FERMENTED FEEDS...anyone using them?

[Beekissed]

What DO you feed your chooks, @Beekissed ? Treats, supplements, medication schedule, feeds and brands, etc....

I'm sorry....not laughing at you but that whole list is kind of funny to me, as I am a person who never gives meds, supplements or treats, nor does my feed have a brand...it's the cheapest, plain white bag layer mash ground fresh right at the local feed mill. It costs me just around $10 a bag and has 16% soy protein...most likely it's GMO AND has the dreaded soy in it.

Neither of which concerns me much, as my flock primarily eats free ranged forage and uses the daily ration as a supplement to that diet, though they do depend on it overmuch in the winter months when most of the time I'll cut that layer ration by half with oats or barley.

Usually I'll give the new chicks fermented, unmedicated starter for a few weeks, then turn them out on range and with the rest of the flock...at my mill I can buy as small a bag of starter as I wish, so I don't have to use up a huge bag of starter. I've been known to bypass the starter and just feed layer mash to the chicks. My granny used to just give chicks cornmeal and they all thrived like little jumpin' beans...of course, like me she got them out on range so fast that they didn't have to rely on that for long as their primary source of nutrition.

Treats are kind of not in my wheelhouse, seems like anything I give my flock is a treat to them, so I don't go out of my way to purchase anything more special....I will use logs and old bales of hay in the coop and at the wood line as a depository for worms, then will turn them over now and again to let the birds at them, but usually they are out there getting their own treats.

 

[bbhorsefly]

Always good to challenge the "accepted wisdom" out there by doing your own research and coming to your own conclusions on things based on a compilation of all you've learned, though not many go that route and will stick with something they or someone else read in a book about poultry and pass along as gospel truth. 

Which is exactly how I ended up here! I try to do this in all aspects of my life, which pretty much just means I'm a crazy person in "civilized" society! Haha

I still find it unsettling though that people speak with such conviction when they clearly don't know what they are talking about. It makes it really easy to spot folks that haven't researched anything, but I'm new enough to this game that it gave me pause. But as soon as I had 30 seconds to think about what they were saying and what a system set up with that feed philosophy would require, it just doesn't make sense in real life. Unless maybe you're a breeder with multiple pens, don't mix ages, and have very specific replacement cycling timetables?

I leave feed out all the time too! That's how I gauge if everyone is getting enough. I like there to be a touch left in the feeders by the time everyone has wandered away from the feeders at meal times so I know the lowest guys on the totem pole have gotten their fill. I always wonder where people are coming from that say you can't leave it out. Are they living in fear of some microbe? Or personalizing things to "I wouldn't want to eat oatmeal that's sat out in the sun for an hour" so they project that on their chickens?

 

[Beekissed]

Yes, on both counts. Most folks on this forum live in some fear of making their chickens sick or killing them, especially when venturing outside the box of formulated feeds and giving scheduled dewormers and antibiotics for every unknown illness. Not having lived with chickens for generations, they treat them less like the tough livestock they are and more like pets.

In reality, when you see pics posted on the net or venture to the homes of many newbie chicken owners you see them living in conditions that would make you cry....but as long as the owners are over feeding them high protein feed and deworming them with meds they feel like it's quality care.

 

[aart]

Yes, on both counts. Most folks on this forum live in some fear of making their chickens sick or killing them, especially when venturing outside the box of formulated feeds and giving scheduled dewormers and antibiotics for every unknown illness. Not having lived with chickens for generations, they treat them less like the tough livestock they are and more like pets.

In reality, when you see pics posted on the net or venture to the homes of many newbie chicken owners you see them living in conditions that would make you cry....but as long as the owners are over feeding them high protein feed and deworming them with meds they feel like it's quality care.

Indeed.....tiny shoe boxes stuffed with chickens that are stuffed with meds, custom feeds, concoctions, and condiments...that are sick and/or not laying and/or eating each other.

