EM-1 (effective microorganism) & bokashi for chickens

[Hainies Hen House]

Here is the info I used to make my serum, sometimes referred to as lactobacillus serum, LAB or lacto serum.

https://bocashi.wordpress.com/newspaper-bokashi-instead-of-expensive-bran/

As I previously posted I skip the substrate, newspaper in the above attached website, and use the LAB in liquid form.

I started culturing LAB eight years ago, not five like I previously posted. I started with quart jars in a dough table.

I was looking for away to breakdown lots of invasive plants that would kill the invasives seeds more reliably than hot composting.

i started small fermenting cow parsnip plants I had run through my chipper/shredder. I used one of the black and yellow storage totes that are sold at big box stores.

The results seemed promising. I let the tote age for about a year. The resulting material was much like sphagnum peat moss. I've since scaled up my experiments every couple years.

I wish I would have saved the source for reference, like I said I'm not a good note keeper. I read somewhere lactobacillus is naturally occurring on rice grains. I thought buying gallons of milk to basically dump on piles of shredded leaves could get expensive.

I experimented with skipping the milk. I would make a batch of ricewash, feed it some molasses and let it sit for a month or so then syphon out the middle layer of lacto and use it in the garden.

View attachment 3632217

The past couple years I ferment my fall leaves in the heavy-duty boxes used for shipping glass beads.



View attachment 3632219
This how the leaves looked the following year. I don't know how fast the leaves break down. I just let them sit until I was almost ready for the following years leaf clean up.

View attachment 3632222

It doesn’t show up well in the previous picture but before filling the heavy-duty boxes, called octabins or gaylords, I took out the plastic liners, essentially very large thick plastic bags, and put the octabins in the liners.

I forgot to mention two or three years between using the black and yellow totes, I fermented leaves and grass clippings in plastic leaf bags piled in four car rooftop cargo carriers.

The first year using cargo carriers I only had one. I just piled everything in, including a bunch of Virginia creeper and doused it with LAB. The vines broke down but the long fibers did not fully break down leaving the material stringy.
I then acquired three more cargo carriers to use for fermenting.

The cargo carriers worked but did not have the volume I was shooting for, also, transferring leaves from the shredder bag to the plastic bags was a PITA. Instead of tying the bags closed I just rolled up the top and put a few rocks on them inside the cargo carriers.

Late one Spring I opened a cargo carrier only to discover it was home to thousands of BSF larve, probably hundreds of thousands. Apparently I had not closed the bags tight enough and some adult BSF had found their way in. This was before I had chickens.

Back to the octabins. They worked fairly well as bokashi bins, they were free and held a decent amount of yard waste, approximately ¾ yard each. The down side was that they were only good for one batch of bokashi and they looked pretty ragged by the next spring. The bottom half would be a soggy mess. I guess I could have dried them and ran them through the chipper.

This year I'm trying a windrow style bokashi pile. I got the idea from this video.

 

[Greengirljmt]

It's irritating searching for info about em and chickens. I know people do use it, but no one writes about it. I have seen that it should be added at 2 percent of feed. If anyone out there has used it as Cory has, or any other way and has a comment about it, please respond here.
I put it in their water at 1T per gallon. I filter their water because of chlorine, so hopefully it is still active by the time the chickens get it.
I also sprinkle bokashi on their food in the morning and they seem to love it.

Hello, I know that this post was from a while ago but I would recommend contacting Teraganix directly. They are willing to answer any questions regarding EM products that you might have. It’s wonderful stuff.