FERMENTED FEEDS...anyone using them?

[LilyD]

Bee~

When you can your older roosters do you pressure can them? Also do you cut up your meat or do you can it on the bone, and does that affect the amount of time you have to process it when you are canning it?

I am just getting into the canning of my older roosters and hens. They are all really nice so I have no problem having them hang around until we need to process them. The mean ones get processed early the nice ones not until they become a problem or it gets close to winter and I want to cut back the amount of coops I'm running so that we have less feed and chores when the weather is nasty.

 

[Beekissed]

Bee~

When you can your older roosters do you pressure can them? Also do you cut up your meat or do you can it on the bone, and does that affect the amount of time you have to process it when you are canning it?

I am just getting into the canning of my older roosters and hens. They are all really nice so I have no problem having them hang around until we need to process them. The mean ones get processed early the nice ones not until they become a problem or it gets close to winter and I want to cut back the amount of coops I'm running so that we have less feed and chores when the weather is nasty.

I do both...deboned and with the bone in. This last batch were so old and tough that even processing them was the worst butchering I've ever done...took me forever to do 6 birds~and I've been butchering chickens since I was 10, so when I say these were the worst ever I mean the worst I've done in 37 years!!! Needless to say, those boys were canned with the bone in...I wasn't going to wrestle that meat off the bone until it had been tenderized by canning.

The last batch of roosters and hens were done after deboning. I used the same amount of canning time for both~90 min. in the pressure canner.

I've canned chickens in boiling water bath before and that was successful as well, though many frown upon doing it I wanted to try it after I talked to an old Mennonite lady whose family had been doing it out in a huge black kettle in their yard for a couple of generations(14 qts at one time!). The chicken comes out not so mushy as when doing pressure canning and looks prettier in the jar.

 

[LilyD]

I am just starting out. I have never tried to can the pieces bone in but it seems that it would be so much easier to do than to debone it. I tried canning cut up pieces of meat with some year and a half roosters last year and the meat was wonderful. I will probably can at least 15 to 20 jars this year plus some goat and lamb meat as well. It is just easier to find space for jars in the pantry than it is to find room in the freezers for frozen meat lol.

 

[Beekissed]

I agree! And the meat is precooked, tender and fast to get into a meal....plus, when the power goes out, you don't lose all that hard work and money invested.

The reason I deboned the last batch was so I could use the bones for broth, but this time I just didn't have the energy to wrestle with it all and am letting the canner do the work for me. I do take the breasts off the ribs and the only bones in the jar are leg bones. That way no small bones get lost in there and found later in the mouth.

 

[kpgoldstar]

Reporting back here after doing FF for exactly one month. The results continue to be extraordinary. The flock of twenty is still gobbling it up like fine cuisine. I had a bit of trouble with it freezing a week or so back when the days were barely above zero. I solved it by filling a plant tray with boiling water and setting the feeder troughs in that. They weren't wanting to keep eating the FF after it had reached the freezing point. This solved the problem nicely.

Now for the truly astounding news. My serial feather picker Flo, a three-year old EE who has been a feather shaver since she was five months old, seems to have gone into remission since being on FF. She can be presented with temptation in the way of her BFF and former brooder mate Joycie thrusting her neck right under Flo's beak, and Flo will simply gaze at it benignly.

It's still too early to declare it as such, but FF may just be that miracle cure I've been searching for.

Hooray for FF!!

 

[LilyD]

Do you use your wings for broth or do you can those too? Seems to me there really isn't much meat on them for canning lol. Last batch I did I deboned everything and then used the bones and made some bone broth. It takes a lot of work to do but I think it's worth it in the end to have shelf stable food rather than food in the freezer. I am thinking that a few of my turkeys should be canned next year too just to have the meat on the shelves in case we need it. It's so handy.

 

[Beekissed]

I use the top half of the wing and leave it attached to the ribs and cook both down for the broth. There isn't enough meat on those to bother with separating them from the carcass and deboning.

The dog gets the rest of the wing...Jake is currently chewing on a whole wing as we speak, where he went and fetched it from the gut pile out in the woods. Silly dog has deer and chicken bones all over his section of the yard. He eventually consumes them all but until he does, it sure looks like a lion's den up there.

 

[Tikkijane]

I have made 2 full batches this week. The one day, they pounded it down like they were starving. That was 16 quarts of feed each time; fermented. I haven't hit the sweet spot yet, where I feed a set amount the two times a day.

The feed consumption has gone down a lot, but I can't accurately say how much they are eating at each time because when it's devoured (like I can't even get it
out of the bowl before they're eating it, and they jump and try to get to the bowl as I'm walking out. ) within a short amount of time, I always give them more. Wheee!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I agree! And the meat is precooked, tender and fast to get into a meal....plus, when the power goes out, you don't lose all that hard work and money invested.

The reason I deboned the last batch was so I could use the bones for broth, but this time I just didn't have the energy to wrestle with it all and am letting the canner do the work for me. I do take the breasts off the ribs and the only bones in the jar are leg bones. That way no small bones get lost in there and found later in the mouth.

I saw a study that when letting meat rest before cooking or freezing, that it's better to do so with the bone in. For some reason the rigor leaves the meat more completely.
It would stand to reason that canning with the bone in would help and make it simpler.

 

[Beekissed]

I think this info bears repeating on this thread....

All food provides energy, fast or slow or in between, and that energy is used in so many ways in the body and, yes, that energy provides heat but it's very evenly distributed among all the cells by the body systems~mainly the cardiovascular system and also the endocrine and nervous systems (hypothalamus gland regulates body temps)~ which is normal and necessary for a warm blooded animal. Chickens are very good at regulating that distribution of heat to maintain body temps because they have unique systems in place to help with this~combs, feet/legs, respiration and fat deposits that are different than in other animals. In colder temps they automatically exert less physical energy in walking, foraging, etc. and will stand in one place with feathers fluffed and slightly hunkered down.


A regular layer ration has fiber, carbs, proteins, vitamins and minerals all necessary for this process. If you are feeding a balanced ration, it will adequately maintain proper energy levels for your birds to maintain body heat in cold weather.

Quote: Birds allowed free access to their environment also rely on behavioral thermoregulation. This means they will seek out the most energy efficient means of maintaining their body
temperature such as feather ruffling, drinking water, moving into the shade or sun (or heat source), huddling and lying down.

The major advantage of endothermy over ectothermy is decreased vulnerability to fluctuations in external temperature. Regardless of location (and hence external temperature), endothermy maintains a constant core temperature for optimum enzyme activity. Endotherms control body temperature by internal homeostatic mechanisms. In mammals two separate homeostatic mechanisms are involved in thermoregulation - one mechanism increases body temperature, while the other decreases it. The presence of two separate mechanisms provides a very high degree of control. This is important because the core temperature of mammals can be controlled to be as close as possible to the optimum temperature for enzyme activity.

Here's some info on how energy is used from feeds in livestock:

Quote: