FERMENTED FEEDS...anyone using them?

[scopechick]

So I have one chick significantly smaller than the others and I think damaged legs from coming out of shell. The other 9 are fat, fluffly and feeding like crazy. I have watched some videos in fixing splay leg and gave that a try but the chick just flopped over and wouldnt move. Have decided to let nature take its course. My goal is to breed good chickens so this is my first tough lesson in good stock.

 

[SavageDestiny]

Does anyone include alfalfa pellets in their FF? I'd like to include them in my chickens' diet since I'm mixing my own, but didn't know if I could toss it in to ferment or not.

 

[Beekissed]

Does anyone include alfalfa pellets in their FF? I'd like to include them in my chickens' diet since I'm mixing my own, but didn't know if I could toss it in to ferment or not.

Yep...there are a lot who FF alfalfa along with their feed.

 

[lazy gardener]

You're giving me faith with this response to the mold thing. Mine was quite fuzzy this morning.

As to the vet thing. We never even used a vet for cats, dogs or horses when I was growing up, much less poultry, hogs or cattle.
They made it or they didn't. That said, after finding a rare breed I searched long and hard for, I took an egg bound pullet to a vet when she had a relapse after I successfully got her to release one.
The vet was virtually worthless and a waste of time and money.
Unlike many areas, we actually have at least 4 good avian vets and 2 with poultry experience. That's quite rare.

I understand there are a lot of pet chicken people here, and they do make good urban backyard pets.
I have had a lot of chickens I've been very fond of. On the other hand, I've always considered them livestock and if they didn't make me breakfast AND dinner, as well as provide fertilizer, I wouldn't own one.

A good chicken should provide breakfast, AND dinner, AND fertilizer, AND insect control, AND till your soil, all while providing excellent entertainment. It's the ultimate multi-purpose recycleable pet.

 

[LindaB220]

As a retired automation engineer and industrial electrician, I resemble that as well Deb.

I haven't wrapped my head around it yet either but carrying the bucket around this morning made me think.

In the past I only had to fill the bulk feeders weekly. I don't have as many birds as you are planning but still have at least 8 units. The only coop with more than 15 birds is the brooder house.

Hey, Utility cart does the heavy stuff. Got mine for Christmas and the best gift ever. Use it daily.

 

[LindaB220]

Most likely the white stuff is not mold but yeast. I've become a fermenting fiend the last 4 years or so (kraut, pickles, kimchi, tempeh, natto, Effective Microorganisms, dairy kefir, sourdough, water kefir, "ginger bug" soda, ketchup, now chicken feed, etc.). Most ferments involve a symbiotic relationship between yeasts and lactic acid bacteria so the yeasts are beneficial. In my experience, mold can grow, but it usually takes several weeks or more for that to happen. It will depend in large part upon your the climate you live in, more humid environs will be more hospitable to molds. All the molds I'm familiar with smell like mold (I don't know how to explain the aroma in words!) and yeasts smell like yeasts. There can be variations of aromas, but all yeasts I'm familiar with will have a "base note" of yeast smell and the same with molds. There are so many kinds of molds and yeasts I'm sure there are some that don't fit this description.

The white stuff you describe is again, likely yeast and it can show up as a dusting or sometimes even fuzzy. But fuzzy white mold and fuzzy white yeast don't look the same. In any case, stirring it in will kill the mold (if that is what it is) and probably the yeasts and lactic acid bacteria will "eat" the mold. Many folks will do this with their vegetable ferments and others will simply remove the mold, it's a personal preference.

Most of these photos are of fuzzy white yeast, any of them look familiar?

Most of these ones are of fuzzy white mold. Notice that usually there are also brown or green or black colors as well and they're generally much fuzzier.

Side note, we used to live in Seattle, which is fairly humid. Once we were helping a friend renovate a house. We found some black-colored mold in the bathroom and immediately thought it was the famous toxic "black mold". We hired one of the top plumbing companies in Seattle to come in and look at it (we also need some drain repairs) and he said in his 30 years of experience in Seattle he has only seen the toxic black mold a couple times and this was not it. He said that as obvious as the extent of the mold was, if it was black mold, we all would have been very sick by now. Not that breathing mold spores of any kind is generally a good idea, but this wasn't the really bad stuff. He said the toxic stuff was not common in Seattle because it wasn't warm enough for it to really thrive, like it is in a humid/hot climate like the Southern US.

Hey, thanks so much for the photos. I bookmarked them for future investigations.

 

[beverly evans]

I made a couple extra buckets of FF recently since we are beginning to thaw out and I have another 30+ birds that will be eating it.
I had the grey scoby stuff and I keeep a lid on the buckets. This morning, one had a healthy layer of mold on it. Maybe I should have kept it covered with water.


Does anyone have ideas for an automated system, or at least a faster way of distributing FF to 8 flocks of chickens? This movement away from bulk feed may get old.

Why not have a bucket in (or just outside) each coop? Maybe right now it would freeze but Bee puts it in coolers with wheels. Their insulating ability keeps them from freezing (I think) and the wheels make it easy to go to the water source, the grain bag and then from coop to coop. You keep a big scoop in it or a small shovel to stir it and serve it, whatever works. : )

 

[beverly evans]

I'm somewhere in the middle. Like I said, my mistake was bringing her into the house causing her to become a "house chicken". I'll know better next time. For instance, I have two roos that no one wants so I am making special care not to care for them because I plan to eat them. I guess my ff stays OK because I feed it every day and stir it up every time I open the bucket. Thanks for the info Bee! : )

 

[beverly evans]

Hey Audio51 Have your eggs hatched yet or are you still waiting?? : )

 

[Beekissed]

Some of the people keep their buckets in the coop (like me, except for winter time) and some use dollies or carts to cart the feed to the flocks. I'm a big ergonomics fan, so I don't much like wasted motion...keeping the feed close the animals to be fed is my favorite step minimizer for livestock care.

If I had 8 full flocks to feed, I'd be streamlining my system to where I had a central container or a few central buckets from which to dispense from, and in the winter time they would be in heated livestock watering buckets so that I could maintain that system close by.