Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[AVintageLife]

This is one of the best threads on BYC, thanks to all the OT's for helping newbies like me figure out the how-to's and benefits of FF.

 

[Lacy Blues]

Wheat... several problems arise with wheat which can be overcome if you are diligent. The max fed in any poultry diet should be no more than 50% due to being extremely deficient in amino acids. It should be noted it is also extremely inconsistent and difficult to analyze... so protein content will vary a lot. If you are going to add it to FF, do not grind it fine, it becomes very sticky when wet and can cause beak impaction.
Firmer stools can also be an effect... this could be good or bad... too much wheat could cause constipation.
I suspect many photos you see of chicks who have been eating FF and have messy faces have wheat in them. Cute as they are, I don't believe the reason behind those messy faces (even for chicks) is a good idea.
I personally like wheat and use a little at times. Make sure you know what you are looking for... hard winter being more desirable than soft.
So... like any ingredient... balance is required... most ingredients have a percentage limit for various reasons... fish meal and kelp is the most common due to fishy eggs.

To do a spreadsheet for someone I need a list of all ingredients they use - the list should be broken down into two parts... grains and premix. If it's something uncommon or not consistent I need the protein of that ingredient.

I love heart... yes it's better than liver for many reasons. I don't feed it to the chickens but I feed a lot of raw beef heart to my maremma - especially when nursing a litter. We have our own beef and sheep heart, but if we run out and have to purchase they are very inexpensive... $.75/ea for one 5-7 lb heart.
I really like the BSF for animal protein for layers (way to much calcium for chicks). However, I now only feed BSF in the winter since they free range all summer.
The problem I run into with heart and other meat is keeping the ration consistent... I can weigh the BSF and know how many lbs I need per day for the flock to keep my ration balanced. I have never attempted to balance in raw meat, but suppose it could be done. Everything I do I do by weight... if I don't and someone else has to feed on a given day, there is too much inconsistency with "a scoop of this and two scoops of that". I feed hundreds of head of livestock... I have to make what I do each day easy for someone else to duplicate in an emergency.

Hope that helps.

Yes, thank you. Right now I'm using a mixture of four whole grains, none of them are ground or cracked. I use a quart each of oats, wheat and barley. I use a half quart of milo. This is what I toss into my ferment bucket. Sometimes I have sprouts for them and I'm trying again on the fodder.

I live in stock yard land. There is a local slaughter house where I may be able to get some heart pretty cheap, I hope.

Now, to Desert Homestead (I think that's your name), you talked about drying beef liver about a week ago. Can you explain to me how you were planning to do this? I figure if I get some heart, if I can get a lot of it that I will slice it thin, fry it a little, run it through a grinder and then spread it out in the sun to dry. After it is dry, what I'd like to do is put it in some empty feed sacks and then weigh out however much I would need to have a balanced ration.

Something I was planning to look up but haven't done it yet was whether sunflower leaves would be ok to add to the ration for a green feed. I don't have any growing right now, I do have comfrey, which they seem to LOVE and I have some pasture seed that I intend to make grazing frames for. I live in the desert and there isn't much worth mentioning in the way of free ranging. We have lots of stray dogs around here and aerial predators as well so everybody has to live in their pens. I make the pens as big as I can to allow room for exercise. I am currently working on some "environment enhancement" ideas.

 

[AletaG]

So I was silly one day at Cash n Carry, picked up a 5lb thing of soft serve mix. Full of sugar, corn syrup and coconut oil... aaand. My kids HATE it. So, can I add it to my FF, or am I risking drunk chickens?

 

[Lacy Blues]

I think the sugar and corn syrup would do them in.

 

[swirler]

You could probably construct a cupcake recipe out of the soft serve mix, though.

 

[AletaG]

I think the sugar and corn syrup would do them in.

Yah, would do ME in, so probably no good for them... even the mealie worms won't want that junk. WWIT?

You could probably construct a cupcake recipe out of the soft serve mix, though.

Hmmm. I'll wait 'til school starts again, and drop sugar bombs on the class!! Er, no. I think maybe I should just grit my teeth, go against my 'waste not want not' training, and just NEVER EVER buy that crap again.

Oh, and how much liver could I feed 20 chickens? Noticed others chatting about it, and I bought WAY too much for my dog, who can only have 1oz/day on average it turns out, and I've got, um, 240 oz uncut in the freezer... If I can feed some to chickies, that'd be nice...
Cheers all!

 

[Peneliva]

So question about fermented feed. How long can it sit out? I am going to start feeding fermented feed and I typically just feed them at 8 AM when I get off work.

Do they need to have ate it all in one sitting?

 

[Brada Puhi]

Aloha kakou, ​

I just wanted to share what I do. I wrote this for other people, so most of it you guys already know. Feel free to comment:

First I ferment some chicken feed(layer pellets or whatever). I use a milk carton with top cut off. I put about a cup of feed in there and a lot of water and stir. After an hour the feed has expanded, stir again and add water if needed. There should be 1-2 inches of water covering the feed at all times. Lactic acid bacteria will start to grow in your feed this requires no oxygen. Oxygen will let the bad bacteri grow. The lactic acid bacteria is beneficial to the digestive and immune systems and breaks food down to get more nutrition out of it.

The next day, I add flax seed, stir, add water if needed.

The next morning, I add uncooked brown rice and a little more feed to soak up the water on the top. Stir and wait 5 minutes for the feed to expand. Then you have a nice mush to feed to the chickens. I do not feed all of the food. Only about half or 2/3. The rest is a culture for the future.

After feeding I add flax seed, maybe more feed, top it with water and let it ferment until sunset.

Before sunset, I add feed to soak up water and feed them. Add water.

The next morning, I add uncooked brown rice, and a little more feed to soak up the water on the top. wait 5 minutes, then feed them. Add flax and water. And the process continues like that.

The uncooked brown rice expands their digestive tract and makes their digestive tract more efficient. The poo will stink less. Whatever rice that is left in the mush will get fermented. I put in flax after the feeding so that it soaks and ferments for a while before I feed.

This is influenced by the natural farming method people.

Mahalo for reading, Puhi

​

 

[Costa Rica Art]

So I was silly one day at Cash n Carry, picked up a 5lb thing of soft serve mix. Full of sugar, corn syrup and coconut oil... aaand. My kids HATE it. So, can I add it to my FF, or am I risking drunk chickens?

I would just add a little at a time to your fermentation mash. Allowing the mash to ferment with LAB or ACV or natural yogurt will convert the sugar and corn syrup alcohol to good probiotics, no problem for your chickens. I ferment my mash for 4 days, I add molasses to the mash, by the time I feed the FF there is no longer any alcohol in the mash.

 

[3 NH reds]

So question about fermented feed. How long can it sit out? I am going to start feeding fermented feed and I typically just feed them at 8 AM when I get off work. Do they need to have ate it all in one sitting

Mash can sit out all day with no problem. As far as do they need to eat it all at once depends on what percentage of their daily feed it is and what is in the mash and the nutritional value of the mash. A simple mash like just cracked corn fermented would not be enough to feed that exclusively but if you are fermenting a balanced chicken feed there is no reason to limit it other than to make sure they eat it in 24 hours.I ferment corn or scratch grains so I give them what they can eat in 1/2 hour or so, it's great for their health and I get better looking eggs then when I get lazy and let them eat layer food only. Mash really cuts down on the feed bill; I used it last year with our 8 Turkey because 8 Turkey can eat you to the poor house.