Fermented feed for chicks

[PolentaDragon]

Hi - got a few questions about using fermented feed:

1. I've head of people fermenting regular chick starter - has anyone here tried this, did the chicks like it?

2. Should they be a certain age before trying it?

3. Do you need to add grit? (Since it's made from the starter, I wouldn't think so)

4. Speaking of grit - we're very far from a store, can I use beach sand (from a lake)? Should I wash it first? What's the best way to do that?

Thanks!

 

[PolentaDragon]

Anyone?

 

[daddyman]

Greetings and happy chicken endeavors!

We will give some info about what we did, and then certainly the thread will pick up as another will come along to advise what we did wrong!

We did ferment feed for our chicks from the start, but we also gave them a bit of regular crumble pieces, so they would scratch around their brooder for the bits. They seemed to like the fermented feed and we had no issues which were observed digestion-wise.

We used a sporting bird starter with a higher protein content than a regular chick starter, but I think that was just me being persnickety, and either food type would be fine.

We did use some chick sized grit, as we were giving mealworms and other bits pretty early on. We also had a baking pan full of backyard dirt for them to scratch in, so we wanted to make sure they had regular grit if needed for stuff they would find in the dirt.

I do not know about the sand. Many do use it for dust bathing, so I do not think it would be harmful, but I do not know if that would be quite large enough to use for chick grit.

Hope this was somewhat helpful. Go and enjoy your chicks! They grow up so fast...

Happy trails!

 

[latenighter]

Ive been fermenting for several months. The only time ive had problems with the chicks eating it is when i started them on dry feed for the first few weeks. As ong as i feed fermented from hatch they love it

 

[enola]

Fermented feed can be fed from day one.

 

[PolentaDragon]

Thanks everyone