FERMENTED FEEDS...anyone using them?

[birdlady79]

You are correct...LABs have to have a source of oxygen to survive.  They derive it from the organic material they are feeding upon and no amount of putting plastic or tight lids over the buckets will keep this from happening...nor should anyone be trying to keep it from happening. 

Here's a little blurb  on it from Wiki....I'll highlight some important points in red....


I doubt just putting plastic or plastic and then a lid will make an FF bucket an efficient anaerobic digester....if it were that easy the wine and liquor industry are spending WAY too much money on trying to keep out wild yeasts.  We'll call them up and tell them to just use a plastic bag...

I suggest folks do some serious reading on the difference between these two, read more about wild yeasts, about the process of fermentation of feed grains and all the end products....without just reading someone's misinformation on a blog site.  Dig deeper, read more reputable information so you won't have to get it second hand and wrongly so. 

Yes, I know Wiki isn't always accurate about things either, so read further, dig a little....I just posted this so folks can get an idea of what is going on in their buckets....and it's not the aerobic kind of digestion going on, with or without your lids screwed down tight or plastic over the buckets.

I suggest, while you are digging and reading, to just leave the bucket lid cracked open on one side, stir your feed before feeding out and scrape down the bucket sides while doing so and just enjoy the simplicity of the system....it's healthy, it's working and will continue to work, just as it has for many people for the past few years using the same open air system to produce fermented feed for the chickens. 

No starters needed, no lids or containment to limit oxygen to the feed is needed, no water over the level of the feed needs to be maintained, and no over thinking of a simple process is needed.....learn about it, own the information and don't repeat what is learned on blog sites as certain fact unless you've done the research to confirm it as fact.  I used to have several links about such information and they are probably buried deep in these two threads but I'm too tired to go looking for them tonight. 

Thank you for the info... I guess I need to get a book on fermenting... So I can better understand the process...I'm working towards a Agri Science/Nutrition degree, so I need to know the basics anyway.... Right now all that is way over my head.... Lol

I started a bigger batch yesterday and I'm using paper towels over the top... Hopefully this batch will do better... I moved it back into house to so I would remember to stir... Those stupid fruit flys LOVE that stuff!!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

In your case I would just take one from her. I normally mix from the whole flock when looking for worms but in this case it was just the same 5 birds that were affected for a couple months so I just took a sample from the worst one. He showed me the slide and there were no worms but it was loaded with clostridium. He didn't tell me which species it was, perhaps he didn't know. If I had known at the time that there are 100 species, I would have asked. He did say it's common in livestock around here.
In a few days I'll give them a bath to see if they're cured.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

It's called vent gleet. I had a bird die after she had it for 2 weeks. I think she actually died of of being egg bound and the vent gleet complicated it. I tried putting garlic in their feed and I cleaned her many times a week. I hope your bird does better soon.

A friend's Serama has had vent gleet for several years. The vet has tried every kind of treatment imaginable with no improvement. I gave her some pro-biotic powder to try. It improved but didn't cure it. I suggested she put her down. Instead she gives her daily baths.

 

[southernmomma]

Exactly!!! Couldn't have said it better myself! All these little complicated routines, treats, feed mixes, bugs, worms, vitamin waters, etc. drive me insane and they DO get passed on as fact. It's like when kids at camp sat in a circle and whispered something in someone's ear and by the time it came around the full circle it was entirely inaccurate to the truth.

Same with this FF....with the water over the feed, lid on tight, glass or ceramic containers because the buckets may leach, adding fresh feed every day or each time you feed, adding ACV each time you refresh, strainers, bumbeezles, flamboozles and a ting tang doozle...pretty soon I feel like it all started in Hooville

..... LAB fermentation starters...when it's all going to be LAB fermentation in the end anyway, cheesecloth over the bucket when a lid popped down on one side is sufficient, stirring X number of times a day or it won't stay healthy, etc.


It grates on my everliving, loving nerves when folks complicate things unnecessarily.....all you have to do is watch the government in action if you really want to see that hot mess in action. It's fine if folks want to feel like they are working harder and spending more on their chickens than the next person, but there's no need to tout such things all over the net as something recommended for keeping chickens healthier or "happier".

People only have to fill containers once a week?! Shooo weee!

One thing I have seen a lot of that makes me scratch my head is the inclination to diddle. Tweaking is one thing, and I think there is a learning curve, particularly with relation to water/feed ratio and figuring out how thick {or not} you like your feed. It's the diddling and complicating I don't understand. I see folks who have 10 + ingredients in their recipes, and some of those are folks who aren't going to the mill and making their own feed. I've seen people who cook a wide variety of foods for their chickens {to give them variety; or because they wouldn't want to eat the same things every day, so why should the chickens?, etc.}

I mean, I'm not knocking it- if it floats your boat, go for it. I think it's great. But somehow, it invariably seems to get passed on to others as "necessary," which is isn't, and then all these steps and things that "must" be done can be a huge turn-off for folks. It reminds me of the couple I met in TSC the other day, who were on the verge of deciding against getting chickens, because they kept hearing about all the stuff that "had" to be done- flock blocks, meal worms, electrolytes in water, etc etc etc. She let me know yesterday that they did get 6 chicks, and have fallen in love. I didn't say more about FF except in passing, because I knew that might tip her over the edge, lololol.

