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Well, if chicken biology is anything like human, the body absorbs from food only as much of any nutrient as it needs so long as it needs it. Nutrient imbalances typically occur when an essential nutrient is absent in the diet while others are present. (For example, phosphorous can seem to build...

I have so much empathy for you! I thought I would lose my mind waiting for the chicks to hatch during my first incubation experience. And this is why I haven't been able to bring myself to buy actual chicks to be shipped through the mail. I'd probably camp out in the post office and make a...

This is why I wait until my chicks are a week old to start them on fermented feed. I just couldn't keep spending so much timing soaking and cleaning their little feet in warm water after the food hardened on them and they didn't clean it off. I was bathing baby chicks multiple times per day. As...

LOVE your avatar!

Now THAT'S a lot of hungry chicks! Very cute!

Thank you and @Beekissed for educating me! I will be approaching my FF with a much different perspective than I had just a few days ago.

I'm curious to hear what those experienced with large volume FF have to say about this too. I ferment on a much smaller scale in 5 lb buckets because I have a small flock, but I've noticed that there's a certain "cut-off"point when my birds start to reject the feed, presumably because of the...

Part of it has to do with the moisture content, and part of it has to do with the nutritional content. First point - have you ever heard dietary advisers recommend that you drink a full glass of water before a meal so you don't eat as much and thereby lose weight? The moisture in the fermented...

I've seen a few posts from people who say their ducks and geese flat out refused to eat the FF, so if you're going to try it, I would suggest you start with making a small amount so as not to waste food if they reject it.

No, I actually bought sunflower seeds sold specifically for sprouting from Wholefoods grocery. They were in impulse purchase that turned into a staple treat for my birds. I'm not sure that the bird food type is viable for sprouting.

I'm right there with you on the sprouting...especially right now when greens are still hard to come by here in the desert. I love watching my birds eat those sprouted wheat berries like their spaghetti...tickles my funny bone. And their absolute favorite is sprouted sunflower seeds. I also...

I want to preface this by saying my genetics is still rather rusty, but as I understand it, the allele for barring (B) is dominant in the rocks, but is also sex-linked. So if you breed them to a White Rock male, you should get barred males and black females (again) as an outcome. Again, this...

Good to know. Thanks!

Even the classic metal trays with the dividers work well. I just slide the lid off, soak for 10 minutes, and everything washes off.

Typically when you give the chicks a starter feed mix made for them you don't need to supply any grit. If it's a custom blend I guess the answer is "maybe". The way I see it, there's no harm in offering chick grit. I currently have eleven Naked Neck Turkens that are just over a week old in a...

Only on the BYC can I find conversations about how to catch flies over dog pooh.

You have the same kind of luck I do!

They definitely eat less FF than dry food. I spent about 2 weeks feeding my birds nothing but FF to get them used to it. Since then, and largely because of convenience issues, I've reintroduced some dry food as well as daily FF feedings, and decided to conduct an experiment. I offered both types...

I've discovered that my birds definitely prefer a longer fermentation vs a shorter one. The food I ferment for 3-4 days gets gobbled up almost immediately, but they showed far less enthusiasm for the food that had only fermented 2 days even though I had backslopped in the hope of accelerating...

When I put the food back out in the coop ALL of my birds went crazy for it this time, but the Australorps still seem to favor it the most. I'm a happy (chicken) mommy.