FERMENTED FEEDS...anyone using them?

[Beekissed]

Yep...it is. I have and they are.

 

[theadvocate19]

Where was the gray mold? On top of the water? On top of the feed under the water? What made you certain it was mold? Do you stir every time you feed and if so, how did you miss a day of stirring, unless this is a brand new batch you are trying to ferment?

Hi!! Well it was grayish in color, looked like mold. It was on the top. Above the water amount. Approximately half inch thick. I stirred it frequently, at least 1 a day. I aimed for 2-3 stirs a day, but needless to say it often was just 1/day...and no I switch between fermented and fresh everyday. So the one day I didn't do it last week resulted in the grayish mold like substance. The smell wasn't terribly putrid, but I just didn't think it was safe. We used a 5 gallon bucket with the lid. It was our first batch ever, so I assumed I fudged it up. It was approximately 2 weeks old without Apple cider vinegar..Hope that didn't matter...

 

[kpgoldstar]

I had this same problem with my RIRs so I got some of those plastic split rings from the feed store and put different colored bands on the. Et voila! Now I can tell them apart. Okay, /I/ can tell them apart at a glance now, but the SO cannot.

And to keep this OT, I just started with fermented feed. Normally I'd take a stance more like Bee about keeping only the hardiest chooks in my pen, but I just had a round of coccidosis and given that I have so few birds and they're in molt so I'm not out a lot of eggs, I medicated THIS time. I've actually come to rely on the darned things for company AND for eggs -- money's tight, and I don't have the facilities to raise chicks in the winter, even though I could get them incubated if I wanted em.

But three days into FF (same with the medication), their poops look more normal, none of them are fluffed up and lethargic, and Queenie, the head hen, is meeting me at the gate to demand MOAR FF! I will take these all as good signs!

The feed store where I bought them didn't sell bands. I thought I would need them at first and up until the past few days I was OK. It just seems like they are all looking the same! My friend who has offered to babysit wanted bands too so she could tell them apart. I asked at my local feed store and she doesn't carry them either but offered to order them. She's a small biz though and I didn't want to put her out. Wonder if they have them at PetSmart? Or I thought about coloring a toenail with a sharpie??

 

[Beekissed]

Hi!! Well it was grayish in color, looked like mold. It was on the top. Above the water amount. Approximately half inch thick. I stirred it frequently, at least 1 a day. I aimed for 2-3 stirs a day, but needless to say it often was just 1/day...and no I switch between fermented and fresh everyday. So the one day I didn't do it last week resulted in the grayish mold like substance. The smell wasn't terribly putrid, but I just didn't think it was safe. We used a 5 gallon bucket with the lid. It was our first batch ever, so I assumed I fudged it up. It was approximately 2 weeks old without Apple cider vinegar..Hope that didn't matter...

That was most likely just the scoby. You don't have to stir it that often and it won't grow mold in one day's time if you don't. You didn't mess it up. Next time, when in doubt just post a pic here or ask here before throwing it out. Many folks before you, trying this for the first time and seeing the scoby forming, have thrown it out in fear of it having went bad. It won't....that's the growth of beneficial microorganisms that are populating your feed mix to aid in the fermentation of it. No worries.

It's going to have a smell, so you really can't go by smell...in fact, I'd be more worried about feeding wet feed if it had no smell at all than I would if it had the soured smell of FF.

Here's a few pics to demonstrate a light layer of scoby on top of the mix before I stir it and feed it out in the mornings....pic #1 is showing a film of whitish, beige grey substance on top of the water and feed in the bucket.

Pic #2 is showing what the feed normally looks like in appearance without that layer of scoby....this pic is after I have stirred that layer of good stuff~the scoby~back into my mix and prior to me dipping out feed for the flock. Yours may or may not be a darker grey, brown or white, it may have spider webby strands in it or bubbles...everyone's scoby varies in color according to what they are using for feed, the ambient temps, how long it has been lying on the surface of the feed, etc., so it won't look exactly like mine, but it's comprised of the same stuff~safe to eat.

