Fermented feed for chickens

[BDutch]

If chickens are used to eating X, especially if they have been eating it since chickhood, it takes some time for them to change their tastes, rather like some modern tourists faced with unfamiliar foreign food when on their hols. So Brits abroad notoriously seek out restaurants serving British style food instead of trying the often delicious and usually much healthier local options.

But if you keep offering it in small amounts, the bravest member of the flock will try it, and when the rest see it isn't dangerous, and especially if the brave one comes to obviously like it, they, or most of them, will follow suit. Chickens could not thrive in almost every habitat and food environment in the world, as they do, if they were not suited to eat whatever grows wherever and whatever they are offered by their keepers.

No doubt you are right. Im convinced a fermented grain mix with whole grains is healthier than the grains coming directly from the bag.

But for chickens who can not free range all the time, part of their food needs to be a completed food with all the extra vitamins and proteins, like all flock, layer or chick feed. Chickens who have access to a lush and healthy environment all year through, don’t need much besides what they can find. There is no need to give the breeds who are fit to free range completed food.

My chickens can not free range 24/7. It varies from 0 - 8 hours a day. In summer there are more hours to free range and there is much more to find than during winter. We adapt.

For the time being I’m pleased with the food regime I give them now. Everyone chooses or can do things differently and we all live in a different environments and even the requirements of the chickens can vary. The commercial hybrids who lay an egg almost every day need other feed than the old heritage breeds, old hens or roosters. Therefore there is not one strategy that suits us all.

 

[Perris]

I’m pleased with the food regime I give them now.

I am glad you have found something you and your flock are happy with and thrive on.

Everyone chooses or can do things differently and we all live in a different environments and even the requirements of the chickens can vary. The commercial hybrids who lay an egg almost every day need other feed than the old heritage breeds, old hens or roosters. Therefore there is not one strategy that suits us all.

Indeed. I agree with that. But I do not agree with the following:

for chickens who can not free range all the time, part of their food needs to be a completed food with all the extra vitamins and proteins, like all flock, layer or chick feed.

Vitamins and minerals are called micronutrients because they are needed in minute / tiny quantities. And they exist in real food, if they haven't been destroyed by processing or oxidised in storage. I imagine you do not take daily pills to get your recommended vitamins and minerals, but trust that you are getting the small amounts you need from the plants you eat as fruit, veg, cereal, pseudo-cereal, pulse, nut, seed etc. plus those from animals on those relatively few occasions you eat meat or fish etc. And in real food they exist in the sort of concentration that we and our chickens have evolved to metabolize them, unlike in commercial formulations which are concentrates (the clue is in the name given to animal feeds: 'concentrates'). Some vitamins and minerals are toxic in 'extra' quantities (that's why there are *maxima* as well as minima on the labels for those elements of the feed).

I think that a little free range time or real food treats and leftovers can supply all the micronutrients a chicken needs, in general (and all these sorts of statements are generalizations, on both sides of the argument, of course). I think that's what saves the backyard chickens that mostly eat processed feed, and is why they don't look and live and die like industrial commercial layers.

My chickens can not free range 24/7. It varies from 0 - 8 hours a day. In summer there are more hours to free range and there is much more to find than during winter.

I think that's more than enough for them to find what they need in your lovely garden and environs. Yes there is less in winter but also typically they aren't laying in winter so have fewer demands. And like wild birds they can stock up and store a lot of nutrients when times are good, to see them through the lean times. Wild birds manage. Chickens can too, especially with a caring keeper who is making sure they're getting the macronutrients (carbs, fats, proteins) every day through their supplied food, whatever form that takes.

 

[BDutch]

Indeed. I agree with that. But I do not agree with the following:

BDutch said:
for chickens who can not free range all the time, part of their food needs to be a completed food with all the extra vitamins and proteins, like all flock, layer or chick feed.

Vitamins and minerals are called micronutrients because they are needed in minute / tiny quantities. And they exist in real food, if they haven't been destroyed by processing or oxidised in storage. I imagine you do not take daily pills to get your recommended vitamins and minerals, but trust that you are getting the small amounts you need from the plants you eat as fruit, veg, cereal, pseudo-cereal, pulse, nut, seed etc. plus those from animals on those relatively few occasions you eat meat or fish etc. And in real food they exist in the sort of concentration that we and our chickens have evolved to metabolize them, unlike in commercial formulations which are concentrates (the clue is in the name given to animal feeds: 'concentrates'). Some vitamins and minerals are toxic in 'extra' quantities (that's why there are *maxima* as well as minima on the labels for those elements of the feed).

Yes, again you are right. I should have added or other food which is fresh, healthy and balanced.
This is even better than the cheap commercial feed.

Good additions from your side. Thanks.

 

[SkyAJK]

Since reading this post I had start on a small jar of ferment feed and mixed it with dried feed. It is not mushy and I imagine the fermented feed continues to ferment in the dried feed throughout the day.

Now that I read many posts here about whole grains...I will ferment a jar of whole grain today. At the moment the weather is warm so bubbles is visible in less than 24 hours.

I think might be fermented feed is doing the same thing as plain yogurt is for chickens.

 

[Rusty Hills Farm]

Fermented feed may have a place in northern chicken yards but I'm in the deep south and find it has no place in my hot springs, summers and falls. And in winter it freezes. For me it was a waste of feed and an invitation to sour, rotting food, and I ditched it in a hurry. My flock shines on a good, high-quality all-flock commercial feed with calcium fed free-choice. In better than 20 years I've never seen an impacted crop. Most of my birds are still laying regularly at 7-8 years of age, with only 1 egg-bound hen that I can recall. This works for me so I've long-since stopped experimenting with other diets.

HTH

Rusty

edited to add: My flock does not free-range at all so all their greens come from my garden in the summer and the produce dept at my local grocer's in the winter with regular side-dressings of homemade yogurt.

 

[CabritaChicks]

I tried fermented feed for a while, but without a garage to exile it to, the operation lived in the utility room (which is attached to the kitchen- open floorplan) — which meant my laundry area and the side entrance eventually smelled like a questionable science experiment. Tropical weather didn’t help either. Fermented feed in the tropics doesn’t politely ferment; it sprints toward “something died in here” and starts inviting guests.

First came the flies. Lots of flies. Then the flies attracted lizards. And those, naturally, attracted larger predator birds. At that point it felt less like chicken care and more like I was accidentally running a wildlife buffet.

So I retired the fermented feed. It was extra work, potentially risky, and frankly — very smelly.

What I do instead is much simpler: every morning I wet a couple cups of their feed and mix it with vegetables, fruit, egg, and healthy kitchen scraps. That basically just becomes their breakfast, then they have free access to the dry pellets, and they free range all day 24/7 at their discretion. It keeps the feed fresh, adds variety (as sometimes i add extras like bee pollen, tea leaves, flowers, etc), and helps the chickens stay hydrated — without summoning half the food chain to my yard.