ANOTHER "OATS" QUESTION

[JNB]

A rescue house! That's an investment!

Aggiemae, please give more details. So, you are feeding your hens what percentage of ferminted oats/grains? What is sprouted BOSS? And what else do you feed them?

Mine have not been laying for a month now due to illness. No eggs, but plenty of appetite. Our last $30 bag of feed only lasted a week or two. I can't keep this up; I need an alternative.

Here is the Link to FF Thread.... I cant recommend trying it enough... I tell people that at first it may seem like more work.. But once you get a system down and work out the kinks... PLUS see the benefits.. You will be glad you tried it

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

 

[aggiemae]

A rescue house! That's an investment!

Aggiemae, please give more details. So, you are feeding your hens what percentage of ferminted oats/grains? What is sprouted BOSS? And what else do you feed them?

Mine have not been laying for a month now due to illness. No eggs, but plenty of appetite. Our last $30 bag of feed only lasted a week or two. I can't keep this up; I need an alternative.

We usually don't foster any animals larger than goats but we took in a really skinny rescue HORSE for the local shelter because they where desperate.

This is what we feed our chickens:

ALMOST FREE:

Sprouted BOSS= Sprouted Black Oil Sunflower seeds. They are expensive in the store but I grow the sunflowers myself (we got 20 pounds from the head of one of last years crop this year) and sprout them in cookie sheets until the sprouts have two leaves.

I grow pumpkins to have on hand to feed as a treat over the winter. The seeds are a natural worm preventative.

FREE

I pick up a big box of produce overripe and trimming from our grocery store

Grubs- grown intentionally in our compost

WORMS- raised for casting/fertilizer. They reproduce quickly in the spring we sell them but mostly We feed the excess to the chickens. We get about 4-6 oz per bin so one pound per month of pure protein. I could probably do this more often if I had too

Produce- Trimmings from the garden, table scraps and mostly the rimming and overripe produce we pick up for the grocery store twice a week . What the hens don't eat goes into our compost or worm bin. Most stores will do this as it saves them disposal fees.

LOW COST:

FERMENTED GRAINS- I feed them all they can eat in half an hour, twice a day. It's 40% (or less) of their diet. in summer and probably close to 60% in winter. Fermenting increases the usable protein in Oats from 11% to 18% and HULLED OATS can up to 66% of a layers diet. I buy what ever grain is cheapest. The (hulled) whole oats where $8.00 for 50 lbs, The previous bag was milled mixed grains and cost $16.00 for 35 pounds.

You can ferment commercial feeds. I have read that it cuts the monthly cost of feed in half. I never measured the exact amount but I think my hens eat about 1/3 to 1/2 less that they ate before I started fermenting.

I also keep an eye out for expiring active culture yogurt, sour cream and buttermilk and feed about 8oz sprinkle with cayenne pepper seeds as a worm preventative once or twice a week.

EXPENSIVE:

Cascade Organic Feed- it's about $35.00 for a 50 pound bag but I bought it in April and have about 10 pound left. We use this when we are away from home because it's best not to make things to complicated when someone else is caring for your animals and garden.

Hope this is helpful.

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

sadly many think but are miss lead that pumpkin and cayenne help "naturally" deworm. if the birds touch the ground in any fashion I would be curious to the results of a fecal test by a Vet. Everyone I know who bragged about "natural" deworming ways were shocked to know how worm loaded their birds really were.

not here to start an argument, I will most likely not find this thread again, but their are many pages online of misinformation. DE also does not work for deworming as it does not work when wet (internally).


Fermenting grains, HIGHLY recommend it. Does it cut the total feed cost? YOU BETCHA! We have had fabulous results with fermenting whole oats and whole wheat to offer to our ducks and geese (Dewlap Toulouse and Sebastopols) with great body weight, good feather condition. Great laying from the ducks. The chickens took a few days to get use to it, but they too enjoy the grains. All get a small portion of pellet as well daily. Mazuri for the waterfowl and Layena Omega 3 for the chickens. We use about 1/3 the total feed we were before starting to ferment the grains.

 

[aggiemae]

sadly many think but are miss lead that pumpkin and cayenne help "naturally" deworm. if the birds touch the ground in any fashion I would be curious to the results of a fecal test by a Vet. Everyone I know who bragged about "natural" deworming ways were shocked to know how worm loaded their birds really were.

not here to start an argument, I will most likely not find this thread again, but their are many pages online of misinformation. DE also does not work for deworming as it does not work when wet (internally).


Fermenting grains, HIGHLY recommend it. Does it cut the total feed cost? YOU BETCHA! We have had fabulous results with fermenting whole oats and whole wheat to offer to our ducks and geese (Dewlap Toulouse and Sebastopols) with great body weight, good feather condition. Great laying from the ducks. The chickens took a few days to get use to it, but they too enjoy the grains. All get a small portion of pellet as well daily. Mazuri for the waterfowl and Layena Omega 3 for the chickens. We use about 1/3 the total feed we were before starting to ferment the grains.

I have kept chickens for 25 years and have used poison to worm them TWICE in all that time and as they are free ranged so it's very unlikely that they do not have regular contact with worms (and other parasite). While pumpkin/yogurt and cayenne might not treat an infestation I maintain that keeping your chickens guts inhospitable to worms will prevent an overgrowth of worms. The key is PREVENTION. BTW I do check for worms with a microscope regularly and send fecal samples to the vet if my hens so any signs of parasite infestation and it's rare for there to be more than an occasional (and expected) larva or worm segment in the sample which would be true even if you were worming with insecticide regularly.

Worming is an easy solution and lots people seem to have an "it can't hurt" attitude but the truth is every time you worm you are feeding your chickens poison. IMO people tend to think it's worms when ever their chicken are "off" and often treat unnecessarily. Just something to think about.

 

[jewel1]

You know what I like about this thread? That it's informative and there are so many people are chiming in with differing opinions and evening questioning some of the things other posters have said...

Yet, it's all stayed polite and pleasant...they way it should be when we have a converstaion!

I see so many threads where a discussion like this turns to arguments...it's really depressing.

Thanks for making me smile (and teaching me a few things)!