Everyone, post your best homemade chicken feed recipes!

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

One thing to note...fermenting your grains increases their protein percentages up to 12%. For example, brewer's grains and distiller's grains are about as close to fermented feed percentages that I can find numbers for and here are the proteins for those.

Simply fermenting the feeds does not equate to increased protein content. The reason for the appearance of an increase in protein in DDGS compared to corn is that the starch is removed in the form for Ethanol and Carbon Dioxide thus concentrating the remaining nutrients.

If you ferment a feed and feed the animal the entire contents of the fermentation then the protein content of the feed will be close to that of the grain used as the feed stock. If you remove any portion of the fermentation product then you change the concentration of the nutrients.

 

[Beekissed]

Simply fermenting the feeds does not equate to increased protein content. The reason for the appearance of an increase in protein in DDGS compared to corn is that the starch is removed in the form for Ethanol and Carbon Dioxide thus concentrating the remaining nutrients.

If you ferment a feed and feed the animal the entire contents of the fermentation then the protein content of the feed will be close to that of the grain used as the feed stock. If you remove any portion of the fermentation product then you change the concentration of the nutrients.

That's pretty much what folks are doing, fermenting the feed and feeding it out. Nothing removed that I know of. I understand what you are saying about the distilling causing a concentration of nutrients and that is why BG may have more concentrated proteins and other nutrients, but I think the process of fermentation of grains and how this action changes the types and digestibility of proteins and other nutrients is just a tad more complicated than just a concentration of nutrients.

http://www.fao.org/docrep/x2184e/x2184e06.htm

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It could be that comparing the protein levels of our fermented feed to brewers grains is not an accurate estimate of the crude protein levels but I don't have any other comparison of protein augmentation produced by fermentation but these similar grains. Maybe the fermentation we are currently doing is only improving the digestibility of the proteins currently present in the feed grains but by how much? If it improves the digestibility, how much are they currently absorbing when the cereal is fed dry and unfermented? The original study I read a couple of years previously stated fermentation improved the proteins by 11-12%, so I don't know what to think at that point.

 

[Irishhenman]

I make up this mix every couple of months and remix it when I tuns out.

75kg whole wheat
30kg flaked maize
40kg fermented barley (soaked in water and ACV and then dried out on black plastic sheets in our garden)
5kg dried peas
10kg peanuts (the kind that you buy for wild birds crushed up in a food processor)
3kg lentil mix (no other additives including salt)
3kg seed mix (no other additives including slat) with sesame seed, flax, pumpkin seed, marrow seeds and poppy seeds
We keep all of our egg shells and dry them out on the widow sill for extra calcium and they are then crushed and mixed in as well

 

[thailand]

So, LazyJ and Bee, I'm getting myself confused now.....are you agreeing that my 19% protein homemade feed will be increased by 12% once it's fermented, bringing it to a total of around 31%?

And, if that is the case, is it then imperative to bring the protein percentage of my base ferment mix down? Bee, I understand you're recommending that I remove the Brewers yeast from the fermented feed, which I will do and perhaps just sprinkle some on top of their feed instead. Maybe the cod liver oil powder and meat meal too? Does that sound about right? If my maths is correct then that bring the protein down to 17.2% and the fat would go up to 9.7% (might need to work on that some more).

And, should I be adding some legumes to the mix so that lysine is in there and making the important amino acids more available to the chickens?

Hope my questions aren't dumb ones....just trying to get my head around all this and get my chickens laying regularly.

I should add, that I've been feeding FF in the mornings and then giving them dry (same mix as ff with all the grains included) in the afternoons (I know it's recommended that only FF be fed....I just like giving them some dry before bed). I'm trying to give them chopped greens every afternoon too. Two or three times a week I'm giving them a little bit of chopped pork heart or kidney or hamburger...not much, just a bit, and perhaps 3 times a week a handful of BSFL. Maybe, if they are lucky, they might get some scrambled eggs every once and a while. I should also mention that my chickens are LF Brahma (7 of them), so they are big boys & girls and eat quite a bit.

 

[Beekissed]

So, LazyJ and Bee, I'm getting myself confused now.....are you agreeing that my 19% protein homemade feed will be increased by 12% once it's fermented, bringing it to a total of around 31%?

And, if that is the case, is it then imperative to bring the protein percentage of my base ferment mix down? Bee, I understand you're recommending that I remove the Brewers yeast from the fermented feed, which I will do and perhaps just sprinkle some on top of their feed instead. Maybe the cod liver oil powder and meat meal too? Does that sound about right? If my maths is correct then that bring the protein down to 17.2% and the fat would go up to 9.7% (might need to work on that some more).

And, should I be adding some legumes to the mix so that lysine is in there and making the important amino acids more available to the chickens?

Hope my questions aren't dumb ones....just trying to get my head around all this and get my chickens laying regularly.

