Meat Bird Project - Delaware, White Rock, Dark Cornish

[KoopOnTruckin]

Awesome!

I am so excited to see you both do this "work" for me! I love it!

Anything we can do to help!!

 

[Dlmillion]

I'm glad to hear you like the spreadsheet! I'm still working on it and deciding all the data I want to track but I feel like I have a decent start.

To answer your question, the "Week 1" weights were taken when the chicks were three days old (a day after i got them in the mail). I was using a big ol' shipping scale that wasn't exactly ideal for light weight items like baby chicks so i think I'm going to pick up a food scale before the next weigh in. I'm thinking that it might be best to do the next weigh in when the chicks are exactly two weeks old, put that under the "Week 2" column, and move forward from there weekly.

I plan on using zip ties to ID all the chicks until the wing bands arrive in (hopefully) two weeks or so just so that i cant start tracking individual development and have better data to choose my breeders by.

"Hillary" was such a good chick and I was sad to see her go but alas... such is life


As far as fermented feeds go, I've done quite a bit of research on the topic of "Korean Natural Farming" which is more of a modern development that is truly intriguing. The basic concept is to harvest indigenous beneficial micro-organisms, grow/breed them, and then introduce them into your garden, animal pens, and feeds. The method utilizes fermented fruits and fruit juices by inoculating them with the indigenous bacteria and feeding them to livestock or simply spraying them in the garden. I've experimented with it some in my garden with fairly significant increase in plant health.
As for chickens, I harvested and grew some indigenous bacteria and inoculated my brooder/coop area with it and there is no smell coming from the chicks at all! The reason for this is, if you give the beneficial bacteria a head start, it'll overtake any bad stuff such as e.-coli, salmonella, campylobacter, and coccidia.

Anyways, to make a long story longer, from what I've experienced through the use of beneficial bacteria-laden inputs, I am willing to wager that fermented feeds would be absolutely beneficial

 

[Kiki]

So with the amount of chicks I now have, I'm going through about as much food as I expected when I started the project. I'm probably at a rate of about 4 lbs of feed per pound of growth - that is overall, for all 3 types of chicks, and including the spillage.

However, I've been reading about fermented feed and it seems like the cost- and health-benefits are just too good to pass up. The conversion rate is supposed to go down, and they're supposed to have better immunity and health overall. I just started my first batch of fermented feed for both my meat chicks and my current layers. I fully expect there to be some transition time, but I don't expect it to affect their growth rate at all, just their feed consumption.

Any thoughts on this?

I feed the fermented food and I highly believe to cuts down on food waste and how much they eat.
I don't have any hard figures to show you but I am thinking now about how I can start to calculate the food I use per day for my new batch of 9 chicks that will be arriving next Thursday.

 

[Kiki]

I'm glad to hear you like the spreadsheet! I'm still working on it and deciding all the data I want to track but I feel like I have a decent start.

To answer your question, the "Week 1" weights were taken when the chicks were three days old (a day after i got them in the mail). I was using a big ol' shipping scale that wasn't exactly ideal for light weight items like baby chicks so i think I'm going to pick up a food scale before the next weigh in. I'm thinking that it might be best to do the next weigh in when the chicks are exactly two weeks old, put that under the "Week 2" column, and move forward from there weekly.

I plan on using zip ties to ID all the chicks until the wing bands arrive in (hopefully) two weeks or so just so that i cant start tracking individual development and have better data to choose my breeders by.

"Hillary" was such a good chick and I was sad to see her go but alas... such is life


As far as fermented feeds go, I've done quite a bit of research on the topic of "Korean Natural Farming" which is more of a modern development that is truly intriguing. The basic concept is to harvest indigenous beneficial micro-organisms, grow/breed them, and then introduce them into your garden, animal pens, and feeds. The method utilizes fermented fruits and fruit juices by inoculating them with the indigenous bacteria and feeding them to livestock or simply spraying them in the garden. I've experimented with it some in my garden with fairly significant increase in plant health.
As for chickens, I harvested and grew some indigenous bacteria and inoculated my brooder/coop area with it and there is no smell coming from the chicks at all! The reason for this is, if you give the beneficial bacteria a head start, it'll overtake any bad stuff such as e.-coli, salmonella, campylobacter, and coccidia.

Anyways, to make a long story longer, from what I've experienced through the use of beneficial bacteria-laden inputs, I am willing to wager that fermented feeds would be absolutely beneficial

My last "batch" of chicken were started on the FF at one week of age....
Boy i wish I would have started a week earlier.
I noticed way less poop and absolutely NO smell from my brooder.

 

[Kiki]

I am surprised by how many people are NOT here watching this thread.
I am very excited about your results.
Very very interesting to me!

I highly recommend the FF.
I am by far not an expert but I did spend a good amount of time researching chickens before I got "into" them and I can't imagine why one would NOT feed fermented food.

If is not hard to do AT ALL.

 

[Kiki]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/644300/fermenting-feed-for-meat-birds

 

[Bigshooter]

My chicks are 6 weeks old today. I plan on getting some weights a 8 weeks old.

 

[Ulladh]

Really interesting guys and nice to see someone else at this now! Great spreadsheets! I'll be sorting mine by cable ties as well which are cheap and coloured in those bargain stored

 

[KoopOnTruckin]

My last "batch" of chicken were started on the FF at one week of age....
Boy i wish I would have started a week earlier.
I noticed way less poop and absolutely NO smell from my brooder.

Yes, I would love to see a reduction in the amount and smell of their poop. I have my youngest set still in the house, and very stinky. Does anyone know if the FF composts quicker, or if there are any other benefits from FF to the garden?

 

[KoopOnTruckin]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/644300/fermenting-feed-for-meat-birds

That Beekissed is really knowledgeable, yes I'm about on page 25 of that thread so far - still got a long way to go but I picked up the basics. I started by chick feed and layer feed yesterday afternoon, and they're both bubbling away so far today. I was shocked at how much they expanded, even though I was fully warned about it.

FOR ANYONE CONSIDERING FERMENTING THEIR FEED, READ THAT THREAD!!!!