Don't tell the wife, I'm growing fodder in the 2nd bathroom!

[gtaus]

Feed corn is dried too hard to germinate. It kills the core.

That makes sense. They did have little packets of seed corn for a home garden, but that cost dollars for a few ounces. Way too expensive to be sprouted as feed for the chickens.

 

[Claires Poultry]

This thread....
I'm loving following along on this thread!
This whole thread is soooo hilarious!
You guys are so funny!

 

[gtaus]

Thanks for the update! I may take a drive over to Coon Town Farms, my local feed mill, tomorrow and get a bag or two of whatever grains they have. I did the sprouting grains and also the fermenting feed the last time I had a flock back in 2012-2013. I'll skip the fermenting feed for now. But I like the looks of your fodder system. Of course down here in Mississippi I won't have to do it indoors anyway.

As I said in my article and in this thread, my main motivation for trying to grow fodder was to provide some fresh greens to my girls during the long Minnesota winters. The only way I can do that is by bringing the fodder tower inside my heated house. I have had good luck growing barley fodder. I am experimenting with oats and oats/barley mix bins, but, so far, I am not too impressed with the oats. But, it's still too early to tell and I will have a better idea in a few days if the oat fodder is a go, or no go.

I have not tried fermenting feed, but lots of people seem to like that system as well. Is there a reason you don't want to ferment feed anymore? Or are you planning on just trying to grow some fodder this time around? I ask because if the oats fodder does not work out, I might try just fermenting it instead.

 

[Papa John59]

Guten Tag @Papa John59. Nice to hear from Germany, a very beautiful country I have visited a number of times. I am about 1/8 German myself, but the family tree is a little less defined back that far.
Danke.

@gtaus, your memory serves you well! After being here for over 25 years now (born/raised in Ohio), I know when to watch for the maß coming my way. I've got 4 trays of wheat and 3 trays of barley sprouting at this time.

I have also tried fermenting a few weeks back, just to see the results. I made about a cup full and let it sit for 3 days. Notice...it burped at me! The gasses popped the lid up overnight. Thankfully, it was only laying on top and not sealed. The results of this test...my 3 girls ate it all in about 10 minutes! So once the weather gets colder here, I'll start fermenting and warm it up a bit so they don't eat cold mush. That will be their breakfast.

On your next trip over this way, if you're in Baveria, my beer is always cold!

 

[duluthralphie]

As I said in my article and in this thread, my main motivation for trying to grow fodder was to provide some fresh greens to my girls during the long Minnesota winters. The only way I can do that is by bringing the fodder tower inside my heated house. I have had good luck growing barley fodder. I am experimenting with oats and oats/barley mix bins, but, so far, I am not too impressed with the oats. But, it's still too early to tell and I will have a better idea in a few days if the oat fodder is a go, or no go.

I have not tried fermenting feed, but lots of people seem to like that system as well. Is there a reason you don't want to ferment feed anymore? Or are you planning on just trying to grow some fodder this time around? I ask because if the oats fodder does not work out, I might try just fermenting it instead.

Contrary to the common wives tale that prevails there is no advantage for fermenting feed.

If there was the large poultry barns/commercial producers would be doing it.

When you ferment grain you burn off the carbs and sugars. This changes the composition of the feed. You are not gaining actual protein but you are increasing the protein percentage of the feed by taking the rest of the stuff away.

Chickens are designed to digest raw grains just fine. The grit works well to chew up the grain.

In addition, here in Minnesota any wet feed is a problem. We have ice blocks for the poor birds to chip away at. It is one more challenge we don’t need.

That said I feed left over grain I get from a micro brewery. It is free and essentially ferment feed. It is free!

During the winter it is a PITA. I still need to feed the birds carbs. They need the heat conversion grain gives them. Most of the brewers grain sits outside all winter as feeding a frozen block of protein would not make sense.

I have no idea what happens to the vitamins and trace minerals ratios when you ferment. I am sure it changes somehow.

