Fermented feed?

[Amykins]

So after reading and reading articles and how-tos, I decided to give this a try. Got my raw ACV with mother, feed, bucket, and went to town! That was yesterday.

...And it stinks. I mean it's not foul, I don't think? The tutorial I read said it should smell "sour, not rancid", but I'm not sure what that means. It smells positively rank. But wet duck feed doesn't exactly smell appealing to me in the first place. It's definitely fermenting since it's giving off a bit of gas, but how do I know if it's really working, or if I should toss it?

 

[Angiebubs]

I have been feeding FF for over a year now and I dont know that I have ever had a "bad" batch. (There have been times I questioned it-tossed and started over, probably completely unnecessarily so).

It should smell like yeasty bread dough or beer kind of. There is a fantastic site to read up on:
http://naturalchickenkeeping.blogspot.com/p/fermented-feed.html

 

[Amykins]

I have been feeding FF for over a year now and I dont know that I have ever had a "bad" batch. (There have been times I questioned it-tossed and started over, probably completely unnecessarily so).

It should smell like yeasty bread dough or beer kind of. There is a fantastic site to read up on:
http://naturalchickenkeeping.blogspot.com/p/fermented-feed.html

Mine smells more like spoiled milk. Is that bad? I used the warm water raw ACV method, not the lacto method.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Mine smells more like spoiled milk. Is that bad? I used the warm water raw ACV method, not the lacto method.

I use the warm water ACV and mine goes through stages of smell but it never smells actually stinks, it has a yeasty smell and sometimes an alcohol smell too as it's fermenting then it goes back to just a yeasty smell. If your concerned toss and start again, when i use to use the wet method where you had to drain I had mine grow mold and tossed a few times but I haven't had mold since I used Sally's method. Maybe you used too much ACV Oh and since I add Garlic granules mine has a Italian smell to it.

 

[JekkaLynn]

I was told it should smell like sour dough bread and my batch seems to smell like that.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I was told it should smell like sour dough bread and my batch seems to smell like that.

Mine smells like Italian bread,

 

[Amykins]

Mine smells like Italian bread,

Okay, I can smell that now. The "italian" thing actually helped. XD It does smell much better now. I guess it's just extra-stinky when the culture first gets going. I hope Wobbles likes it when it's done!

 

[Miss Lydia]

Okay, I can smell that now. The "italian" thing actually helped. XD It does smell much better now. I guess it's just extra-stinky when the culture first gets going. I hope Wobbles likes it when it's done!

I bet she will, once I tried giving mine dry food after feeding FF for over a year, naw they wouldn't have anything to do with it. It will be 2 yrs for mine this Oct.

 

[Amykins]

I bet she will, once I tried giving mine dry food after feeding FF for over a year, naw they wouldn't have anything to do with it. It will be 2 yrs for mine this Oct.

Mine's like that with food in general. She's so small that when she graduated to grower pellets she couldn't eat them so I watered them a bit. Now she won't eat them any other way! Spoiled little thing...

Thanks to all of you for the handy tips!

 

[Amykins]

Another question, how will I know it's done? It's the dawn of day 3 now and it smells very bready. I only used a small container to test the waters so to speak, so does this mean it'll be ready faster?