What to feed chickens before I butcher them?

RogerShoaf said:

I strongly suspect that it would alter the taste of the meat. In reading up on the Breese chickens they finish the birds on a diet of rice and dairy.

The beef cows are not the only thing that seems to change flavor with diet (read up on Kobe beef), pigs for black forest hams are fed a special diet as are the Smithfield Virginia hams (Peanuts) and Spain has their special diet also.

I want to try a finishing diet for Capons with the cooked rice and dairy and perhaps another trial with malted barley. With Malted barley most of the starch in the grain is converted to sugar so that might have a nice effect. You might want to take this a step further and make up a mash from the barley pitch some brewers yeast but cut short of full strength beer fermentation.

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LindaB220 said:

Roger, this is most interesting. The malted barley. Where would you find it. I was thinking of oats and dairy but maybe rice would be better. Hummmmmm

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RogerShoaf said:

Look up beer making supplies. Malted barley is un-milled barley that is dampened and allowed to sprout, then re-dried. The sprouting causes the barley to produce an enzime that converts the starch to a sugar.

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