FERMENTED FEEDS...anyone using them?

[niqueie]

Bee and anyone who knows,
I want to stretch my expensive organic layer mash in my FF. I pay $30 for 50#. I will be selling my eggs as organic to friends and acquaintances for $4.50 a dozen (which is a little lower than the going rate at the grocery stores for organic eggs, cage free.

My question is: I bought a 45# bag of whole oats with hulls that's organic for $16 to supplement into the layer mash to stretch it and still offer high nutrition and also maintain organic roots for the eggs. How much oats can I put into my layer mash FF and still maintain a healthy balance of vitamins. I give oyster shells freely for any calcium needs.

 

[Beekissed]

I agree. I never cull timid or less aggressive birds merely for that trait, though I've found that weaker birds that always seems to be the whipping boy are those that have poor social skills, are not steady layers and don't have the best of health. By simply culling for production, temperament and health one can eliminate chickens that cannot fend for themselves within a flock structure.

The pecking order is in constant ebb and flow and I've found it usually revolves around hormone levels...birds that are laying are higher in the order. Birds that are in their prime(POL up to 2 yrs, on average) are even higher than older or younger birds, birds that are on a temporary laying hiatus will lose top status during those times, an older hen that loses her fertility will sink in the hierarchy if there are younger, more fertile hens in the flock. When you have a rooster all of this is far more apparent because the rooster is the top of the order and he keeps the hens most likely to produce young close to him on the roost and in the field, thus making them his seconds. If you have a hen that is barren or has never laid much at all and doesn't have normal egg cycles, often a rooster will be aggressive towards her and she will often be a loner within the flock...if she does go through a spot of laying, that will change and she will move up in the order.

If you do not have a rooster it is likely that the most fertile, most vigorous female is going to be your top order hen...she will even simulate mating on lesser hens in the absence of a male. This is not always the case but more often than not. A broody hen will be attacked by the other hens when she comes off the nest to feed or water and when she reenters the flock with chicks she will have some pecking order behaviors to contend with as well...some people see this as the other hens wanting to kill the chicks and the mother defending them, but I've never seen a hen try to hurt a young chick...rather she is curious about them and also a little aggressive towards the broody who is not presently fertile/laying and has been out of the social structure for some time.

I've watched this ebb and flow of power over the years with much interest and sometimes a little sadness as an old queen is dethroned by younger POL pullets whom the rooster is favoring. But, in times when all the flock is on a slow down the older favorites will rise in rank once again because they are all on equal hormonal/fertility footing but the older birds will be in favor with the rooster once again.

It's an interesting study. You can bet that any chicken that is starving because of the pecking order should have been culled for other issues anyway, primarily because of low production rates.

 

[Beekissed]

Bee and anyone who knows,
I want to stretch my expensive organic layer mash in my FF. I pay $30 for 50#. I will be selling my eggs as organic to friends and acquaintances for $4.50 a dozen (which is a little lower than the going rate at the grocery stores for organic eggs, cage free.

My question is: I bought a 45# bag of whole oats with hulls that's organic for $16 to supplement into the layer mash to stretch it and still offer high nutrition and also maintain organic roots for the eggs. How much oats can I put into my layer mash FF and still maintain a healthy balance of vitamins. I give oyster shells freely for any calcium needs.

If your birds are not producing you can cut it 50/50 but if they are producing well I'd only go 1/4-1/3 of the ration and monitor results. If nothing changes in the bird or the production, just keep it at that and see how it goes.

 

[niqueie]

Oh thanks so much!! Oats seem to be a fairly healthy grain for chickens. Better than corn it seems.

 

[Tikkijane]

 If you culled according to pecking order, you would only have one bird. There is always one at the bottom.

 Like Bee said, a longer trough. Also more than one.  I am going to try the FF, and have been thinking about some of this. I was thinking in terms of multiple troughs spaced a bit apart. That would give the bottom bird ample opportunity to eat.

I cut my gutter into 4 sections. I use 3 regularly and leave a little in the bowl. This gives everyone space enough to eat. I would add the 4th if I needed to, but it's an extra at this point.

 

[Little Wing]

This is my FF warmer. I put a 100 W bulb in an old brooder fixture and clipped it to a piece of wood and set a big pot on top of it. Then I insulated the pot with feed bags. I wrapped the FF pot in feed bags and set it on top. It was freezing when I went out this morning and the FF was nice and warm.

Its not real pretty, but it works.

 

[Beekissed]

Great idea and pics! Thank you!

 

[Little Wing]

Great idea and pics! Thank you!

Your welcome.
Thank you Bee! You got me started with FF 6 months ago. I don't think I will go back to non FF any time soon.

 

[Beekissed]

Your welcome.
Thank you Bee! You got me started with FF 6 months ago. I don't think I will go back to non FF any time soon.

Me either...such a simple thing that yields so many good benefits. I can't imagine why everyone isn't doing it by now. I was just discussing this with my mother this morning...when I researched FF two years ago all that came up was spent brewery grains and a few studies done in distant lands on commercial operations. I searched and searched to no avail. Then I posted these threads and found Kassaundra had been doing this for whole grains for some time but no one else seemed to be doing it.

There was much skepticism over it and about the dangers of it all and then The Road Less Traveled thread happened and people got to see for themselves what FF could do for old, sick, parasite ridden and anemic birds in such a short time~then folks started taking an interest all of the sudden.

I did a search on FF for chickens this morning and there were over 380,000 hits on the topic. Such a tiny pebble to drop into the world of poultry management but it has spread and spread. The very top site that comes up for that search is a blog site that was born from The Road thread, so I know that the waves out there in the poultry community came from that pebble that was tossed there.

It's growing.

 

[kpgoldstar]

I understand what you're saying BK, however, I have one girl that would be dead if I only fed them what could be eaten in a few minutes. And I understand the theory about birds that aren't smart enough or aggressive enough to fend for themselves in the flock perhaps should be culled, but for me as a small flockster who's chickens are pets, I'll go the extra mile to give warm feed, and see to it that there's a little left over for the least girl in the flock. It won't be such an issue when they are able to range. My whole flock suffered with a molt in the middle of the winter cold and being fed dry feed, that on top of a bag of feed that they refused to eat, no matter what I did to that feed. You'd ought to see the stress marks in some of their feathers.

I don't live where it freezes, but if I did I love the idea of using rice hulls or cracked corn as a warmer base. My friend makes those fabric covered (bean) bags, but uses corn. Heat in the microwave for a natural heating pad for sore muscles and you can even freeze them for the opposite affect. They stay warm for a very long time. You could use rice or beans for the same results. Set your ff feeder on one of those and I would bet it wouldn't freeze for well over an hour. Or multiple feeders like others have mentioned so the lower girls can eat separately from the bossy hens.