FERMENTED FEEDS...anyone using them?

[fenwickchic]

@beverly evans
Sorry haven't replied sooner, but I don't get emailed posts everyday. I just realized I can change the setting to Immediately", so I will get replies right away.

I have 6 chickens: 5 hens (Henny & Penny (red sex links), Goldilocks and Shirley Temple (BO), Dagny (Brahma), and Charlie Sheen (Pekin Bantam).

Sorry to hear about your lawn. Mine is the same, but the "expert" at the feed store told me not to worry that my lawn would recover. He said I would be shocked at how frequently I have to mow. Well, LOL, I won't have to DH will have to. My babies do use the plastic dust bin with sand in it that I bought and put in the chicken tractor, but they like to dig holes too! I guess there is not enough room for them all at once in the little "litter pan".

How many do you have? Do you use a chicken tractor too?

 

[beverly evans]

@beverly evans
Sorry haven't replied sooner, but I don't get emailed posts everyday. I just realized I can change the setting to Immediately", so I will get replies right away.

I have 6 chickens: 5 hens (Henny & Penny (red sex links), Goldilocks and Shirley Temple (BO), Dagny (Brahma), and Charlie Sheen (Pekin Bantam).

Sorry to hear about your lawn. Mine is the same, but the "expert" at the feed store told me not to worry that my lawn would recover. He said I would be shocked at how frequently I have to mow. Well, LOL, I won't have to DH will have to. My babies do use the plastic dust bin with sand in it that I bought and put in the chicken tractor, but they like to dig holes too! I guess there is not enough room for them all at once in the little "litter pan".

How many do you have? Do you use a chicken tractor too?

Hi, What's a BO? I have 9 atm, soon to get rid of a rooster, then I'll be down to 8. I have 2 americaunas, a dominique, an australorp and a black maran that lay, plus a welsummer and a russian orloff that don't lay yet, and a lavenddar ameracuna rooster and a copper maran rooster that is onthe way out. BUT I have 5 in an incubator due on the 10th, hopefully olive green egg layers! Those are in someone elses bator. Now, I will borrow one that holds 40 eggs and will try to fill it before I get rid of the next rooster. It will take me a long time to collect that many eggs since everyone seems to be taking a hiatus at the moment! One egg today with 5 layers.

 

[beverly evans]

Hi, What's a BO? I have 9 atm, soon to get rid of a rooster, then I'll be down to 8. I have 2 americaunas, a dominique, an australorp and a black maran that lay, plus a welsummer and a russian orloff that don't lay yet, and a lavenddar ameracuna rooster and a copper maran rooster that is onthe way out. BUT I have 5 in an incubator due on the 10th, hopefully olive green egg layers! Those are in someone elses bator. Now, I will borrow one that holds 40 eggs and will try to fill it before I get rid of the next rooster. It will take me a long time to collect that many eggs since everyone seems to be taking a hiatus at the moment! One egg today with 5 layers.

I forgot to answer. My baby coop is a concoction I came up with in a hurry. It is on wheels, wheel-barrow style so I can change their spot as soon as it is soiled. It is made out of a large table with a shipping crate with nesting boxes on one end and a large inside type dog crate on the other end with wheels and handles. No babies in it at present. The big girls have a coop with a run that isn't big enough to suit them. They are pacing every morning waiting to be let out. Their automatic door lets them out before I get up and they are waiting for breakfast......spoiled brats!

 

[fenwickchic]

Hi, What's a BO? I have 9 atm, soon to get rid of a rooster, then I'll be down to 8. I have 2 americaunas, a dominique, an australorp and a black maran that lay, plus a welsummer and a russian orloff that don't lay yet, and a lavenddar ameracuna rooster and a copper maran rooster that is onthe way out. BUT I have 5 in an incubator due on the 10th, hopefully olive green egg layers! Those are in someone elses bator. Now, I will borrow one that holds 40 eggs and will try to fill it before I get rid of the next rooster. It will take me a long time to collect that many eggs since everyone seems to be taking a hiatus at the moment! One egg today with 5 layers.

B.O. is Buff Orpington. The Red Sex Links are the friendliest and the least easily frightened. The B.O.s are very pretty though and fun to watch forage when I let them out. Which isn't often because we don't have a fenced in yard and therefore I have to put up temporary fencing and stay out to watch them or only let 2 out at a time and then chase them around to round them up. Now I bet that's funny to watch! 5 hens and usually average 4 eggs a day. It varies 5 one day, 3 another day, 4 another day, ... I expect egg production to slow now that it is getting colder. I've been freezing the eggs in ice cube trays for Christmas cookie baking. I go through a ton of eggs then and will need them.

 

[beverly evans]

B.O. is Buff Orpington. The Red Sex Links are the friendliest and the least easily frightened. The B.O.s are very pretty though and fun to watch forage when I let them out. Which isn't often because we don't have a fenced in yard and therefore I have to put up temporary fencing and stay out to watch them or only let 2 out at a time and then chase them around to round them up. Now I bet that's funny to watch! 5 hens and usually average 4 eggs a day. It varies 5 one day, 3 another day, 4 another day, ... I expect egg production to slow now that it is getting colder. I've been freezing the eggs in ice cube trays for Christmas cookie baking. I go through a ton of eggs then and will need them.

