the chickens and they always  buried some with their scratching.