FERMENTED FEEDS...anyone using them?

[ChickenCanoe]

You can just go get the stuff laying in the sand that washed ashore and then rinse it and dry it? Really? Wow, we live in San Diego and they are a real nuisance on the beach. My husband runs on the beach all the time. Maybe I can get him to pick stuff up before he comes home. Do you get the freshest stuff I'm assuming? Also do you just grind up the kelp leaves or the whole stock and ball like floaters too?

I'm assuming so. That's what they do to get the packaged stuff.

 

[perchie.girl]

You can just go get the stuff laying in the sand that washed ashore and then rinse it and dry it? Really? Wow, we live in San Diego and they are a real nuisance on the beach. My husband runs on the beach all the time. Maybe I can get him to pick stuff up before he comes home. Do you get the freshest stuff I'm assuming? Also do you just grind up the kelp leaves or the whole stock and ball like floaters too?

Hi Niqueie....

I am in East County. I have often thought of gathering some up and bringing it home.... It can be pretty stinky so youd have to have a place where you can dry it without the neighbors getting upset with you. For What its worth though San Diego Kelp used to be routinely harvested off Point Loma and was a very big industry. That company shut its doors being regulated out of business. So our Kelp is Good stuff.

If yuou are going to try to dry it for yourself make sure you set up drying racks or someplace to lay it so the air can fully circulate. spreading the fronds out so you can get full circulation.

an excellent article

http://www.instructables.com/id/Dried-Kelp/

Also read the comments below.... There was mention that radioactive isotopes in California kelp in 2012 following the Fukushima nuclear plant accident

deb

 

[niqueie]

I wonder if you can put it in a dehydrator? Thanks so much!! Is it just the leaves? Does anyone know. The stuff they sell for people it looks like just the leaves.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

I live in Nova Scotia and never thought about using seaweed to add to my FF. Given it is so readily available to me on the shoreline I may grab some, dry it, blend it up and add it to the FF once in awhile. Thanks for a great suggestion !

Some people hang it up whole in the coop and let the birds "free choice" how much they want. An interesting idea. A lot of poultry ration recipes already contain seaweed. It is a great source of minerals and salt.

 

[Beekissed]

Does anyone here add thorvin kelp to their ferment? I have some and want to give it to my.girls but im not sure how much or if it should be fermented or offered dry.

I just offered it free choice...it's so packed with minerals and some salt that they can sample it when they need it...that way you won't have to worry about amounts given . Salatin uses it for his livestock, claims the iodine content discourages worm loads. There's a whole write up on that at the Thorvin's website, about the sheep that live on coastal lands.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Two articles on gathering seaweed to eat. I'm sure there are more out there ...

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/The-tide-s-out-and-dinner-s-on-Harvesting-1247227.php

http://sanjuansufficiency.com/harvesting-seaweed-to-eat-ulva-sea-lettuce/

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

I just read a quote from Salatin on the Thorvin website ... he stated that Thorvin Kelp is the only mineral supplement he's been using for his livestock for two decades ... but he has also written very glowingly about Fertrel's Nutri-Balancer for his poultry ... even wrote up a casual experiment where he "tested" various supplements for the poultry, and said the Nutri-Balancer so outperformed the others that he discontinued the experiment and started "just" using Nutri-Balancer.

Hmmmm. It's a puzzle!

 

[Beekissed]

I just read a quote from Salatin on the Thorvin website ... he stated that Thorvin Kelp is the only mineral supplement he's been using for his livestock for two decades ... but he has also written very glowingly about Fertrel's Nutri-Balancer for his poultry ... even wrote up a casual experiment where he "tested" various supplements for the poultry, and said the Nutri-Balancer so outperformed the others that he discontinued the experiment and started "just" using Nutri-Balancer.

Hmmmm. It's a puzzle!

Maybe just a money game wherein corporate money pays for his words on it? I started using kelp meal for my cows, sheep and chickens after reading Salatin's books and I really liked it. The chickens would partake but they don't gobble it up...just eat it when they need it. Same with the sheep...when first putting it out they looked like they would eat it all at the first setting, but that was just the first day and after that they just sampled as they needed. It lasts much longer than other mineral supplements that have molasses in them to encourage the livestock to eat them...the kelp meal they eat because they want to eat it.

I mixed mine with coarse salt only and that's how it was used. The chickens could pick around the coarse salt in that manner.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Maybe just a money game wherein corporate money pays for his words on it? I started using kelp meal for my cows, sheep and chickens after reading Salatin's books and I really liked it. The chickens would partake but they don't gobble it up...just eat it when they need it. Same with the sheep...when first putting it out they looked like they would eat it all at the first setting, but that was just the first day and after that they just sampled as they needed. It lasts much longer than other mineral supplements that have molasses in them to encourage the livestock to eat them...the kelp meal they eat because they want to eat it.

I mixed mine with coarse salt only and that's how it was used. The chickens could pick around the coarse salt in that manner.

Very possibly, or a little too much enthusiasm for the "topic at hand" without remembering the bigger picture? Or a word game where chickens aren't "livestock" for the purposes of this conversation. Who knows.

I eat seaweed pretty frequently myself. I can get some at Costco that is conveniently packaged ... little sheets ... very salty, a little oily. I'm supposed to eat a lot of salt, so this works for me ... and salt is my favorite flavor, but even I find that particular brand "salty." When I have a craving I eat a pack straight. If I were a more energetic shopper (

) I'd go get seaweed salads, etc., from the awesome Asian market. If I were a forager, I'd go harvest it myself. Oh how I'd love to do that! Get some seawater to make my own salt while I was at it. I've always wanted to do that!

More usually I cut up the Costco seaweed sheets into smaller pieces and add it to rice or soup. It is supposed to be very good for helping boost energy ... particularly for women. You can tell picky people it's spinach.

I think kelp is probably a great thing to offer to chickens if chickens are also eating legumes as it helps regulate the thyroid. And if it is clover, alfalfa, field peas or soy, most chickens are eating some kind of legume ...

 

[Tikkijane]

I don't use DE and am not convinced it's a good thing to feed it to the animals or place it everywhere in their environment, so can't really help you with that one. FF has nothing to do with the properties of DE and vice versa...one is an improved feed filled with prebiotics and probiotics and the other is diatom dust..tiny, sharp pieces of silica.  Although it's something to be found in nature, I'm not sure I'd feed it to animals or let them breathe it in their environment.  That's just my thoughts and I'm sure that's not a popular thought on this forum, but as a nurse I just bulk at feeding sharp dust to the birds simply to try and rid it of worms or dust it with sharp dust to rid it of a mite...too many other less destructive ways of doing this without using DE.

The vast majority of food grade DE is amorphous. Crystalline is more the issue and results from being chemically treated and heated, like use for pools.