Can they eat barley?

[dayna]

Like the grain? I bought a 50# sack for sprouting fodder and well.... My sprouting is not going so well. I keep getting mold.

So I was wondering if I could just feed it raw?

 

[MamaSheepdog]

I have. It was never a big part of their diet, just rotating older stock out of our food storage.

 

[dayna]

So just like a tablespoon or something at a time? Kinda like with sunflower seeds?

 

[MamaSheepdog]

I just added it to my grain mix. I'm sure a TBSP would be fine though.

 

[phillinley]

I give our junior silver fox and flemish giants almost a handful of barley a night and a teaspoon of Oxygen pellets. But we have issues with size especially the flemmies so we're adding the barley to put on bulk.

 

[Mickey328]

I feed mine a grain mix and barley is included; they're all growing and healthy

 

[Demamma]

My grain mix this month is heavy on the barley. Instead of buying oats I got barley on accident. Rabbits are fine with it.

 

[MaggieJ]

Barley is every bit as good for rabbits as wheat or oats. Some people feel it gives the meat a better flavour. The only reason I seldom use it is that it is not as easily digested by poultry and I prefer a grain I can feed to all the critters.

Dayna, if you are getting mould in your fodder (not surprising given your climate) you could try feeding just germinated barley. It has many of the advantages of fodder but is less likely to get mould.
http://www.parrotchronicles.com/feature ... edseed.htm

 

[VickiB]

I feed mine a grain mix and barley is included; they're all growing and healthy

What are you putting in the mix?

 

[Rosey1]

When you tried sprouting it, did you add a couple glugs of bleach to your soaking water(soak for 12 hours in it)? That made a world of difference for mine. I can’t seem to get my wheat to behave till winter, but the barley does wonderfully even in the summer that way. I had to switch them to the green trays (with more ventilation) for the summer, but in the winter I’ll go back to the big black trays that hold more.