I have found fermented feed fanatics treat fermented feed like a cult type religion with very little science behind it. They will tell you the “bugs” aid digestion, the feed isn’t really fermented just partially fermented. The list of benefits will be long with no science behind it. Therefore, I seldom comment on the myth of fermented feed, I do so now only because of the winters we have and it being one more thing that complicates our bird raising in the land of solid state water.

 

[Major_in_MS]

Is there a reason you don't want to ferment feed anymore?

Yes, there is.

Let me elaborate. The scene is seven years ago and I'm new here on the BYC forum, with my first chicken flock. It started out as 6 chickens and by the end of the summer I had over 100. I was reading all the posts about how great fermenting feed was and hey, I like sauerkraut and other fermented stuff (beer) so why not my chickens.

Now I don't do many things in a small way, so I didn't think to try this in a 5 gallon bucket first. Since all my plastic garbage cans had holes in the bottom of them from being dragged up and down the driveway for years I went to home depot and bought a new Brute garbage can.

I'm thinking this will have to be tended to regularly and stirred a few times a day so why make it hard on myself by putting it in the garage. I set my new garbage can by the back door in the house, poured about 4 bags of grain into it and covered it with water and added some brewers yeast for good measure.

I had some neck pain a few years ago and so I have this cervical traction pulley that hangs over a door.

So I put this on the back door so that I could position it over the Brute and I hung a galvanized bucket with a few holes punched in the bottom for drainage on the rope.

So, after about a week my DW notices the cervical traction device hanging on the back door and she asks me if my neck has been hurting again. I'm not thinking about why she's asking me this so I say "No, why?" She's just wondering why the traction is on the back door. Uh oh! Up till now with the lid on the Brute and it being mostly out of the way and since we don't use the back door anyway she has not even noticed the new garbage can. I say, "Don't you remember? We talked about this a few weeks ago." She says "No" and I can here the concern beginning to show up in her voice. "Yeah, you didn't really think I was serious I guess," I said. I then pulled the lid off the garbage can and her nose wrinkled as the pungent smell of fermenting grains hit her in the face. I scooped a bucket full of grain from the can and hung it suspended over the garbage can to drain. As I was doing this I was explaining to her how much the chickens loved the fermented grains and how much cheaper the feed grain was than the chicken feed at Tractor Supply.

Life was not so great for me for a while after that!

I didn't see enough benefits from feeding fermented grain to make it worth the extra trouble and efforts. Not to mention the unhappy wife.

By the way, that Brute garbage can is the best garbage can I've ever owned. After six years of actually using it as a garbage can it still looks new and there are no holes in the bottom.

 

[duluthralphie]

Yes, there is.

Let me elaborate. The scene is seven years ago and I'm new here on the BYC forum, with my first chicken flock. It started out as 6 chickens and by the end of the summer I had over 100. I was reading all the posts about how great fermenting feed was and hey, I like sauerkraut and other fermented stuff (beer) so why not my chickens.

Now I don't do many things in a small way, so I didn't think to try this in a 5 gallon bucket first. Since all my plastic garbage cans had holes in the bottom of them from being dragged up and down the driveway for years I went to home depot and bought a new Brute garbage can.
View attachment 1930742
I'm thinking this will have to be tended to regularly and stirred a few times a day so why make it hard on my self by putting it in the garage. I set my new garbage can by the back door in the house, poured about 4 bags of grain into it and covered it with water and added some brewers yeast for good measure.

