Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

Mine are the same way with whole oats; they have tons of scratcvh oats around the run but they gobble the fermented oats right up.

Started fermenting chick starter yesterday; the new batch arrives tomorrow

Good morning! I ended up having to change my system a little due to increased feed demands from the little stinkers. I work such long days that I can't fill their feeders full enough of the FF to last them until I get home again. So now I have their baby feeder full of dry crumbles and their larger feeder full of the FF and I'll pick up another larger feeder for them tomorrow. I also noticed that after they gorge on the FF they all go under their heat lamps which they do not normally do when they are just lounging around. Is this normal for them to need to warm up after eating or is it because the FF is wet and they feel cold? I'm hoping that having access to dry crumbles as well (which they find interesting to eat but are more picking at it rather than plowing into it like they do with the FF) will maybe stop the frantic gorging that they do. It's funny though. Even if their troughs are full they will still all start eating the second that they see me. I am apparently a large dinner bell.

One general question too. I have one fellow with a poopy butt. He seems fine otherwise and he is able to poop okay. He does seem to go more frequently than the others and he is slightly different than everyone in that he is a darker yellow bird than the rest of them and he occaisionally makes a bit of a snorting sound. He is bright and alert, eats well and the others seem to like him fine. I picked him up to try and clean him off and I got a bit off but the rest was stuck to his feathers and I did'nt want to stress him out more. Should I just leave it? Is this normal?

Thanks!

Take a warm saturated rag and hold it to his butt and hold it there. After a minute or two, the stuff will come off his butt. You need to clean it off so it don't get any more pasted.

As for feeding, my birds are the same way. They stand at my feet while I drain the liquid off their feed. They pick at the slippers I wear out to their coop. I might start feeding outside like everyone else. I have been feeding in the coop up till now. I may start feeding closer to the house so I don't have to walk all they way out to the coop.

I like the warm rag idea. We've been using q-tips with warm water.
Our guys have to go outside for food once they're feathered. No breakfast in bed.

I asked my wife about the alcohol smell in the FF. She says it just the smell of fermentation. I was just getting paranoid i think.

She also reminded me about how much better the coop smells.

I had a batch that went bad, too. I think it was high pH, I had two buckets going but one had less ACV in it and that one went bad waste of food but I am loving the FF so far.

I plan on making FF as soon as I get my braggs. I have been writing down the different feeds everyone has been using. I am doing layer, oats, all stock and rabbit pellets to feed my chickens now. And so far they are eating everything. I just do a handful of the rabbit but everyother day or so, and the same with the sweet feed.
I have chick starter for the chicks so I may just ferment thiers with either some oats or a little bit of scratch. Have not decided yet.
when
I have heard not good to give them scratch in the summer though it makes them to hot? Or does it not do this to them when its fermented?

I'm currently mixing scratch and starter/grower for my layers. I'm fermenting non-medicated Purina for my broilers and 5 new layers. I may have to check into oats, though.

MyTDogs said:

The smells y'all are describing sound to me like bacterial contamination.  Is it possible the pH gets too high & stops fermentation?  Maybe topping it off with some more ACV periodically?  I have only been running mine for a week or so.  We'll see how long it lasts.  I think Kasaundra(?) said hers was going for a year or more...

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Oh it is definatly a contamination. I kmew that as soon as I had realized that it had gone bad. I was trying to say it, but I think that I was being unnesseciralu confusing. The PH may well have changed, I'm still thinking tjat it came in with the bad water from my drip pan. Yeast and other fermentimg microbes produse chemicals that are poisonous to the 'bad' molds, that why pickling and fermenting are uses to preserve foods. But the water in my drip pan didn't have enough yeast or food in it to fight of the contamination from the bugs that drowned in it. That contamination was then able to establish itself and begin producing chemicals that kill yeast and "good" microbes. When I dumped the contaminated water back into the main bucket, the established contamination was able to fight and slowly kill off all the "good stuff". I'll probably try adding acv more regularly to maintain ph in this batch. And be MUCH more vigilant about payong attention to small things like the drip pan, lol.

Bee and others, of my 20 meaties I have 1 who seems to be runtish. I know that my trough is not quite big enough anymore for all of the hefty butts to get in there at once so I am making one tomorrow, just nailing some boards together, but is there another reason why she is smaller? I brought her away from the others and fed her by herself tonight, and she ate quite well. I didn't notice any obvious problems, she gets around just fine, her crop and bum both looked good, she just seems so much smaller... I am considering moving her back in with the other babies I got at the same time as her (then she will be the biggest, lol) but what if she is ill? I didn't get any pics tonight as it was getting dark out, but I will in the morning. Hoping she does ok overnight!

Oh, and I may just be falling for this one... lol

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It's in the genes - something to do with the way CX are bred. A small percentage will not grow like the others. I thinks its about 5%, so 1 in 20 is about right. In my batch of 25 I got 2 runts.



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I'm a sucker like that too. We had one meatie who wasn't doing too good at the start. I drew a stripe on his back so we could identify him. He's the only meatie with a name - we call him Stripey.