FERMENTED FEEDS...anyone using them?

[aart]

Quote: Thanks...makes sense, especially the different bacteria using different nutrients.
I'm just wetting commercial feed for chicks in a very cold environment to assist hydration.
Only doing a days worth or so at a time, not really trying to ferment, but some fermentation may be happening anyway by the tangy odor I detect.

 

[Tikkijane]

I was wondering if Fermented Payback would be OK to feed to chicks?
Thanks MK

Yes. All mine, including babies, are on FF. I just make a different batch for them. No biggy.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I think too it would depend on the nature of the feed being fermented. ...

The difference in results is amazing. I've done the normal starter and layer crumbles but I didn't like the results. I'm using a very coarsely ground organic feed with large particles and some whole grains. The consistency is great and I imagine it's similar to those that use conventional feed mixed with some scratch.

UGH, there are rats in my hen coop, droppings and what looks like some food hoarding on the headboard of the 2 doors leading out to the run. NO WAY is there to keep them out. What's weird is it looks like they've been taking the FF and putting it on the board HOW i don't know but it's disgusting.

Which means...i'm going to have to get out of bed early in the a.m. and start again putting the food out then, i had stopped that to be able to get some sleep and put it out in the run at night. I don't keep their food in the coop but secured in the run.

Try building a couple of these.
https://survivalsherpa.wordpress.co...-a-stairway-to-heaven-rat-trap-in-15-minutes/
There are many versions. Just google bucket rat trap. They work very well. I use peanut butter.

Yes. And the nutrition that is being used is all macronutrients (carbs and proteins). I have to expect that carbs get burned before proteins, but both are burned, for cracked corn, over several days to weeks at least. All those numbers on the feed bag, are very rough. At some point in the ferment there are more absorbable carbohydrates, and at some point more absorbable amino acids, than the bag implies. It gets very complicated, considering that a feed has multiple components. For example buckwheat has large amounts of phytase, and rye a good amount. These are enzymes that break down phytates and release minerals. So you have a feed with a bit of these grains, and the available minerals are significantly more than a nearly identical feed without. Note this does not even need bacteria, it just needs the feed to be in a solution. And keep in mind that your ferment has easily 20 significant bacterial species, and different bacteria do very different things.

Good explanation.
Not the same thing but similar complicated things happen with sprouting, depending on what seeds are sprouted.

I feed once a day. In the winter, it's sometime in the morning...no routine or specific time, just whenever I roll on out there. In the warm months I feed in the evening...same thing, just whenever I get around to it and as long as it's before roosting time. My birds are healthy...never had any illness in any of my flocks, so I guess it doesn't hurt them at all.

Keeps rats out of the coop too, as there is not one speck of feed to attract them left over after the chickens have their say about it.

I usually put it out in the morning and enough to last most of the day. However, it's been cold - nicer than last year but still single digits and teens so I'm just feeding what they can eat in about 20 minutes and keeping dry feed available.

I was wondering if Fermented Payback would be OK to feed to chicks?
Thanks MK

Not sure what payback is but I start the chicks on FF. Usually I'll give starter crumbles the first couple days with probiotic powder in the water then once they're more active, I switch to FF using a reel top plastic chick feeder.
http://www.farmtek.com/farm/supplies/prod1;;pg106139.html
Just make sure it's far enough away from the heat lamp or it gets hard and the chicks can't eat it.

 

[hennible]

Hi chickencanoe

 

[Beekissed]

Quote ChickenCanoe: ChickenCanoe, I found out a good way to prevent that freezing this year....last year I didn't have as much of it but this year little bits left behind were freezing in the trough, then the next feed left a little bit more, and before I knew it I had a trough full of frozen feed simply because of those little bits becoming frozen before the birds ate it.

Now I just put it directly on the deep litter~I don't normally feed on the ground and don't advocate for it unless it's necessary~and this has become the best thing....no more frozen feed, the bedding is turned every which way but loose so they can get every speck of it and it gives them more to do during deep snow confinement. It's a win/win/win! I'm looking that bedding over real well and not finding feed material at all, so they are not losing it to the deep litter....they are doing a good job of finding it all.

 

[ReillyJ]

Before you flame me to hell, i know this pertains to humans BUT it is something to very carefully consider. This isn't just speculation, it has been documented.

