Fermented feed

[FloorCandy]

Some of you guys may have seen my post about how my feed is too powdery and clumpy, and will not function in a hopper style feeder due to the humidity. Well, I have about $20 worth of feed, and I will look into something new, but I’m not wasting this stuff.

I thought, if I have to deal with the food every day, I might as well try fermenting. Lately I’ve had some sticky poo issues, maybe due just to spilled food, but I suspect also their poo is sticky and smelly, more than it needs to be.

Anywho, I looked up some fermenting techniques, I was going to add acv with the mother, but some sources say this makes it a prebiotic and ideally we want probiotics, some say the acv can possibly cause drunk quail haha, either way, I just covered the food with distilled water, and in less than a day it already had that yeasty smell, today was day 2 and it had bubbles.

I fed some to the quail and they’re nuts for it! They ate 5 big slotted serving spoons full. I can’t believe how fast and easy it is, and they really like it. I’m so glad I tried it out.

 

[casportpony]

Glad it worked for you.

 

[Aunt Angus]

My birds love it. And your feed doubles in size due to soaking, so you save money, too.

 

[FloorCandy]

So far the poop has been like night and day, no more big brown sticky globs of tar, I started having some of them smelling like wet poop when I picked them up, even though they have plenty of space, they like to lay together and the poo was so sticky, which was a big change from when they were chicks. I guess puberty causes fecal changes, definitely much worse than chick stink.

After only 2 days of fermenting, I’m not seeing poo stuck to feathers where one stretched and someone walked over them with dirty feet. The poop looks like little balls of white and lighter brown, more like when they were babies. I’m very pleased so far, however, I am not seeing them eat less food overall, they eat more in fact haha. But they are still growing and filling out. Today my neighbor said I must be feeding them well because they are getting fat especially the tuxes.

I can’t wait to see how it goes once the food has really fermented a few more days, I can’t say enough good things about it.