 

[theadvocate19]

You don't have to stir every day and what you saw wasn't the bad kind of mold..that was your scoby. The good guys. Don't toss that out next time! I've went several days without stirring mine while I was out of town...no worries. It does not require stirring to keep going, though it's a good idea anyway just to keep the top moistened. Here's an easier way for you...dump all your feed, whole grains and the other, in a big bucket and add water, stir and wait. You don't have to keep it under water but it's a good idea to keep it all moistened, so if it's a tad too dry after it absorbed the first fluid, just add a little more and keep stirring until it is easy to stir or mix. It will continue to absorb fluid as time goes along but no worries...just keep it at the consistency you prefer, be it thicker or soupy...it doesn't matter to the fermentation. Soupy just requires more fussiness of trying to strain off the soup. Here's a vid or two that shows what it will look like and what texture I feed mine at.... It may help you to read from the beginning of the thread so that you won't have to guess at what is happening, what feeds you can ferment and how, etc. There is a wealth of info in these threads that can help you navigate this method.

Gosh thank you so much for all the help! I wish I would've known I could've kept it! Well it went to the compost pit, so not all is lost. Oh well, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again!

 

[beverly evans]

Quote: Bee, Hi! Your feed looks just like breakfast corn flakes except with water not milk. I see big ol' flakes in there. Please tell us again what you put in yours. I got a 50 pound bag of sorghum at the feed store and that's what I've be fermenting, exclusively. They have dry feed but still leave the powder which I still make into pancakes because when I ffed the layer feed they did not eat it--too much mush. Someone in the know, maybe you, said giving the ckns. just ff deer corn was bad. Is giving them just sorghum maybe bad too?? THX : ) beverly

 

[kpgoldstar]

Okay. My head is spinning with information overload! But I think I'm ready to take the plunge! Can someone recommend a simple, one-bucket recipe and instruction, using AVC, so I can get started? I kind of like the idea of feeding my flock of 20 a "breakfast" of fermented feed, then leave them to their feeders of dry feed the rest of the time.

They are mostly all in molt presently and range in age from six years down to five-month-old pullets. I especially find the prospect of less runny and smelly poops to be a fetching one!

I think you got great answers! Not much more I can add. I do one bucket, no ACV. Just chick starter and water. I plan to use my same bucket - never-ending - for about a year as well, then I'll get a new one. I make enough each batch to feed for about 3 days, then I add dry back into the water and small amount of FF and by morning it is ready to feed again. I only have 4 chicks, 8 weeks old.

 

[Beekissed]

Bee, Hi! Your feed looks just like breakfast corn flakes except with water not milk. I see big ol' flakes in there. Please tell us again what you put in yours. I got a 50 pound bag of sorghum at the feed store and that's what I've be fermenting, exclusively. They have dry feed but still leave the powder which I still make into pancakes because when I ffed the layer feed they did not eat it--too much mush. Someone in the know, maybe you, said giving the ckns. just ff deer corn was bad. Is giving them just sorghum maybe bad too?? THX : ) beverly

You can really put some texture in your fine ground layer rations by merely adding some whole grains so it won't be just a slurry. Layer and scratch grains, for instance, are a good combo.

Some info on sorghum...sounds like it's pretty much equivalent to corn in nutrition, so you might get off cheaper by just buying corn, though if you are trying to escape GMO grains and cost is not issue, the milo would be a better option. Don't know if the milo is GMO sourced or not...I'm not much into all that feed mixing to try and get away from GMO.

In the bold lettering below, you can see where the milo~nor corn, for that matter~is not a complete nutritional ration for the birds. I don't have to worry as much as most folks because for most of the year my birds get superior nutrition out on pasture, but for the coop and pen flocks, it's important to get a full range of balanced nutrients in order to maintain good health and production.

). Low-tannin sorghum has a metabolizable energy comparable or higher to that of maize (Sauvant et al., 2004) and can replace maize grain to a great extent (Subramanian et al., 2000). Tannin-free cultivars are preferred by poultry, but it is possible to feed poultry with high-tannin sorghum, provided it is reconstituted after high-moisture storage during 10 days (Daghir, 2008). High-moisture sorghum is reported to have higher protein digestibility and slightly higher metabolizable energy. However, its digestibility remains lower than for low-tannin sorghum (Daghir, 2008).
It may also be useful to add fat, methionine or to grind grain sorghum in order to enhance digestibility (Blair, 2008).
High phytate content is also a problem since P unavailability reduces growth performances and can induce locomotive disorders. It may be counterbalanced by P supplementation or by adding phytase. The low level of xantophyllin (10 fold smaller than yellow corn) require pigment supplementation in order to maintain egg yolk colour (Walker, 1999).

