FERMENTED FEEDS...anyone using them?

[IAFarmGirl]

How do you know how much to feed by age? I am about to have 3 flocks ranging from day olds to two months to an 'elderly' flock...? Is it based on weight or age?

That is what I am most uncertain about because it's not the same as free feeding. I would prefer to put the dry food away and stop feeding every bird and small critter in the state!

Also, since they actually eat less, will they grow more slowly?
Thanks for all your help!

Last summer I fed FF to my cornish X and at 6 weeks they weighed between 7 & 8 pounds. So I would say that FF does not slow the growth rate. Everything I had read or was told said that they should have weighed between 5 & 6 pounds at 6 weeks.

 

[Beekissed]

Mine will eat it...but they are nibblers...when free ranging, they got used to coming by after searching for forage and eating some chicken food and then right back to foraging. With snow on the ground they have transferred that behavior to coming out of the coop to get water and feed before going back in the coop to scratch around....FF is frozen when they come back out.

Feed in the coop!

 

[Scott H]

They would completely fill the bowl with wood shavings.....
And it it's the same temp inside...open air coop.

 

[Beekissed]

They would completely fill the bowl with wood shavings.....
And it it's the same temp inside...open air coop.

But they are more likely to stay in the coop to eat on a cold day and you can set the feeder up on legs/pedestal/block. That's how most are doing with feeders when using deep litter. My current feeder is up on 2x6 legs.

The FF takes some adaptation to use but once you hit the right method it's smooth sailin' from there.

 

[chickengirl1193]

Would you guys suggest completely taking away the dry feed once the birds transition to the ff? My chickens have lights.that turn on in the am beforr the sun and then I go out after sunrise so they have a little while in the coop and thats when they eat a lot of their dry feed and I don't want to deprive them of food before I can get out there. Im still trying to figure out my routine so my birds can benefit from their ff

 

[Beekissed]

Would you guys suggest completely taking away the dry feed once the birds transition to the ff? My chickens have lights.that turn on in the am beforr the sun and then I go out after sunrise so they have a little while in the coop and thats when they eat a lot of their dry feed and I don't want to deprive them of food before I can get out there. Im still trying to figure out my routine so my birds can benefit from their ff

I suggest not even doing a transition period that involves both feeds. Just one day you are feeding dry and the next you've switched to FF. That's it. They will wait for their food to be served to them each morning...sometimes impatiently, but they will wait. While they are waiting they are working up a hunger and anticipation of a meal. Then they will eat what is offered and none will be left over for freezing.

It can all be as simple as that if we just let it be. It's us humans that complicate the whole food thing with how we would want it to be, with constant snacking choices available....but in real life for birds there are no food choices before that sun comes up and warms up the land, so there is no need for chickens to be eating before that can happen, nor after the sun goes down.

Just keep it simple and things will be easier for you and the chickens too.

 

[kpgoldstar]

Would you guys suggest completely taking away the dry feed once the birds transition to the ff? My chickens have lights.that turn on in the am beforr the sun and then I go out after sunrise so they have a little while in the coop and thats when they eat a lot of their dry feed and I don't want to deprive them of food before I can get out there. Im still trying to figure out my routine so my birds can benefit from their ff

My chickens do not get any dry feed at all. I started them on ff when they were just 3 weeks old once I read about it. I only have a small flock of four girls, almost 20 weeks, not yet laying. I have a coop where it is about 85% run and 15% upper deck roost/nest box area with a pop door. When they put themselves to bed after sundown, I close the pop door. It starts to get light here around 7:15 with sunrise at 7:30. I don't go out to feed until usually 8 or sometimes as late as 8:45. They are locked in the roost until then. I sneak a peak at them before I open the door and they are just standing around doing nothing. Before I expanded their run they would immediately head for the feed trough and devour the ff. Now that they are a little more mature they cruise into the bigger run area and stretch their wings, talk to me, see what kitchen scraps I may have brought them, then they finally hit the ff.

I don't feel bad that they have nothing to eat when they first wake up. They have water in the roost area and they can get by with that until they are served breakfast. They do get to free range every evening for at least an hour and I give them a small snack of ff at that time as well so they are not going to bed with an empty crop. On a very rare occasion (and more so once it starts to warm up this summer) I leave the pop door open. They come down whenever they get up I suppose and still just hang out and do their thing until I come out to feed.

As they days get longer I'm not sure if I will try to feed earlier so they don't have so long to wait for breakfast. Of course I don't want them locked in the roost for an extended length of time every morning. This is my first experience with chickens as an adult so I will have to play it by ear as I go along.

