FERMENTED FEEDS...anyone using them?

[kile529]

Ok, I have been reading and reading....and the only recipes I've found have like 15 ingredients. Ugh! Then a lot of reading on here and people use commercial feed in their FF? I'm so confused.

Can several of you tell me what you put in your FF? I'd like to get a few simple recipes....with crumbles and without.

Please....put me out of my misery! lol I have chicks hatching in a little over a week and turkeys on the way!

 

[Audio51]

Ok, I have been reading and reading....and the only recipes I've found have like 15 ingredients. Ugh! Then a lot of reading on here and people use commercial feed in their FF? I'm so confused.

Can several of you tell me what you put in your FF? I'd like to get a few simple recipes....with crumbles and without.

Please....put me out of my misery! lol I have chicks hatching in a little over a week and turkeys on the way!

I use only Layer crumbles for my girls. I occasionally add some scratch grains to the ferment at the beginning so it ferments too. I will be hatching chicks in a couple of weeks and they will get started crumbles in their ferment.

 

[kile529]

So, does the feed last longer simply because it's absorbing water??

 

[Beekissed]

So, does the feed last longer simply because it's absorbing water??

Nope...water doesn't have any caloric content. It lasts longer because the nutrition is boosted to such a degree that they have to eat less than they normally would to get the same or better nutrition and their intestines also change with this manner of feeding to where they actually absorb more of the available nutrients.

If it were merely from soaking in water there would be no physical results or changes with this method of feeding except for a weight loss and loss of conditioning due to less intake of the available feed. That's not happening..the birds are getting glossier, fatter, and healthier on less feed consumption.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

It also limits billing out so there is much less waste.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Ok, I have been reading and reading....and the only recipes I've found have like 15 ingredients. Ugh! Then a lot of reading on here and people use commercial feed in their FF? I'm so confused.

Can several of you tell me what you put in your FF? I'd like to get a few simple recipes....with crumbles and without. 

Please....put me out of my misery! lol I have chicks hatching in a little over a week and turkeys on the way!

I ferment the all purpose poultry pellets.

Literature I read recently on the nutritional augmentation of fermented cereal grains suggested there is more nutritional boost between days 2 and 3 of the ferment ... so in fermenting for at least 3 days before I feed.

 

[Beekissed]

Ok, I have been reading and reading....and the only recipes I've found have like 15 ingredients. Ugh! Then a lot of reading on here and people use commercial feed in their FF? I'm so confused.

Can several of you tell me what you put in your FF? I'd like to get a few simple recipes....with crumbles and without.

Please....put me out of my misery! lol I have chicks hatching in a little over a week and turkeys on the way!

You haven't been reading on this thread, have you?

Keep it simple...just ferment the feed your normally buy. That's what I do...I just ferment laying mash and seasonally I make the usual changes I always make each year, but right now I'm on pure layer ration. We are heading into peak laying season and they need all the nutrition they can get and the layer ration has a balanced nutrition for them.

K.I.S.S.....always...keep it simple, silly!

 

[kile529]

LOL I have definitely been reading this thread, however 200+ pages of FF and 300+ pages of fodder to read is making my eyes and head hurt! Not to mention all the other tabs I have open from other forums, blogs, etc. Yowza....haha I tend to really dive in and research a ton....problem with that is that it's a TON harder to figure out where to start. lol So many people have different ways of doing things - none seem to be wrong either....which I guess is why it seems overwhelming.

I guess I thought the point of FF was to use whole grains and keep away from using commercial feed so I was surprised seeing posts of fermenting the crumbles.

 

[Beekissed]

LOL I have definitely been reading this thread, however 200+ pages of FF and 300+ pages of fodder to read is making my eyes and head hurt! Not to mention all the other tabs I have open from other forums, blogs, etc. Yowza....haha I tend to really dive in and research a ton....problem with that is that it's a TON harder to figure out where to start. lol So many people have different ways of doing things - none seem to be wrong either....which I guess is why it seems overwhelming.

I guess I thought the point of FF was to use whole grains and keep away from using commercial feed so I was surprised seeing posts of fermenting the crumbles.

Nope...that's not the whole point of fermented feeds. The whole point of fermented feeds is to take your existing feed and make it better without spending more money to do so. All that other mumbo jumbo arrived after the first thread on FF was started on this forum. I know this because I was one of the first that started it, and the threads, and before that you couldn't find one single piece of info on fermenting chicken feed except some studies done on commercial operations over in Africa. Now a search engine reveals over 380,000 hits on the topic just 2 short years later...and the one at the top of that page got her information after reading one of my threads.

 

[MandalaMaMa]

If i was going to add wheat seed to my ff food how much would you guys recommend. Right now I'm starting with 3 cups of crumbles when mixing my batch of ff.