Jessica Stokes

Hery Will,
Yeh- Im not up for even trying to mess with it! It just feels icky! Im taking the entire mess to the dump! It's just one of the many piles on the property, Ive got pleanty of good stuff!
Live and learn-

Matt,
Thanks for the information. Im up in the Sierra Nevada Foothills- Below Tahoe- above Sacramento CA.

Thanks Dave! I'll read it! We will be having a guest speaker at out Grange who will be speaking on this very subject! interesting- Very interesting!! Jessie

Thanks all of you, I actually went to the county with this question... Talked with a "soils" expert... And with a gal at the forest servive who runs the tree farm ( just by a chance meeting at the feed store) Lots of info.. but the bottomline is don't do it again dummy! and stick with what you know. My gigantic compost piles have always been glorious- I turn them with a tractor... I have decided to really educate myself further on composting- Jessie

HI all, I wanted to also say... I just tried putting the little outdoor white x mas lights under my sprouting seads tubs at night! WHOAHHHHH! the warmth they make really has helped the sprouting. its all in a jumble in the spare bathroom shower/tub. I took them out of course for the rinsing and draining. I did this because till May the spare shower is more like a refrigerator,(BURRRRR) Thanks for all your responses and ideas- also I think Wild bird seed would be too expensive for me, I am using Wild GAME bird seed which is 20.00 for 70 lbs. anyway I love all the ideas! Jessie

Thanks for your info too- I will avoid most paper if I can- ...I have a great deal of organic matter- wood chips, pond weeds, animal poo and yard and garden cuttings and leavings. I don't mind cardboard and paper bags... but 200 lbs of glossy paper??? it's not what I usually put into my piles!
Jessie

Oh clever You, thanks for the info and advice! Im sorely lacking in the science dept!
Im still not convinced it's o.k. to add to the "food" garden. It has the strangest smell- like the yellow water in a pit mine!

It is a pile the size of a minivan, I will re- compost it starting with fresh goat poo and apple squeezings from a cider press! That should get it going... and after asking again about what the paper was, I'm told it was "glossy add copy?" which Im guessing is like magazine cover paper- it was just torn up by hand- not shredded or soaked. ICK!!!
Jessie

just like you would do for alfalfa or mung bean sprouting in your kitchen - except on a big scale.

Of course you can get commercial sprouting kits for a lot of $$. I use what I have, trash cans, buckets "my favorite thrift store finds-rubermade storage tubs with no lids!"
I use rectangular rubermade storage tubs about 10 inches deep and the size of a bed pillow, some with drain slits cut into the bottom.

Put your seeds in a tub or bucket ( I put 2 heaping grain/feed scoops in a tub, so about 3 or 4 lbs probably)
Add 4 x as much water to soak, ( I will split this between 2 tubs or buckets as I don't want to lift 60 lbs of sloshing water and seed)
Soak for 6 to 12 hrs. ( I soak overnight)
Pour the soaked seed in containers with some drain holes in them, don't cover!!
They should not be sitting in standing water after the first soak!!They should begin to sprout in the next 24 hrs.
( the coolder the temp the slower they will sprout. I generally put my draining tubs in my spare bathroom shower stall in the winter- summer I put them in the barn, Low light!!.)
Rinse the sprouts daily,Make sure they drain well. ( This is why I like the rectangular tubs, it keeps the sead spread out about 2 " deep and it wont mold!!!
. Ater 3 to 5 days you have some big sprouts! you can feed this or even pour the sprouts into growing flats with soil and grow some "grassy" stuff in another 3 or 4 days, then you just pull it up like a sod roll and toss it out to feed.
I weighed the last 5 day sprouting. started with 3 lbs dry, ended up with 11 lbs sprouts-
I hear you can add all sorts of suppliments to this- I don't - it's not my only chicken feed, I have pasture and compost they feed off of too- worms and grubs... They hardly eat lay mash anymore, and the eggs are hard shelled and dark yolked.

My Ranchmate put lots of paper from an office she works at in one of our (2010's) compost piles. It broke down fine and I added lots of horse and goat poo, lots of my usual garden and yard cuttings... The end result was the wierdest-fluffy sawduts consistancy but coffee ground color stuff I had ever seen! And it smells like burnt hair! It had no worms or bugs of any kind, it did mold and stink and steam. I turned it, and watered it, covered it... Im scared of this stuff,
( Oh yeh, the wild turkeys always dig and scratch in our compost piles, as do our chickens... Well Not this one, the would not go near it!
Any ideas what could have gone wrong and how do I get rid of it?
Jessie

Has anyone used whole seed Game bird mix for sprouting to feed their chickens and other sprout eating critters?? My feed store sells it in 70 lb bags for under $20.00. It has corn, millet, black sunflower, peanuts,oats, wheat, and I think what ever they sweep up off the grainary floor. So far I have had great luck with the sprouting, and every bit is devoured! The hens won't even go "open pasture and garden feed" if they have sprouts left in their run!
Just thought I would mention it anyway. Jessie