Do any of you here ferment your soybeans and put it in your chicken feed?

[fisher39]

I've been reading up on how to make soybeans safe for poultry's consumption, and it seems the most surefire way is to ferment them. Supposedly even heating it doesn't completely make it safe.

I'm looking for the cheapest way to give my chickens the protein they need, and soybeans seems to be it. I bought a number of 50lb bags of raw soybeans a while back thinking I'd just process them first, but the whole task was too tedious so I left it out of their feed mix. I just don't think they're getting enough protein now (I'm getting very few eggs), so now I'm thinking I'll resort to fermenting them. If any of you could kindly share the process of how you ferment them without heating them, that's be great.

On a related note, I found this link that describes a (somewhat tedious) process of fermenting grains and peas, but it doesn't say anything about soybeans. I'm wondering if I can simply do the same thing with soybeans as the peas, since they're closely related?

Any knowledge on the subject would be great!

A couple links on info regarding soybeans:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/12/04/soy-dangers-summarized.aspx
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2000/02/13/more-on-soy.aspx

 

[sumi]

I've been reading about soy beans for chicken food too. John Seymour's wonderful Self-Sufficiency book says "But soya must be cooked, for it contains a substance which, when raw, is slightly poisonous." I've never heard of fermenting it, so I honestly don't know if it's feasible. I give my chickens loads of greens like alfalfa (lusern) and bugs if we have some around. They lay well and the youngsters grow well on that and cracked corn. Why don't you start a little mealworm farm? I saw a thread about it here somewhere.

 

[fisher39]

I first got the idea from this post. I'm afraid that the whole idea that it needs cooking first is just something that has been rehashed a thousand times from person to person without any real proof behind it. Fermenting it seems to be the way to go, as the Japanese have been doing it that way for thousands of years. Still doing more research on it though. I may just follow the steps included in the link I gave before and see how that goes, though.

 

[LunaticCafe]

Actually, that link you provided refers to sprouting, which is different from fermenting. Everything I've found about fermenting soybeans for human consumption involves cooking them first. That said, I have no idea if sprouting the soybeans will remove or reduce the antinutrive factors in soybeans.

 

[fisher39]

Actually, that link you provided refers to sprouting, which is different from fermenting. Everything I've found about fermenting soybeans for human consumption involves cooking them first. That said, I have no idea if sprouting the soybeans will remove or reduce the antinutrive factors in soybeans.

That is a good point, thanks. I didn't notice that, somehow.

 

[fisher39]

I just want to bump this back up and see if anyone else has any info on properly fermenting soybeans for chicken consumption, without heating?

 

[ClosingDaCoop]

I just want to bump this back up and see if anyone else has any info on properly fermenting soybeans for chicken consumption, without heating?

What’s the big deal with heating? 260 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes. Then after cooling dump in with fermenting feed. The problem with heating is that it is possible to kill the lysine amino acid with too much heat. But 260 for 30 minutes is the trick. Soak them then heat them then ferment. It’s really not hard.