Chickens for 10-20 years or more? Pull up a rockin' chair and lay some wisdom on us!

[Dead Rabbit]

another note on soaking grains/feed. its a good way to get worm or medicate your flock. if you choose to go that route. you add your wazine or whatever water soluable antibiotic to the water in the oats. add just enuff water so the oats soak it ALL up over night then feed them to the flock. worming or medicating in a water container is not a sure fire way that they are getting the wormer or medicine. you dont know they are drinking enuff or even from that container all the time. but soaking it into the grains, and they consume them, you know they received what you wanted them too.

 

[Dead Rabbit]

I finally covered my grain/mash with the liquid mix~which was already fermenting~and stirred it a couple of times and now I have a bubbling pot of fermenting grain! Yay! I'll keep it going like sourdough bread mix and just keep my good cultures good and heavy.

keep it covered, and even place it in the sun or heat, it will come on even quicker. beware the smell. dont splash any on your clothes either. or there will be no huggy huggy, kissey kissey in your near future.

 

[Beekissed]

There hasn't been huggy kissy for about 7 years now and is not likely at any time in future anyway, so I'm safe! But thanks for the tip!

I've been stirring it with my walking stick. I fed their first fermented starter today and their reaction to it was a surprise! They walked right over the dry starter and practically swarmed over the fermented feed...and STILL are chowing down on it and ignoring the dry.

Yesterday I had soaked their starter in buttermilk and fed that and they seemed interested but only mildly so~they ate it but had nothing like the reaction to this fermented feed.

As an experiment I placed dry starter and the fermented, wet starter side by side to gauge their preference...they walked right over the dry and crowded on and around the fermented. They are still ignoring the dry some hours later and are still slumming down the fermented~go figure! Must be good stuff, huh?

We also had some fun today with earthworms...so darn funny to watch THAT rodeo!

 

[Dead Rabbit]

ive noticed anything you pour water on, they prefer it. i have dry layer crumbles in self feeder in coops, at all times, sometimes esp after rainfall and their outside feed troughs are full of rain water, i pour their crumbles in the rain water. the scarf it up like its something new. i see they prefer to drink rain water over well water, so i feel there is alot of good things in rain water. i know its full of nitrogen so its probaly got other good stuff in it. any time i can get more rain water in them, the happier i am, and they seem to enjoy the soaked mash (i call it mash ofter its alll soaked through)

 

[Dead Rabbit]

any type of milk is a laxative to chickens. they will drink it but there will be adverse affects. for performance fowl, before they are shown, its good to give them a good blow out. anotherwords, empty them out good with a mixture of milk soaked bread with a little epsom salt in the mix. cleans out their guts good. ive heard this is a good practice for any living thing on occasion.

 

[Beekissed]

I'm wondering if buttermilk has the same effect...so far it hasn't. And the lady on SS who fed clabbered milk reported no diarrhea, just normal, formed and non-smelly poops. I'd say that cultured milk is a little different....I know it is for me. I can't drink regular milk without....er...um....well...the "blow out" factor~ but I can drink buttermilk all day every day without any of the same effects.

The chicks reaction to the starter soaked in buttermilk was not as great as the starter that was fermented, so I don't think it was just the change in texture/moisture that caused the increased preference. There is definitely something good tasting to them there or they wouldn't have went that crazy.

 

[flagirl]

1 Tablespoon epson salts in a cup of warm water first thing in morning for humans should clean you out within 20 minutes. safe to do ocasionally

 

[Dead Rabbit]

I'm wondering if buttermilk has the same effect...so far it hasn't. And the lady on SS who fed clabbered milk reported no diarrhea, just normal, formed and non-smelly poops. I'd say that cultured milk is a little different....I know it is for me. I can't drink regular milk without....er...um....well...the "blow out" factor~ but I can drink buttermilk all day every day without any of the same effects.

The chicks reaction to the starter soaked in buttermilk was not as great as the starter that was fermented, so I don't think it was just the change in texture/moisture that caused the increased preference. There is definitely something good tasting to them there or they wouldn't have went that crazy.

oh yes. and the more fermented, the smellier it is, the better they like it. just saying, they prefer soaked over dry.

i used to feed 25% of my feed ration as soaked oats. i would mix this in with all the rest. if mixed and let it sit for about 10-15 minutes, the moisture outa of the oats would soak or soften all the pellets. at times i would even pour a lil bit of the old oat water into the mixed feed ration, and it would turn the whole thing into a stinkin mush, or mash. u feed this to them and the fowl would be grinnin like a mule eatin briars.

 

[JenellYB]

Talking about fermenting grains reminds me of when many years ago, I bought a new young boar hog to cover the gilts I'd bred from my main boar, and the one I found that had the best body type and traits I felt I most needed to offset some faults in those young gilts happened to belong to a guy living off in the deep backwoods, real folksy old guy, it was obvious his hogs were a 'complimentary crop' for his "other business' which was moonshine! The hogs got the spent 'sour mash'! i noticed all his hogs looked unusually 'red eyed', and they boar I bought was white, so it was really obvious on him. But it didn't really dawn on me the poor thing was an absolute drunken sot!
At the time, I was feeding grains, mostly corn chops called 'sweepings' I got cheap from a mill, yeah, the spilled stuff that got swept up at the end of the day, along with a protein, vitamin/mineral powder , I'd mix it and put water on it to soak a few hours before feeding. But that poor boar would root through that stuff, eat a little, but throw most of it out of the trough looking for 'something else', lol! His mood started getting kinda bad, too, he had seemed reallaid back and easy to handle when I got him,but he started getting obnoxiously cross and pushy. I realized he was going through alcohol withdrawal! So i started letting it soak a few days. depending on how hot the weather was, until it was really good and fermented...taking a deep breath when you opened this barrels I had it in could make your head spin, lol! That made him happy, and he was once again his laid backmellow self! But my other hogs liked it so much too, i started feeing it to all of them, had a system going with 3 or 4 50 gallon drums at a time, rotating so that by the time on was empty and ready to fill with fresh corn, the one on the other end of the row was ready to feed out of. I had one happy and mellow bunch of drunken hogs!

But the real surprises came in feed efficiency and quality of meat at slaughter. Feed efficiency to weight gains went up at least 20%, and that fermented corn produced the prettiest fine, pale pink tender pork I had ever gotten on my slaughter hogs. I tried it on my chickens, but it didn't produce such good results for my laying flock,they plumped up but egg production actually dropped off a bit...but, it did turn out to be fantastic for raising the 'meaties' once they were off starter. I always offered the milled grower food for what minerals and nutrients the fermented corn lacked, with two feedings of the fermented corn, morning and evening, all they'd clean up pretty quick. And they were the plumpest, juiciest, tenderest of any i raised.

 

[Beekissed]

I loved the story!!

And I really liked hearing that last bit....though my last meaties were raised cheaply and finished off beautifully on free range and layer mash once a day, I'm really hoping to see an even cheaper method pay off in even better health and meat quality. I want to show others that these CX don't have to be a smelly, expensive project that produce birds that are much the same as those raised in broiler houses~overweight, overstressed, unhealthy and easy to "flip" and die.

Your story reminds me of something....we always had a lot of pickled corn when I was growing up. I simply LOVE pickled corn. One year Dad had scored two very large wooden barrels that had been used in making/storing whiskey. One was used for a rain barrel and the other was filled to the brim with large yellow ears of sweet corn in brine. The corn had a wonderful and extra "bite" to it that year and was the best pickled corn I'd ever tasted and I've still never found its equal. Even beyond the smell of the pickle water in that barrel you could catch a strong whiff of whiskey....