Hello

This just about sums up my feelings as I try to read through this thread. I've started at the beginning, jumped to the middle and headed towards the end, trying to figure out what the current simplest protocol is. Can y'all help me out? Just point me to a general part of the thread or a particular post and I'll go from there....just having trouble separating the sh!@ from the shine at the moment

Cheers,
M

#3745 BOOM! Found what I was looking for

 

[chickengirl1193]

In your case I would just take one from her. I normally mix from the whole flock when looking for worms but in this case it was just the same 5 birds that were affected for a couple months so I just took a sample from the worst one. He showed me the slide and there were no worms but it was loaded with clostridium. He didn't tell me which species it was, perhaps he didn't know. If I had known at the time that there are 100 species, I would have asked. He did say it's common in livestock around here.
In a few days I'll give them a bath to see if they're cured.

Okay. And ill see if its still really bad now that her feathers are clean. Ill also look into vent gleet. Thanks guys!

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Just for yucks ...

Here is a link to a description of how to make one type of African fermented grains: http://www.allnigerianrecipes.com/howto/make-akamu-ogi-pap.html

Note that in this description, the grain ferments in a suspended cloth bag so it is simultaneously draining off excess moisture. The cloth bag is not air tight, nor is it under water, yet it does "sour."

I've read other descriptions of other methods of how to prep the same product.

 

[pdirt]

Thank you for the info... I guess I need to get a book on fermenting... So I can better understand the process...I'm working towards a Agri Science/Nutrition degree, so I need to know the basics anyway.... Right now all that is way over my head.... Lol

I started a bigger batch yesterday and I'm using paper towels over the top... Hopefully this batch will do better... I moved it back into house to so I would remember to stir... Those stupid fruit flys LOVE that stuff!!

Well with that direction of education, you'll be able to educate us on fermentation in no time!

Thanks, Bee for that wiki info about LABs using oxygen from the organic material. Makes sense. Most of my "education" has come from the folks at the Microbial Nutrition Yahoo group, the EM folks and especially Sandor Katz's excellent books. His books get somewhat into the science, but mostly from a practical and user-friendly perspective. I find his "Art of Fermenation" book is a very pleasurable education on ferments, from all around the world. They're all largely based upon ferments meant for human consumption but he does have a snippet on silage, a type of ferment used on farms. Always something new to learn!

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Okay. And ill see if its still really bad now that her feathers are clean. Ill also look into vent gleet. Thanks guys!

Vent gleet can be caused by fungus or bacteria. It is usually foul smelling, among other things. It can look like poo is clinging to the area when it is actually the fungus. The longer it is left, the more involved it gets ...

One way to quickly and inexpensively clear up a fungal gleet is to apply athlete's foot cream to the area. If it doesn't clear up rather quickly (think a few days) with athlete's foot cream, then it could be bacterial, and that is a more complicated situation that would require an antibiotic, but which one?

You can wash the bird's bum, then smear it with the cream, then let her go be a bird. Do that for a few days. Do as you wish with any eggs she lays during this time. I haven't read about any required "withdrawal" period for consuming eggs from a hen treated with athlete's foot cream, but if anyone knows, please share. Typically, the egg production process takes 6 weeks, so that's the most conservative withdrawal period.

Other anti-fungal pharmaceuticals can also be used ... yeast infection creams, jock itch creams. But they are all essentially the same thing that's in athlete's foot cream, which is probably the cheapest and easiest to find.

Gleet can cause a prolapse ... or maybe even vice versa.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Hello

This just about sums up my feelings as I try to read through this thread. I've started at the beginning, jumped to the middle and headed towards the end, trying to figure out what the current simplest protocol is. Can y'all help me out? Just point me to a general part of the thread or a particular post and I'll go from there....just having trouble separating the sh!@ from the shine at the moment

Cheers,
M

#3745 BOOM! Found what I was looking for

Yeah, we all wish there was a way for the original poster to go back to the first post in these informational threads to update it with the info that develops via the prolonged dialogue.

But for some reason BYC doesn't allow that.

I think your method of sifting through this thread is about the most efficient approach for everyone.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Here, again, is the 2011 article I found that studied the nutritional enhancements of fermentation of maize & sorghum. Note, this study was designed to compare the benefits of different starters, so the product that was fermented was very thoroughly cleaned prior to the introduction of the starter. Therefore, it is not surprising that the batches with starters added to them showed somewhat more nutritional increases.

http://maxwellsci.com/print/ajfst/v4-1-8.pdf

I am very curious about how well the "plain" batch might have compared it it had not been so thoroughly "cleaned" prior to fermentation.

To me, the most interesting aspect of that article is how the nutritional boost of fermentation increases each day spent fermenting, though they only measure 3 days.

AND

Here is a link to a place to purchase access to a review article from 1989 on scientific research into cereal fermentation. By "cereal" we mean "grains," not corn flakes. It would be cool if someone here would buy the access and read the article and report back. But that someone will not be me. Students might be able to get this article for free through their library.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10408398909527507#preview

There is more recent research available, but that article should be fairly comprehensive up to the publication date.