My ff never grows nasties. I have heard of mold forming on the sides of the bucket from splashing up. That has never happened to me. I'm surprised about that since I keep mine in the house which thankfully where I live stays anywhere from 58 to 70 degrees. It never has an offensive odor, even with the lid constantly ajar. My consistency is fairly dry and only gets scoby/soupy toward the end of a batch which is about 4-5 days. Keep in mind, I only have 4 - 14 week old chicks so my 6 qt bucket starts out about 3/4 full with a new batch and I run that down to about a cup and a half of nearly all fermented water before I refresh again for another batch. It is fluffy and ready to serve by the following 12 hours after a refresh. Mine consistently smells like a cross of sourdough bread and dill pickles and only when I remove the lid to stir and feed.
My opinion is the more you add to the mix and the more complicated you make it, the greater problems you will encounter in regard to smell, mold and birds not taking to it. Hubby was a bad boy and last time at the feed store picked up a bag of scratch. My girls have never had it and the few times I scattered it it was like CRACK! They are going to only get it on special occasions. I would much rather them peck at the organic carrot and celery trimmings I give them. They are still rather picky when it comes to kitchen scraps but they're slowly coming around as they get older.
I have new pics to post later today! We expanded their run over the holiday and they are so happy about the extra room! At this age, we are certain we have all girls which I was pretty sure of about a month ago, but we have no combs or wattles yet!