 

[niqueie]

When my feeder was close to the ground it would fill up with shavings, but now that it is elevated more it never has more than a couple of prices of shavings. Not sure if your feeder is close to the ground.
I think there is definitely a learning curve for the birds when switching major types of feed. I recently added some sprouted grain and they didn't want anything to do with it the first day. They didn't touch it. The second day I chopped it up finer and added it to their regular FF. They ate around it but tried it and a few of them finished it off. They haven't taken to it completely but it's gone by morning. It is like children with trying new foods. Most fight new changes, but most will come around if they are hungry. They will probably come to love it eventually too. I hope you keep with the fermented feed. I did find that my birds like it dryer. If you can use a mesh sieve it help to drain the feed quite a bit. I've heard it help with it not freezing as quickly. One other thought was if the FF was at room temperate when served it would feel warm to them and they might like it better that way too. Just random thoughts.

 

[chickengirl1193]

I suggest not even doing a transition period that involves both feeds.  Just one day you are feeding dry and the next you've switched to FF.  That's it.   They will wait for their food to be served to them each morning...sometimes impatiently, but they will wait.  While they are waiting they are working up a hunger and anticipation of a meal.  Then they will eat what is offered and none will be left over for freezing. 

It can all be as simple as that if we just let it be.  It's us humans that complicate the whole food thing with how we would want it to be, with constant snacking choices available....but in real life for birds there are no food choices before that sun comes up and warms up the land, so there is no need for chickens to be eating before that can happen, nor after the sun goes down. 

Just keep it simple and things will be easier for you and the chickens too.

My chickens do not get any dry feed at all. I started them on ff when they were just 3 weeks old once I read about it. I only have a small flock of four girls, almost 20 weeks, not yet laying. I have a coop where it is about 85% run and 15% upper deck roost/nest box area with a pop door. When they put themselves to bed after sundown, I close the pop door.  It starts to get light here around 7:15 with sunrise at 7:30. I don't go out to feed until usually 8 or sometimes as late as 8:45. They are locked in the roost until then. I sneak a peak at them before I open the door and they are just standing around doing nothing. Before I expanded their run they would immediately head for the feed trough and devour the ff. Now that they are a little more mature they cruise into the bigger run area and stretch their wings, talk to me, see what kitchen scraps I may have brought them, then they finally hit the ff.

I don't feel bad that they have nothing to eat when they first wake up. They have water in the roost area and they can get by with that until they are served breakfast. They do get to free range every evening for at least an hour and I give them a small snack of ff at that time as well so they are not going to bed with an empty crop. On a very rare occasion (and more so once it starts to warm up this summer) I leave the pop door open. They come down whenever they get up I suppose and still just hang out and do their thing until I come out to feed. 

As they days get longer I'm not sure if I will try to feed earlier so they don't have so long to wait for breakfast. Of course I don't want them locked in the roost for an extended length of time every morning. This is my first experience with chickens as an adult so I will have to play it by ear as I go along.

Thank you everyone for the ideas I put ff in their regular feed trough this morning and they ate it a bit but then left the coop. So they will probably come back after stretching to eat more. We will see how it goes today I have to leave it in the coop tho because they share an area with the goats. And afterspspending a night inside my feed is fermenting again and they are more interested

 

[Katt66]

Yeah I wouldn't worry about them being in the coop with no dry feed till you get to them in the morning. I was just "dabbling" in the FF on the side and had reservations about taking that dry crumble feeder out of there because I had it in my own head that they needed to be able to eat any time they were bored or hungry or whatever because that's how it always was. Though I was giving them plenty of FF to fill their bellies. I couldn't bring myself to take out the dry feeder till I realized just how darn much of those expensive crumbles I was wasting by them flipping it out of the feeder with their beaks. I've been battling with voles here for years, even before I got chickens. And it's been an ongoing ordeal all year long. But when I realized I had a rat helping himself to my chicken feed as well that was where I drew the line.
I took out the hanging dry crumble feeder probably 2 weeks ago now and have been feeding strictly FF which they gobble up within an hour. No waste, no leftovers for the voles and rat to clean up at their leisure. I swear my feed bill is cut in half. I was buying a bag of crumbles once a month for the 10 birds. I'm now a couple of days away from the time I'd normally be buying another bag of feed and my bin is still half full. I am absolutely so thrilled I can't even express it.
And I know it's deterring the vermin. I haven't had the rat try to get into the coop in over a week and for the past 2 mornings I found voles dead and frozen solid in the Quail's water bowl. Apparently they got desperate and were trying to climb up onto the edge of the bowl to get to the quail's hanging feeder.

Didn't work obviously. Now I am thinking I need to start feeding those little cuties FF as well.
Anybody have any experience feeding any game birds FF? I should be no different than for the chickens I'd think right?