Best Fermented Grains/Feed for Chickens

[Ullie]

I am going into town this afternoon and wanted to pick up some grains to Ferment.
Wondering what are some of the better choices in grains for my chickens.

I apologize if this has already been posted some where else or within another post.

Thank you

 

[nipper75]

I was wondering the same thing..lol

 

[Ullie]

There seems to be quite a few posts concerning Fermented Feeds, some with so many pages that it would take you the whole afternoon plus to just to read them.

I want to try this myself but for now I am still reading through some of the posts.
Would love to read an article and included what grains you can use and what to be concerned about...... whole vs rolled, broken wheat, winter rye/grain is it all the same what's the difference. feed vs seed,

You don't know what you don't know

 

[Island Roo]

You don't want to read 300 pages of posts to get that?

[disclaimer - me not expert. just feed chicken and read long fermented thread]

Any grains / crumble / pellets / mash can be fermented. Most people on this forum do a mix of grains with a prepared poultry feed (i.e. mash) since grains alone does not provide ideal nutrient levels.

Deciding what to ferment is not really the right question. You should decide what you want to feed your chickens (in general) then ferment it. There's lots of resources about that...

My current fermented feed is a mix of 1/2 18% poultry stater mash and and 1/2 hen scratch which consists of whole wheat, whole oats and field fields. Everyone does something a little different. Some use barley cause it's cheap. There have been some unfavourable studies about the use of barley in the poultry industry but the backyard chicken folks seem to be having success with it.

My preference is to NOT to use cracked, cut or rolled, or otherwise processed grains because as soon as you process the grain in any way it starts to degrade. I use the starter mash for convenience to get the missing nutrients and keep the protein percentage acceptable.

 

[Ullie]

You don't want to read 300 pages of posts to get that?

[disclaimer - me not expert. just feed chicken and read long fermented thread]

Any grains / crumble / pellets / mash can be fermented. Most people on this forum do a mix of grains with a prepared poultry feed (i.e. mash) since grains alone does not provide ideal nutrient levels.

Deciding what to ferment is not really the right question. You should decide what you want to feed your chickens (in general) then ferment it. There's lots of resources about that...

My current fermented feed is a mix of 1/2 18% poultry stater mash and and 1/2 hen scratch which consists of whole wheat, whole oats and field fields. Everyone does something a little different. Some use barley cause it's cheap. There have been some unfavourable studies about the use of barley in the poultry industry but the backyard chicken folks seem to be having success with it.

My preference is to NOT to use cracked, cut or rolled, or otherwise processed grains because as soon as you process the grain in any way it starts to degrade. I use the starter mash for convenience to get the missing nutrients and keep the protein percentage acceptable.

Thank you very much for breaking this down and for sharing what you are fermenting and how it breaks down.
I didn't realize

that you ferment any prepared poultry feed and add grain to it or why you used poultry feed.
This is all good stuff to know, thanks.

I've had my chickens a month now, they haven't started laying eggs yet (Marans born May/June). When I first got them I bought layer mash but then went back to feed store the next week and bought grower feed after reading that until they start laying you shouldn't feed layer feed.

So today I am going to fermenting some feed using the layer mash (use that up) and next time I am at the feed store I will buy some grains to mix in.

 

[Chris09]

Oats has be fermented for many many years for livestock feed with good success.

The one thing that you have to remember about fermenting grains and feeds is that there is a fine line between "healthy" fermented feed and "unhealthy" fermented feed.



Chris

 

[Ullie]

Oats has be fermented for many many years for livestock feed with good success.

The one thing that you have to remember about fermenting grains and feeds is that there is a fine line between "healthy" fermented feed and "unhealthy" fermented feed.



Chris

Chris, perhaps you can expand on this a little like what constitutes 'healthy' and what is 'unhealthy' apart from the obvious too old and rotten.

Thank you

 

[Chris09]

Chris, perhaps you can expand on this a little like what constitutes 'healthy' and what is 'unhealthy' apart from the obvious too old and rotten.

Thank you

If left to ferment to long you can loose nutritional value and build up a alcohol content in the liquid.

Chris

 

[Ullie]

If left to ferment to long you can loose nutritional value and build up a alcohol content in the liquid.

Chris

Chris perhaps you can define too long

 

[Chris09]

Chris perhaps you can define too long

It depends a lot on whether and temperature but In the summer I ferment grain around 4 or 5 days.

Chris