I do FF but i want to carefully examine all the facts and i'm wondering if anyone has FF their flock LONG TERM and seen any additional benefit or loss??

http://blog.arkofwellness.com/fermented-food-a-no-go/

 

[hennible]

I'm may totally have missed something but I'm just going to ask this to clarify. The Bactria we culture are ideally mostly lactobacillus strains right? what are they breaking down again are they breaking down lactic acid or is there breakdown creating lactic acid?
I think they produce lactic acid anyway... that's where the article is going but wouldn't other bacteria produce different things? can we just change the fermentation methods to produce less lactic acid if it's harmful to consume?
It does make sense lactic acid harmful to consume, I think it's responsible for things like muscle cramps... Actually I never made a connection between lactic acid produced by the human body and lactic acid being produced by bacteria being the same darn thing... Huh.

 

[Beekissed]

Before you flame me to hell, i know this pertains to humans BUT it is something to very carefully consider. This isn't just speculation, it has been documented.

I do FF but i want to carefully examine all the facts and i'm wondering if anyone has FF their flock LONG TERM and seen any additional benefit or loss??

http://blog.arkofwellness.com/fermented-food-a-no-go/

I think Kassaundra has been doing it the longest here on BYC and I've not met or read of anyone doing it in the private sector that was doing it at all until we opened these two threads on it.

As for the article, you need to read very closely....there were many qualifiers that contributed to health problems in those cultures and diets and not just fermented foods or lactic acid. There have been far, far, far too many studies done that contradict his theory. And, yes, it's just speculation and inference unless there are specific sources cited and one can read those studies firsthand and see if there were other contributing factors that could cause such things besides the consumption of lactic acid.

Like this paragraph...just including it seems like it supports his hypothesis, but read the whole thing and you will find there were many, many mitigating factors that caused these people's problems and lactic acid wasn't one of them. I'll highlight in blue the words to watch for when someone is building a case on circumstantial evidence....

Quote:
Quote: Quote: A person could do this all day long with an article such as this one, but you get the point....the man or whoever wrote the article has taken vague "facts" and worded it in such a way as to place fermented or preserved foods as the deciding factor in all these poor outcomes and risks but if you read more closely you find there are several mitigating factors and the author has cleverly used phrasing to suggest otherwise by pinpointing and focusing on the words "fermented", "preserved", and "lactic acid".

I wouldn't get too wound up over one article by one doctor or someone getting scared over what one doctor has said. If the LABs were causing an inflammatory response in these chickens we would know it by now...their lives are much shorter than ours, their metabolic rate much higher, so any disease process or inflammatory response is much quicker and will have its "long term affects" in a much shorter time than what we consider long term. I think anyone even using them for a year or more on the same chickens would have already seen these changes and inflammatory responses or a rise in cancer in their flocks by now if that was going to be an issue.

The additional benefits have already been documented by many for the past couple of years, the losses? I've not heard of any that could be contributed solely to the FF yet. Who knows? We could see long term changes in the flocks with a decrease in lay over time or decrease in fertility, etc. but we've seen nothing yet.

Never fear....I'm watching for any changes over time as well that I would consider being contributed towards the FF. I'm not so stuck in a groove that I can't be objective over it...that's the nature of an experiment and one never stops weighing the benefits and merits of any one method if they have any smarts about them.

 

[ReillyJ]

Thanks for taking the time to reply, Bee!

 

[lazy gardener]

I'd also like to point out that many of the folks who use FF cull their birds, and raise poultry for table use. So, these birds who eat a diet of FF get an autopsy at the end of their travels. Bee, along with a host of other folks with medical back ground does a thorough inspection of what's going on inside the bird on processing day. No surprises. No signs of illness.

My flock has been on FF for almost 2 years. I can say that when comparing my birds to those of my friends and neighbors (most of whom got their birds at the same time, and often from the same source as I did, as well as them getting some of my hatched chicks from me), my birds definitely have the advangage. They have started laying sooner, their feather condition is bright and shiny compared to the duller, broken feathers in the other flocks. My birds also have very strong winter egg shells. I was talking with a friend last week. (same age birds, she has 2 girls that I hatched) last week, and she's been having a lot of issues with weak broken egg shells, and egg eaters. She's offering oyster shell in addition to lay pellets. I'm doing the same, but my lay pellets are fermented.