Do it myself. I drilled small holes in a 5 gal. bucket and placed it down into another. Place the grain in the top bucket, cover the grain/feed with water and soak. I speeded up the fermentation process by introducing a little unpasteurized ACV with a good mother culture in it.
You don't have to do it in the sieve system I setup but it comes in handy to just lift your grain bucket up and let the excess fermented fluid drain off before you feed. Depending on the warmth of the place in which you are doing your fermenting, soaking 8-15 hours is supposed to give your grain time to ferment enough to produce the valuable probiotics you are looking for. They are just pulled from the air...unless you want to speed it up like I did.
I just keep the same fluid in the bottom bucket and just add fresh water when necessary to get the right level to cover my feed. They call that backslopping....keeps those strong cultures in your grain fermenting system. Think sourdough bread...same thing.
Fermenting your grains is supposed to increase your protein by 12%, increase the absorption of your feed nutrients, increase total nutrient value, increase bowel health, increase laying performance, help prevent disease~particularly the intestinal ones like cocci, salmonella, e.coli, lower total feed consumption and thus total feed costs but will cause more weight gain on the lesser amounts of feed.
I've been doing this with my new CX chicks(54) and we are on their 4 th day. Their poop now looks like normal chicken feces, they have consumed less feed than they normally have by now, seem more content on the feed they are eating, prefer the fermented over the dry and are growing well. All bright, active and gaining ground. I am also offering buttermilk free choice in one waterer and unpasteurized ACV in the water of the other waterer...they can't get enough of it but don't seem to have the excessive thirst the CX normally have. Could be because they are not dehydrated from the constant diarrhea typical of this breed.
Okay, now you've got my wife's interest sparked. She wants to know where you get the whole grains. Local feed store, or somewhere else? She's also interested in which grains you're using.
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