failed ginger bug / chickens

[Big dreams]

Ok, so I tried to make a ginger bug to use as a starter for ginger ale and such, well it never fermented, so I had this jar full of ginger, and sugar water, can I strain this, rinse it off and feed it to my chickens? It still smells good and there is no mold or anything like that, just a jar of ginger. lol.. Thanks in adavance.

 

[Hooligans7]

Hello Big dreams, did you peel the ginger? If you did, you removed the layer that contains the lactobacilli essential for fermentation. If you didn't peel it and it still didn't ferment, it likely wasn't kept warm enough for the duration.

To answer your question, I wouldn't give raw ginger root to chickens. It could make them quite sick (if you could get them to eat it). However, you could grate it very small, add just a tiny, teensy bit of finely grated ginger root to their food, and see how they do.

See, grated ginger root is used as an herbal medicine for treatment of Coccidiosis, and you'd use 1 tsp. in 2 gallons of water for sick birds. So if you weren't using it as a medicine, it would last a very, very long time!

 

[pdirt]

Yeah, try again on the ginger bug. I've made it from scratch 3-4 times now. The first time it didn't work for some reason. Be sure to use organic ginger as non-organic is almost always imported and has been irradiated which will kill the lactobacillus.

As for your failed ginger bug ginger, you might be able to mix in small bits (Hooligans7 sounds more knowledgable) into their feed. If you ferment their feed, you could mix in 1/2 tsp or so into 2 gallons of water you will use to wet the feed.