Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[jeapa]

Okay attempt number 2.

 

[jeapa]

A few more.

 

[Beekissed]

Those are absolutely beautiful birds!!!! Very healthy, very sleek looking! Bravo!!!

The pics are very well done...love the birds out on the grass.

 

[jeapa]

Those are absolutely beautiful birds!!!! Very healthy, very sleek looking! Bravo!!!

The pics are very well done...love the birds out on the grass.

Thanks Beekissed. I really think the FF helps and I am glad I found this thread. I wish I could let my birds Free range more than just the -3-4 hours. My girls spend most of there time out searching for bugs, eating grass and weeds, what could be better for them? They have learned to follow me around the yard because I will turn over rocks and roll logs so they can get the goodies underneath... there is nothing funnier than watching a chicken with a tasty bug being chased by 5 other chickens trying to steal what they got...LOL..

 

[Miss Lydia]

Those are absolutely beautiful birds!!!! Very healthy, very sleek looking! Bravo!!!

The pics are very well done...love the birds out on the grass.

X2 Beautiful

 

[galanie]

Thanks Beekissed. I really think the FF helps and I am glad I found this thread. I wish I could let my birds Free range more than just the -3-4 hours. My girls spend most of there time out searching for bugs, eating grass and weeds, what could be better for them? They have learned to follow me around the yard because I will turn over rocks and roll logs so they can get the goodies underneath... there is nothing funnier than watching a chicken with a tasty bug being chased by 5 other chickens trying to steal what they got...LOL..

I still have 3 of my first chickens and when they were around 3 months or so old I'd let them out and turn over rocks, etc for them just that same way. Now, three years later, one of them still remembers. If I say her name and tap on a log or rock, she'll come running and wait for me to turn it over for her. Yeah, she's spoiled. The rest are pretty much just chickens but my originals are really just pets. They'll never get diapers but they won't be sacrificed when they get old either.

 

[MJFarm12]

I've been using kefir as the culture to ferment my turkey feed for 9 white turkeys. I'm up to week 7. I lost one yesterday to what I guess was hexamitiasis judging from the symptoms. I caught it kind of late, I think. Maybe I could have saved her if I had seen her weight loss earlier. Anyhow, I've noticed what folks are saying about the absence of bad odor when on fermented feed. I have noticed the turkey pen (it gets moved to fresh grass daily) does smell bad pretty quickly, and I wondered if I have other turkeys with the disease. The remaining eight appear to be growing fine, eating and drinking fine, and don't appear to have the symptoms the sick one had--except maybe some brown poop.
I'm going to try adding some cider vinegar to the water for a few days and see if there is any improvement and may try fermenting with the vinegar next time I fill the bucket with feed.

Or are turkeys just stinkier, generally?

Also, I noticed the dead turkey had probably died of a heart attack--the heart was soft and loose. Any thoughts on this?

I thought I would update in case it helps anyone. I switched over to using the ACV with my feed instead of kefir for a few days, and the stink has gone down a bit. All the 8 look great and are thriving. I happened to see that they are bigger than my brother's 8 turkeys from the same chick shipment. He is not fermenting feed. I used game starter, and I think he used regular chick starter--so that may be a factor in my bigger birds as well.

 

[jeapa]

Galanie, they do become treasured pets don't they? I am tying my hardest to remain a little less attached, but it isn't easy. I really liked my rir cockerel and I hated to part with him.

I want to add a couple new chicks each year so that my flock will be different ages. This will mean I need to either cull or build a bigger coop run. I think 10-12 birds is my limit with the space i have so I will probably just give away the extras. I haven't figured out what I will do as my oldest chickens become non-layers.

 

[galanie]

Galanie, they do become treasured pets don't they? I am tying my hardest to remain a little less attached, but it isn't easy. I really liked my rir cockerel and I hated to part with him.
I want to add a couple new chicks each year so that my flock will be different ages. This will mean I need to either cull or build a bigger coop run. I think 10-12 birds is my limit with the space i have so I will probably just give away the extras. I haven't figured out what I will do as my oldest chickens become non-layers.

They do if you let them. But I figure since they were the first I ever had, and there's only 3, then that's ok. I'll love them and the others, while being well cared for and named as well, just won't ever have the same status in my mind. It is hard to do, agreed.

 

[Kassaundra]

I started with a simple reply, then it got longer and longer, then really long. So I cut it out and here's what's left.

For growability in your region, start here. http://www.sare.org/publications/covercrops/covercrops.pdf
Pages 66-72 have great comparative info on ryes, wheats, clovers, peas, vetch, and lots more.
Crimson clover specifics are on page 130.

For mineral composition, http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/livestk/01615.html

Potential poison? Check here. http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/plants/comlist.html (Kinda iffy on this one. It says not to feed certain clovers or vetch to chickens, but I've read of many, many people feeding their chickens all kinds of clovers and vetches.)

DISCLAIMER: I haven't done what I'm about to tell you. It's just my plans and what I've read.

FYI: I have 5 acres of ryegrass, bromegrass, orchardgrass; 1.5 acres alfalfa; 4 acres white clover; 3 acres yellow clover; all planted in my orchard(2 weeks ago, barely sprouting). I'm testing them for Nitrogen return back into the soil, ground aeration, soil stability, shade tolerance, drought tolerance, flood tolerance. SO, my answers aren't completely full of BULL. I just haven't tested everything on chickens YET.

Simple answers. Too much fiber? It's roughly the same as alfalfa. There isn't a line for Crimson on the mineral composition page, I looked at the highest CF(crude fiber) for all the clovers. Just offer the silaged product along side what you're feeding now. Or, my plans are to add some chopped clover and alfalfa to my FF buckets and just let it ferment together. Don't know if this'll work, but somewhere in the last 1500 posts, people have fermented alfalfa cubes no problemo. So this should as well.

Cutting to keep it short? Clover is grazed by ranchers all over the place. It only needs to establish a good root system before turning them out on it so they don't pull it up by the roots. It should easily survive regular trimmings, just don't go as short as you would in your yard. Maybe the highest lawnmower setting?

Clover Silage Chicken Eatability? Edibility? This one I have no idea. Did a quick Bing search and just reading highlights, it looks doable for chickens. When I planted a whole 2 weeks ago, I was testing mostly for the orchard and fresh vittles for the chickens. Tests will be expanded to fermenting with current feed mix.

Hope this helps.

Very interesting, I've been wondering about adding green plant material to my fermenting.