Best way to fatten up dual purpose birds?

[RollinWithTheStones]

Looking for some good ways to fatten up production red roosters. Currently they're 5 weeks old and I'd hope to process beginning of June.

 

[rwdeets23]

I'm not sure if this is the best way but in the past i wood feed mine a mix of cracked corn and starter feed. my thought was the starter had more protein, but we always have chicks on starter and we grow the corn so its really no extra cost to do it with a few birds every once in awhile. and i never really paid attention to exactly how long it took to get them ready.. but im sure some one else on here has it down to a science

 

[Kilsharion]

Check out the fermented feed thread. Seems a lot of people are getting pretty good results with it.

 

[rwdeets23]

Check out the fermented feed thread. Seems a lot of people are getting pretty good results with it.

checked it out, that does look good, may try that myself

 

[RollinWithTheStones]

Looks like I'm going to have to try it. I need to find a place that sells raw ACV though, I've never seen it sold on this side of town.

Think it would be fine to mix chick crumbles (since they're still 5 weeks old) and 7 grain before switching to a flock raiser and 7 grain scratch.

I've also heard of some people feeding cat fish food to their meat birds to bulk them up a bit. Anyone done this before? If you have is it okay for layer hens as well?

How much should I make at a time of the fermented feed and does it store well outside in a coop?

 

[Kilsharion]

Looks like I'm going to have to try it. I need to find a place that sells raw ACV though, I've never seen it sold on this side of town.

Think it would be fine to mix chick crumbles (since they're still 5 weeks old) and 7 grain before switching to a flock raiser and 7 grain scratch.

I've also heard of some people feeding cat fish food to their meat birds to bulk them up a bit. Anyone done this before? If you have is it okay for layer hens as well?

How much should I make at a time of the fermented feed and does it store well outside in a coop?

Avoid cat food for your chickens. It has stuff in it that just flat out is not good for birds. As a very rare treat, it's fine. But, it is not good as a staple diet.

Your fermented feed should be going constantly - just like a sourdough mother. When you take feed out, you put feed and water back in.

You can start a fermented feed without ACV if you can't find any with mother (though Heinz has started putting out a version of it with mother that a lot of the larger chains are now carrying). Just yeast and warm water will get a fermentation going with your feed - it just takes a wee bit longer to get lively. Maybe toss a very slight bit of sugar in there to wake the yeast up.

Using chick crumbles is fine - a lot of people do. And, to answer your question on the FF forum - yes, wild bird feed can be added; but, I'd make it a small portion of what you are doing. You want at least two thirds of the mix to be your crumbles. The other third can be a mix of scratch grains, wild bird feed, legumes, etc.

 

[RollinWithTheStones]

Awesome thanks, I have fed cat food and small dog food (both blue buffalo brand) to the birds as a treat, but generally stay away from it. I only used it because it was free (parents animals refused to eat it).

Thanks for the rest of the info. I'm excited to make my first batch.