 

[Beekissed]

That's what I'm seeing too and a person just has to turn away...there's really no teaching someone who can look at that and think it's okay.

 

[enola]

I am another chicken owner who does not feed treats. I have never medicated my birds for anything other than coccidia, and then any bird that has to be treated for cccidoa is NEVER put in a breeding pen, I eat them. I do not use any antibiotics. All new birds are rigorously quarantined. I only worm if I suspect a worm overload. My chickens are not pets. If they are not productive, then I eat them.

And I feed FF, you can't do a better favor for your chickens. All of my chickens eat the same diet, from day one until 24 hours before butchering.

 

[Exotica]

Why shouldn't you leave the feed outside for more than an hour?

I leave feed out for days when I travel. There's absolutely no reason that one cannot leave FF out for the chickens, no matter how long. It tends to turn a little grey in color when left out but still edible and no different than when first left out...the chickens still eat it, grey or not.

For chicks I usually feed twice a day and enough for them to have a nice breakfast and time to clean their plate well before an evening feeding...and that evening feeding should sustain them and be completely cleaned up when I feed the next meal. If it's not, I feed less each time until they are cleaning it up well. Contrary to popular consensus, chicks do not have to have access to feed 24/7 in order to stay healthy.

Oh! What a relief! I thought I read somewhere not to leave the feed out for more than an hour. Thank you!! <3

 

[Beekissed]

Oh! What a relief! I thought I read somewhere not to leave the feed out for more than an hour. Thank you!! <3

I'm pretty sure I know from whence that information has come and it's a totally unreliable source for factual information on FF....we get a lot of folks from over that way who have been misled and it's all crazy stuff they've been told. Weird, really.

 

[bbhorsefly]

Indeed.....tiny shoe boxes stuffed with chickens that are stuffed with meds, custom feeds, concoctions, and condiments...that are sick and/or not laying and/or eating each other.

I find this theory being applied to just about everything. I have people upset that I have outside dogs and have an invisible fence system so they have 5 acres to roam. It "keeps them out" if the neighbors livestock and out of the road and that's it. They are free! But I've had people tell me it's "hateful." Apparently 80lb farm dogs would be much better off confined to a small yard with 8ft fences, tied up, or kept in the house, instead of hearing a chime on their collar warning them they are reaching the edge of their property.... I'm labeled "cruel" that I would let my chickens free range because "something might get to them, or they might have an accident, or they might eat something they shouldn't...." *sigh* as long as you make them a hand embroidered bed and load them up with medicines and preventatives and have the professionally groomed every month and run them to a doctor every time they have a sniffle, then their quality of their life is subjective to some people.

 

[Beekissed]

I find this theory being applied to just about everything. I have people upset that I have outside dogs and have an invisible fence system so they have 5 acres to roam. It "keeps them out" if the neighbors livestock and out of the road and that's it. They are free! But I've had people tell me it's "hateful." Apparently 80lb farm dogs would be much better off confined to a small yard with 8ft fences, tied up, or kept in the house, instead of hearing a chime on their collar warning them they are reaching the edge of their property.... I'm labeled "cruel" that I would let my chickens free range because "something might get to them, or they might have an accident, or they might eat something they shouldn't...." *sigh* as long as you make them a hand embroidered bed and load them up with medicines and preventatives and have the professionally groomed every month and run them to a doctor every time they have a sniffle, then their quality of their life is subjective to some people.

I've had that exact same conversation at least a hundred times or more and each time it's like talking to someone who has been indoctrinated into some cult from birth and are taught to say the exact same things in these situations(I too use the invisible fencing, keep dogs outside at all times and free range my chickens....a nigh perfect life for all animals concerned). No matter where I've went in this country or how many people I talk to in the world via the internet, the exact same phrasing is used....do they all check out a book and memorize their lines?

How can that many people from all over the world be that steeped in ignorance and irrational thinking, even down to using the exact same words and phrasing? It boggles the mind to think on it.