Eggs in the ice cube trays? Good idea! I was getting one a day from all 5 layers until last month when 3 little by little stopped laying. I guess it is rest time, but can't they do it separately? You know, like one at qa time?

 

[niqueie]

I have a question on fermenting pumpkins. Here's a thread that was started and was hoping to get some ideas from you guys.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/835019/fermenting-pumpkins#post_12256938

I'm totally new to all of this, but I love what fermented feed is doing so far. I wanted to know if I've ruined my pumpkin innards by leaving them in a bowl at room temps for 2 days. It has some pinkish slime on parts and has a stink to it. My feed that I ferment doesn't smell bad. Just wondering the difference between rotting pumpkin and fermented pumpkin. The feed is easy to tell. Not sure about the pumpkin though.

 

[Beekissed]

No, the pumpkin isn't easy to tell. But fermentation is a part of all rotting of veggies. Even seeds have to go through a fermentation period before they sprout and grow in the garden. It's one of those things where you just sit the pumpkins to one side somewhere sheltered and let them go through the process. They will take a longer time, I imagine, to ferment than simple grain feeds because of their sheer mass. You could maybe put them in a food processor and break them down to size and add them to the FF bucket for a more controlled fermentation if you like.

I try not to over think such things because they aren't a key part of the chicken's diet. They are just a neat way of giving them some vegetable matter in the middle of winter when they haven't had any for a long while~which also gives some antihelmintic properties right when they need it most. I usually don't feed the pumpkins until around January if we get a thaw. I realize you folks who never get cold weather for winter time may need to manage your pumpkins differently and I don't know what to tell you there, as I only have a limited scope of reference as to how pumpkins act when left out to sort of self preserve here in my local climate.

 

[beverly evans]

No, the pumpkin isn't easy to tell. But fermentation is a part of all rotting of veggies. Even seeds have to go through a fermentation period before they sprout and grow in the garden. It's one of those things where you just sit the pumpkins to one side somewhere sheltered and let them go through the process. They will take a longer time, I imagine, to ferment than simple grain feeds because of their sheer mass. You could maybe put them in a food processor and break them down to size and add them to the FF bucket for a more controlled fermentation if you like.

I try not to over think such things because they aren't a key part of the chicken's diet. They are just a neat way of giving them some vegetable matter in the middle of winter when they haven't had any for a long while~which also gives some antihelmintic properties right when they need it most. I usually don't feed the pumpkins until around January if we get a thaw. I realize you folks who never get cold weather for winter time may need to manage your pumpkins differently and I don't know what to tell you there, as I only have a limited scope of reference as to how pumpkins act when left out to sort of self preserve here in my local climate.

My pumpkin was ignored almost totally until it went bad, then they ate it down to the skin. Just leave it out on the ground cut open and if you don't want it to make booze in the "bowl" cut it in fourths. They will eventually eat it, nasty as it gets.

 

[Beekissed]

Yep. My birds showed very little interest in pumpkins until they were frozen, thawed, frozen, thawed, rotted, frozen and thawed...by that time they were dry as a bone as all the syrup had run out and were like a deflated basketball. They then tore at them..you could hear the ripping noises of the skin! And crowded in to fight over the pumpkin like it was their last meal.

Of course, I found all that out by sheer accident...I had stored them for later use, in my broody pen. When I checked on them once they were frozen solid. So, I just forgot about them all winter and then, one nice warm day I noticed they had thawed and had deflated like a basketball, syrup had run out of them and made a nasty mess, so I tossed them out, thinking the birds wouldn't want them any longer. Nope...it was like a feeding frenzy!

The following year I did the same thing and my sheep got into the feeding frenzy and it was a wild free for all...they LOVED them! Lesson learned. Season out the pumpkins so the starches change to sugars and the skin gets thinner, more edible.

 

[OHhappychicks]

Questions for beekissed. I've been feeding my laying hens ff for about 2 weeks now. I'm feeding 36, 3 roos. About 20 or so are just starting to lay and some of them are just 10 weeks old and others are 2-3 yrs old. I use a large restaurant type stainless steel spoon with a long handle to stir and to measure when I feed. I put about 30 large, heaping spoonfuls in the feeders. I feed them in the evening before they go in for the night. I have a light that comes on about 5:30 am. We let them out at daylight. My questions are, #1- should there be some left for the morning? #2 - Does this seem to be enough? #3- Should I feed them each a scoop? I know you've said they act like they are starving, (in which they do!!), so this is normal? I'm observing them, and they don't seem to be loosing weight or anything. They do free range all day. DH throws a little dry feed out for them in the morning when he lets them out. Not a lot. I think I worry they aren't getting enough in the morning when they have 2 hrs in the coop every morn with nothing to eat. When the grass and bugs die, I am going to do some fodder for them and I have a meal worm farm, but I'm going to wait until these are unavailable to them before giving it to them. Just an over winter thing. They are definitly friendlier! They come running up to us now, and yesterday, I walked across the yard and turned around and about 7-8 of them were following me!!

Loved that!