What you see in that bucket is 100% layer mash, milled at the local co-op...they don't even specify what grains they put in it, just list the crude nutrients available and what type of protein source they use~soy or animal. Cracked corn, oats, barley, etc. are easily visualized in the mix, but the finer ground ingredients are a pure mystery. I don't think about it much, though I won't buy layer ration with animal proteins in it.

In the winter I mix some barley grain and BOSS into the mix to cut the proteins down~though now that's a moot point with the FF...kind of hard to cut down proteins on this stuff~ but that's as fancy as I get into mixing my own feeds. The layer rations have been formulated to provide the needs of commercial layers and to keep them laying all year round, so if it's good enough for those high production birds, it surely has sufficient nutrition for my DP layers.

Feeding both dry and fermented feeds, though better than just feeding dry, will not yield the maximum benefit of feeding FF...if you are going through the trouble of fermenting some of the feed, why not simplify by fermenting all of it. That way, your chickens can actually digest your current dry ration better and won't be pooping out that money on the floor of the coop, there to lie smelling badly until it attracts flies.

Why not mix your milo(sorghum) with the finer ground layer ration to give it some texture and body and to give the milo what it is lacking in nutrition and feeding them both at a thicker texture so that it isn't mushy/soupy? That takes all the extra steps out of your routine of making pancakes, fermenting one type of feed and not the other, etc. Just dump them all in a bucket and make life easy!

 

[TeaChick]

You've been feeding dog food? Let me give you some very sound advice....your chicken breeder friend doesn't know ding, diddly dang about chickens, so I wouldn't go there for anymore advice. It also appears she knows nothing about fermenting feeds either. Sorry..but that's just the bottom of the bottom lines.
My friend didn't suggest I feed dog food; I was using it when I had to coop them, it was never intended to be their sole source of nutrition, it just kind of happened that way b/c of how little I was able to free range them at the time.
My friend suggested that I feed them fermented corn and not that I feed it as deer corn. I needed an inexpensive way to feed them; her preference was that I feed them chicken feed and/or grains, etc.

As for the reading...how do you think we found out all this information in the first place? We didn't pick it like a flower along the road!

We ALL had to read, gather information from several sources, study, learn and implement different methods for our flocks. 114 pages is a mere dew drop compared to the amount of information I've read over the past 37 years to get some of the methods I am currently using. If you want to get there, you have to take the first steps....can't jump to the end of the line and expect to understand anything at all about chickens, feeding, etc. That's why I advised reading from the beginning.

I completely appreciate where you're coming from on doing one's homework. I fully intend to do it and I'm not baulking at the 114 pages b/c it's a lot in general, but b/c I needed advice before I was going to be able to get through all of it. It's not like I'm reading a 114 page book on feeding chickens, it's sifting through conversations and contradictory information, etc.
I get that ppl who have been raising chickens for 37 years know WAY more and have done a lot more reading, research, and experimentation than someone who just got their first flock of pullets less than a year ago and is working hard to find out what's best for them so she can take good care of them b/c she understands the importance of the fact that they depend upon her to do that and she doesn't want to let down any living thing, especially one (or 11) that would probably not make it w/o her b/c she took responsibility for them.
Like me.

Deer corn is crap nutrition, dog food is incorrect nutrition...too much sodium by far, and the eggs didn't stop because of low protein....obviously, as dog food has pretty high protein. This is the time of year when egg production slows down naturally and you can't stuff enough protein down a chicken's neck to get her to pop out an egg when her hormones say "no eggs today". A chicken cannot handle a steady diet of high protein feeds before she starts to have some health issues from it, so I'd not listen to your breeder friend if you want your chickens to live a long and healthy life.
I'm not feeding them dog food and I'll re-mention it was never intended to be their sole source of nutrition, it was just supposed to be a little snack first thing in the morning on days I had to go to town before dawn and wouldn't be back for a few hours after dawn.

Start with the basics...just get the chicken food.

We'll go from there and get you going with the fermentation of it, no worries! Try getting layer mash...it's the easiest to ferment and won't be as goopy.
Thank you for the advice.
I'll also finish reading the thread as I'm able to.

 

[TeaChick]

With most animals it is generally best to gradually transition to a new food. I would suggest you buy that bag of layer feed now and start giving them 3/4 of what you gave them before for 4-5 days, then 1/2 and 1/2 for 4-5 days. Keep increasing the new food and decreasing the old until you have them fully transitioned over. If you have some of the old stuff left over you can always throw them a handful ever few days until it's gone. There is no need to transition with the FF becasue they were already getting the same food before, just not fermented.

Thank you.