FERMENTED FEEDS...anyone using them?

[LindaB220]

I am starting to ween the girls off the FF as we will be gone a week and I don't want my elderly neighbor to have to mess with the ff. I am doing it slowly, gave them about 2/3 portion of ff this am, when they have finished that will give them crumbles. A little less ff tomorrow, a little more crumbles, etc, till they are transitioned. Does this sound like a good plan? When we return, will do it in reverse.

Good plan.!!!!

 

[pegm]

Thank you. They loved the crumbles when I put it out, they almost finished them in about 1/2 hour.

 

[Beekissed]

Speaking of city slickers and gullibility, we had a dog named Bogey (a lab/pit mix) when we were living in Los Angeles. He was white with big black spots and looked a lot like a Holstein cow. He was a very pretty dog and people would come up to us and ask us what breed he was. Without batting an eye, my husband would tell them that Bogey was a Holstein Terrier. Invariably they would reply something to the effect that they had never heard of that breed before. Again, with a perfectly deadpan delivery, my husband would say, "Oh yes, they are very popular in Wisconsin". Never failed that they bought it hook, line and sinker! Gotta love them city slickers!

I love to do that to city folk!!! I'll have to tell that story to my boys....Holstein Terriers. Snort!!!

 

[kpgoldstar]

I am starting to ween the girls off the FF as we will be gone a week and I don't want my elderly neighbor to have to mess with the ff. I am doing it slowly, gave them about 2/3 portion of ff this am, when they have finished that will give them crumbles. A little less ff tomorrow, a little more crumbles, etc, till they are transitioned. Does this sound like a good plan? When we return, will do it in reverse.

I understand weaning them off ff so your neighbor doesn't have to deal with. However, personally I would put them right back on the ff when I got home. I bought my chicks at 2 weeks, learned about ff after about a week and a half and started them right on it with never offering dry feed again.
I don't think you need to wean back onto ff when you return home.

 

[pegm]

I have real problems with runny poop, and have to wash their coop door off several times a week, so think maybe a slower approach to the change may help alleviate that, I can hope.

 

[azygous]

I have a question for those of you who employ the double bucket method. Why do you do it? How do you do it? Does it keep the FF from getting soupy?

Right now, I scooped enough FF out of the bucket for tomorrow's ration and put it in a colander which I set inside a large soup pot. It's slowly dripping all the excess liquid off, catching below the colander in the soup pot. Is this pretty much the principle behind the double bucket method?

I followed Bee's "recipe" and mixed up a new bucket, measuring everything very carefully. I ended up with quite a bit more dry ingredients than water. And it's still getting wetter as each day goes by. I know I'm still in the middle of my learning curve on this, but I'll feel real good about it all if I can just solve this "soup" problem.

 

[Beekissed]

I have a question for those of you who employ the double bucket method. Why do you do it? How do you do it? Does it keep the FF from getting soupy?

Right now, I scooped enough FF out of the bucket for tomorrow's ration and put it in a colander which I set inside a large soup pot. It's slowly dripping all the excess liquid off, catching below the colander in the soup pot. Is this pretty much the principle behind the double bucket method?

I followed Bee's "recipe" and mixed up a new bucket, measuring everything very carefully. I ended up with quite a bit more dry ingredients than water. And it's still getting wetter as each day goes by. I know I'm still in the middle of my learning curve on this, but I'll feel real good about it all if I can just solve this "soup" problem.

It does seem to hold most of the water in the lower bucket and protects the scoby from getting used up as well, as will happen if one accidentally feeds out the whole bucket before refreshing it. I'm using a single bucket right now and I'm still getting the same results, so it's not entirely necessary to use the double bucket.

I'll tell you one thing that I do that may make the difference. Each day I open that bucket, I stir it very well, bringing the more moist feed at the bottom to the top(I stir it with a scoop, so it's like a digging motion with the scoop facing me) and making sure the dry at the top gets well moistened with the fluid from below. This keeps my drier feed from getting moldy and it also redistributes the fermented water each day so that I don't work from dry towards the soupy on my bucket. Then when I scoop out to go feed, the feed I'm scooping isn't too dry but also isn't sopping wet...it's just right.

It's sort of like eating a bowl of cereal so that you have a little milk in each bite so that you are not left with no cereal, and all milk, at the end.

Here's a few vids of refreshing the double bucket and you can see what consistency I feed it at in the warmer months(in the winter time, I feed it drier). It helps that my feed trough has holes drilled in it to allow the excess moisture to drain off if need be.

 

[Tikkijane]

It does seem to hold most of the water in the lower bucket and protects the scoby from getting used up as well, as will happen if one accidentally feeds out the whole bucket before refreshing it. I'm using a single bucket right now and I'm still getting the same results, so it's not entirely necessary to use the double bucket. I'll tell you one thing that I do that may make the difference. Each day I open that bucket, I stir it very well, bringing the more moist feed at the bottom to the top(I stir it with a scoop, so it's like a digging motion with the scoop facing me) and making sure the dry at the top gets well moistened with the fluid from below. This keeps my drier feed from getting moldy and it also redistributes the fermented water each day so that I don't work from dry towards the soupy on my bucket. Then when I scoop out to go feed, the feed I'm scooping isn't too dry but also isn't sopping wet...it's just right. It's sort of like eating a bowl of cereal so that you have a little milk in each bite so that you are not left with no cereal, and all milk, at the end. Here's a few vids of refreshing the double bucket and you can see what consistency I feed it at in the warmer months(in the winter time, I feed it drier). It helps that my feed trough has holes drilled in it to allow the excess moisture to drain off if need be.

I do that, too. It seems like there's one corner that has more liquid- I'm sure it's the way I stir it. But I always stir to get it mixed up real well. It evens things out so I don't have a soupy spot or really dry areas.

 

[kpgoldstar]

I have real problems with runny poop, and have to wash their coop door off several times a week, so think maybe a slower approach to the change may help alleviate that, I can hope.

You have problems with runny poop even feeding ff full time? I have about 95% firm poo with the VERY occasionally runny cecal poo. I hardly give treats (kitchen scraps, scratch, etc). They are fed ff in the morning with a small snack in the afternoon, also ff.
It would seem as if when you got home and went straight back to ff, your poops would firm right back up?

 

[azygous]

Terrific videos, Bee! Really helpful! If a picture is worth a 1000 words, a video has to be worth tens times that!

That's the consistency I've been feeding my FF, and the chickens have been producing soupier and soupier poops. If your chickens produce solid poop at that consistency, what am I doing wrong? Some have such runny poop, I had to do a butt washing session today. Luckily, we're in between cold fronts and it got up to 55.

I'm going to strain the excess water out of the mash for the next few days and see if the poops improve. Then I'll know I've been feeding it too wet.

Thanks again for those videos!