I had some neck pain a few years ago and so I have this cervical traction pulley that hangs over a door.
View attachment 1930748
So I put this on the back door so that I could position it over the Brute and I hung a galvanized bucket with a few holes punched in the bottom for drainage on the rope.
View attachment 1930749
So, after about a week my DW notices the cervical traction device hanging on the back door and she asks me if my neck has been hurting again. I'm not thinking about why she's asking me this so I say "No, why?" She's just wondering why the traction is on the back door. Uh oh! Up till now with the lid on the Brute and it being mostly out of the way and since we don't use the back door anyway she has not even noticed the new garbage can. I say, "Don't you remember? We talked about this a few weeks ago." She says "No" and I can here the concern beginning to show up in her voice. "Yeah, you didn't really think I was serious I guess," I said. I then pulled the lid off the garbage can and her nose wrinkled and the pungent smell of fermenting grains hit her in the face. I scooped a bucket full of grain from the can and hung it suspended over the garbage can to drain. As I was doing this I was explaining to her how much the chickens loved the fermented grains and how much cheaper the feed grain was than the chicken feed at Tractor Supply.

Life was not so great for me for a while after that!

I didn't see enough benefits from feeding fermented grain to make it worth the extra trouble and efforts. Not to mention the unhappy wife.

By the way, that Brute garbage can is the best garbage can I've ever owned. After six years of actually using it as a garbage can I still looks new and there are no holes in the bottom.

Depending on where the can is I poke holes in the bottom of mine. Holes let water out, water out means no ice in.


BTW the wife crinkling her nose was very identifiable.

I use the line “don’t you remember us talking about it” also. It works great.

However, I follow it up with “you weren’t listen to me again were you? You never listen to me”...

The reason for that is preemptive. She accuses me of not listening to her so often (mainly cause I don’t listen to her or I would get nothing done here.)


However, when she accuses me of not listening I can say “honestly, Dear, we both our guilty of not listening as well as we should. Remember the garbage can? (Or whatever)”


Remember marriage is war not a battle, we must lose some to win

 

[Papa John59]

Contrary to the common wives tale that prevails there is no advantage for fermenting feed.

If there was the large poultry barns/commercial producers would be doing it.

When you ferment grain you burn off the carbs and sugars. This changes the composition of the feed. You are not gaining actual protein but you are increasing the protein percentage of the feed by taking the rest of the stuff away.

Chickens are designed to digest raw grains just fine. The grit works well to chew up the grain.

In addition, here in Minnesota any wet feed is a problem. We have ice blocks for the poor birds to chip away at. It is one more challenge we don’t need.

That said I feed left over grain I get from a micro brewery. It is free and essentially ferment feed. It is free!

During the winter it is a PITA. I still need to feed the birds carbs. They need the heat conversion grain gives them. Most of the brewers grain sits outside all winter as feeding a frozen block of protein would not make sense.

I have no idea what happens to the vitamins and trace minerals ratios when you ferment. I am sure it changes somehow.

I have found fermented feed fanatics treat fermented feed like a cult type religion with very little science behind it. They will tell you the “bugs” aid digestion, the feed isn’t really fermented just partially fermented. The list of benefits will be long with no science behind it. Therefore, I seldom comment on the myth of fermented feed, I do so now only because of the winters we have and it being one more thing that complicates our bird raising in the land of solid state water.

This is only one of the articles that I read before even thinking about feeding my ladies fermented feed. After reading this site, I made up my mind to ferment feed.
https://www.researchgate.net/public...ion_and_activity_of_the_intestinal_microflora

Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[gtaus]

On your next trip over this way, if you're in Baveria, my beer is always cold!

Well, thanks for the invite. Baveria is a most beautiful part of Germany. I think I have visitied Neuschwanstein Castle (aka Cinderella Castle for Americans) at least 3 times as well as visiting Munich during those trips. Very nice countryside. Very nice people. Many fond memories of those visits.

 

[gtaus]

Contrary to the common wives tale that prevails there is no advantage for fermenting feed....

I have never heard a contrary point of view on the fermenting issue. I guess I'll have to look up this subject and see if there is any science behind it. It is so easy to watch YouTube videos and/or find things on the Internet that just are not true, but well accepted. And yes, in a Minnesota winter, fermented feed would freeze like an ice block in a short time.