I should add, that I've been feeding FF in the mornings and then giving them dry (same mix as ff with all the grains included) in the afternoons (I know it's recommended that only FF be fed....I just like giving them some dry before bed). I'm trying to give them chopped greens every afternoon too. Two or three times a week I'm giving them a little bit of chopped pork heart or kidney or hamburger...not much, just a bit, and perhaps 3 times a week a handful of BSFL. Maybe, if they are lucky, they might get some scrambled eggs every once and a while. I should also mention that my chickens are LF Brahma (7 of them), so they are big boys & girls and eat quite a bit.

Lazy J maintains one cannot compare our FF with brewers grains because one is distilled into a concentrate and the other is not. He could be right about that and I have no way of actually knowing for sure how much our proteins are augmented by fermentation or if they are just changed into a more usable form and that is what the study was trying to convey.

I think your lysine will be just fine according to this article...if you can trust the validity of it:

http://www.fao.org/docrep/x2184e/x2184e06.htm

Quote:


Here's a good link about feed ingredients and their nutritive values....it shows brewers yeast at being pretty high: http://ingredients101.com/bydried.htm You can see other ingredients in a column at the right of that page.

 

[Clay Mudd]

Simply fermenting the feeds does not equate to increased protein content. The reason for the appearance of an increase in protein in DDGS compared to corn is that the starch is removed in the form for Ethanol and Carbon Dioxide thus concentrating the remaining nutrients.

If you ferment a feed and feed the animal the entire contents of the fermentation then the protein content of the feed will be close to that of the grain used as the feed stock. If you remove any portion of the fermentation product then you change the concentration of the nutrients.

Lazy J maintains one cannot compare our FF with brewers grains because one is distilled into a concentrate and the other is not. He could be right about that and I have no way of actually knowing for sure how much our proteins are augmented by fermentation or if they are just changed into a more usable form and that is what the study was trying to convey.

He's exactly right. With brewer's grain or distiller's grain, most of the starch has been extracted (which is the whole point of brewing), leaving a by-product with a higher percentage of protein. It's a different product from FF altogether.

 

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

Lazy J maintains one cannot compare our FF with brewers grains because one is distilled into a concentrate and the other is not. He could be right about that and I have no way of actually knowing for sure how much our proteins are augmented by fermentation or if they are just changed into a more usable form and that is what the study was trying to convey.

I think your lysine will be just fine according to this article...if you can trust the validity of it:

http://www.fao.org/docrep/x2184e/x2184e06.htm



Here's a good link about feed ingredients and their nutritive values....it shows brewers yeast at being pretty high: http://ingredients101.com/bydried.htm You can see other ingredients in a column at the right of that page.

While fermentation might change the protein content a bit by the bacteria using some free nitrogen to produce protein you will not double or treble the protein content of a fermentation product if you keep all of the contents of the fermentation vat. In most fermentation processes the protein content is not the primary product, in ethanol it is alcohol, in brewing it is the beer.

Just to reiterate, the reason the protein content in DDGS is higher than corn is due to the REMOVAL of the starch portion of the grain. When you remove the starch you CONCENTRATE the remaining nutrients. If you ferment a 5 gallon bucket of feed and feed the entire content of that fermentation to your chickens you are not increasing the protein available to the chickens.

Now as to the article you linked, you appear to be confusing Protein (Amino Acid) bioavailability with Protein (Amino acid) content. Fermentation has the possibility to improve the bioavailability of amino acids, this means more of the amino acid is available for absorption across the brush border membrane in the intestine. The cause of the improvement may be siply that the bacteria break peptide bonds in the existing proteins to either free single amino acids or increase that amount of short chains peptides compared to intact protein molecules. Regardless of the reasons for improved bioavailability, this does not equate to an increase in the amino acid or protein content in the fermentation product.

Nutritionist like me use bioavailability to more precisely formulated feed rations to meet the specific needs of animals. To do so we utilize research into the specific needs of nutrients and the stage of growth or production of the animal. We are now formulating rations to meet the cellular needs of the animal, this is many calculations past Crude Protein.

Jim

 

[Beekissed]

Thank you for that clarification!

 

[thailand]

So then, LazyJ, in my case.....mixing up a 19/20% protein feed and fermenting that, scooping out so much per day means that the protein will same the same percentage. It won't go higher, therefore it's safe to stay with 19/20% (which I personally feel is needed by my particular chickens at this particular time)?

And - should I still separate the Brewers yeast part and just sprinkle some on top of the scooped out feed?

Thanks so much for your insight into this

 

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

So then, LazyJ, in my case.....mixing up a 19/20% protein feed and fermenting that, scooping out so much per day means that the protein will same the same percentage. It won't go higher, therefore it's safe to stay with 19/20% (which I personally feel is needed by my particular chickens at this particular time)?

And - should I still separate the Brewers yeast part and just sprinkle some on top of the scooped out feed?

Thanks so much for your insight into this

The protein content will be very similar between your feedstock and the entire portion of the fermentation.

Are you adding the Brewers Yeast as a starter yeast or a nutritive supplement for the chickens?