FERMENTED FEEDS...anyone using them?

[lazy gardener]

They can be fearful of new things. What about putting a plop of it on a piece of cardboard, and then tossing some dry crumble over it? How old are they? For the future, I recommend starting chicks on lots of different textures (always keeping nutrition in mind, of course) early on, so they don't get in a rut about their feed being a certain texture and in a certain dish. My flock will attack anything that i bring to them.

 

[n3kms]

I've started all my chicks off with fermented chick food. These last took right to it but at 5 days old I offered them scrambled egg and you would have thought it was poison. Go figure.

 

[Clucken2]

I am new to BYC, and only 8 months into my first chicken flock. I have 8 hens; 5 EE, 3 Aussies, 1 polish hen and 1 polish roo. They have slowed down with their egg laying any I am trying to find new "treats" for the girls. They have a dry crumble laying feed that is in hanging feeder and available at all times. My husband has been too generous with the scratch mix which is high in cracked corn. I though I would try offering higher protein treats and was wondering what health benefits does FF offer? What is used to began the fermentation?

 

[jbkirk]

I am new to BYC, and only 8 months into my first chicken flock. I have 8 hens; 5 EE, 3 Aussies, 1 polish hen and 1 polish roo. They have slowed down with their egg laying any I am trying to find new "treats" for the girls. They have a dry crumble laying feed that is in hanging feeder and available at all times. My husband has been too generous with the scratch mix which is high in cracked corn. I though I would try offering higher protein treats and was wondering what health benefits does FF offer? What is used to began the fermentation?

The lone ingredient used to begin fermentation other than feed & water is ...... Time.
EDIT

 

[steve horner]

I will have to keep trying different things. Thanks again for everyone's help.

 

[Clucken2]

Tks, I have found "ACV" and "Mother" listed in reading these threads. But I do not know what they are. I am a regular consumer of Kefer and thought that rinsing the bottle out with the water I am using to start the FF there would be a few pro-biotic cultures ready to grow!

 

[Tikkijane]

I've done it and they eat it much like chicks, but with much, much more head slinging of FF.....they prefer it pretty dry and they have to have a lot of water, which then makes the water really ick because they are rinsing off the feed into it.  I tried nipple buckets with the ducklings but they weren't getting enough water that way...at all...even had a few die of what I considered was dehydration from lack of enough water due to the nipple bucket. 

I'd venture to say that ducks would do much better with fermented whole grains than they would actual processed feed.  Later on, as adults, they did very well on the fermented layer mash where the grains were bigger.

If I were going to do it all over again I'd mix their mix much dryer even than I had done.  The dirty water seems to be a fact of life with ducklings, so just make the receptacle deep enough for them to swim in as well so all the feed particles sink to the bottom and they have the best of both worlds...water and swimming opportunities.   

That makes a lot of sense. Thank you! The keets did just fine, but we haven't moved the ducklings over. You'd think I would have gotten around to ducks already, lol.

 

[Tikkijane]

https://tikktok.wordpress.com/2014/04/13/fermented-feed-faq/

Details on getting started, etc, and a list of pros/cons. Scratch /corn is in the treat category- no more than 10% daily. Digesting corn raises body temp, which makes it a great treat during really cold temps. It's got to be below freezing before I bring it out.

I am new to BYC, and only 8 months into my first chicken flock. I have 8 hens; 5 EE, 3 Aussies, 1 polish hen and 1 polish roo. They have slowed down with their egg laying any I am trying to find new "treats" for the girls. They have a dry crumble laying feed that is in hanging feeder and available at all times. My husband has been too generous with the scratch mix which is high in cracked corn. I though I would try offering higher protein treats and was wondering what health benefits does FF offer? What is used to began the fermentation?

 

[redfordchick]

I've been feeding fermented starter since I got my chicks a week ago, it took a few days to get bubbly and now it seems to be pretty active! They go crazy for it. Hard for me to tell if it is saving me money because I started this way so have no consumption rate of dry feed to compare to, but they really like it and seem to be growing like weeds- that's good enough for me. However, this is all interesting to me... I wonder if anyone has actually had the fermented feed analyzed. One bag of feed I have is really basic, the local feed store lied to me and said it was starter but it's grower, nothing added... So I went and bought Nutrena unmedicated starter, and started fermenting that too, makes me wonder what happens to the probiotics when fermented. I've seen some cool recipes of things to add to your feed, but ultimately that gets really expensive and you're messing with the overall analysis of the feed. Then, a friend of mine who is a Farmer said fermenting chicken feed is NOT natural... then I was super confused again. Seems like we kind of wing it and thankfully the animals are pretty forgiving and tolerant of our meddling. I'm trying to take a minimalist, naturalist approach... I like the concept of fermenting I just don't know if it's appropriate for every feed out there. I bake sourdough bread and brew Kombucha, and lactoferment some stuff too. I like making special mixes up as it's fun and makes you feel more involved, just alot of factors to consider.

 

[Beekissed]

Actually, chickens eat a lot of things out there in nature that have been fermented and actually prefer some things fermented than fresh(pumpkins, apples, peaches, etc.)...fruits, vegggies, grains, even meats. Fermenting feed is about as natural as feeding chickens on a formulated feed comprised primarily of grains, which out in nature comprises only a small part of their diet.

I'm sure your farmer friend also feeds cultivated grain rations to his other livestock, with all the supplements added(how often, pray tell, will a cow find itself sipping molasses?)....which isn't very natural either as those same animals in the wild would normally consume grass, browse, fruits(mostly fermented), nuts, wild grains and even meats when they can find them or chew them. I'm pretty much betting he also gives chemical dewormers and antibiotics to his animals as well, which are in no way natural. Actually, containing them in fences is not natural either, as herbivores normally range over wide areas to find the foods they require for good health. And I'm wondering if he feeds silage?

Ask him about all that and see what he has to say.