FERMENTED FEEDS...anyone using them?

[22qZoo]

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[Ms Jellybean]

Chickencanoe~could you please explain how you do this. I've often thought it weird to leave a light on 24\7 . Do you keep the temp at a certain level for the dark periods?Are they indoors ?I've kept them in the garage with a light until they were feathered out enough to go out,but I'm curious how you do this. I know the broody raised chicks are acclimated better but as of now we haven't done that yet. BTW, I'm over near KC so similar climate as yours. (thanks)

You can use a heat plate. Premier makes one that works well and is less expensive than the Brinsea one.
You could also switch to a red light at night. I used red heat lights with my geckos when I had them. It is still light but not too bad.

 

[LindaB220]

A few months ago I was going crazy trying to find a good organic non gmo feed that wasnt going to cost me an arm and a leg to get shipped here. Then I decided to try the organic feed at my feed store and it was $38 for 50 lbs. And I was unimpressed with the quality of the feed and the eggs. And I came to the conclusion that people have been feeding non organic for years and years with no ill effects and I'm not going to drive myself crazy and spend tons of money for mediocre feed. Plus I would rather feed my chickens naturally with free ranging.Now I feed southern states all grain for $15/50 lbs and I ferment it and they love it and are doing great! And now that the snow is melting they will get most of their food from free ranging. And also from what I will be growing in my garden.
Thats just my opinion and I respect anybody that can afford a good organic feed, but for me the only feed available was way over priced and not any better than the conventional feeds

This does sound like your best option. It's what I'm going to do. I won't be able to free range a lot but will do other things like sprout and have growing beds in the run. Covered of course.

 

[Beekissed]

You can even use a $20 heating pad from Walmart and save on electricity, money and worry about heat lamps.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Interesting expression!

We say "Don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water." around here.

Good information there....I've never heard of this Camelina meal either.

I say that too, and "Jumping the shark" means much the same thing. It's that moment where a series of really good ideas goes really wrong and you've lost the plot (another expression

). The trick is noticing that moment, pulling back, and rethinking the situation.

The thing I'm trying to do with my poultry feed is make sure the birds are getting actual FOOD, not industrial waste products repurposed as "feed" and then marketed so we can all pretend it is better than the actual food it replaces. And is highly fortified with more products from more for-profit companies to make up for all the nutritional deficiencies.

I do not like GMOs at all ... but I do believe some are worse than others. The ones that really grate on me are the "RoundUp Ready" type GMOs. Besides the fact that I'm SURE I'm already getting "enough" RoundUp in my diet, those GMOs are just part of a marketing package, IMO. To sell more chemicals. And the predatory practices of the companies owning the patents on both the chemicals and the seeds are appalling, especially when imposed upon economies outside of the Western Industrial Complex ... Ugh. I have NO joy in supporting those companies.

Papaya, though ... I don't think that product has been modified so that some chemical company can then add a bunch of toxins to it. If I understand it, Papaya has been modified so that *fewer* chemicals can be used in the Hawaiian papaya farming process ... and I believe the gene splicing that was done to achieve this was not as freaky as taking a "stomach bomb" from an animal and putting it in a plant ... And the patents on the GMO papaya plants are probably very similar to any fruit-tree patent (and there are LOTS of those!) Have GMO papayas been thoroughly tested for complete safety? Could the modification have happened "naturally?" I don't know, and I don't know. That's the basic problem with GMOs, even before you get to the predatory marketing problems and extra chemicals they invite. I don't eat a lot of Papaya ... and will probably buy "organic" when I do.



Quote:

BK answered this, but I'll add ...

There are lots of people willing to sell you lots of things (because it benefits them) that either aren't really things or aren't really necessary or are "free" for the finding, and we've grown to expect and even prefer to buy things because somehow we've been persuaded that they are "better," so we're easy "marks." I think the psychology behind this is pretty universal. It's called "marketing." Snake Oil.

The Fresh Eggs Daily blog is pretty good in letting you know who the sponsors are ... so just follow the money. The writers of that blog seem to try to keep an objective perspective, but I think that has got to be hard. It's hard for everyone, which is why "double blind" testing is the preferred "scientific method."

Even "free" information can come at a steep price, or have a hidden agenda. What I like to say is "Misery does love company, but NOTHING loves company like a bad idea!" If we have a nagging feeling that doing something might not be right, we can take a LOT of comfort in company in the other people doing it with us. The bigger the crowd around us, the more comfort we receive. So I dig for supporting information for advice, ESPECIALLY popular advice, and then I dig a little further. So much "science" is sponsored by for-profit companies these days ... then marketed ... then a little "cult" forms around it ... and Viola! Company!

Ugh.

Back to marketing ... In the USA how we seem to be a bit different is that we seem to prefer to buy things ... foods in particular ... that are marketed to tell us what they DON'T have. Fat Free! Lower Sodium! Sugar Free! And so on. Other cultures find this amusing ... paying for what you're not getting. We like to pay more for foods that don't contain what we expect them to contain. I think it gets really weird sometimes. I remember once someone bringing me a box of corn-based breakfast cereal. "Hey look! I bought this for you because it is healthy and I know you are really into health foods." I said, "It's breakfast cereal ... it's one of the least healthy, most marketed and therefore overpriced & useless, 'foods' at the grocery store." They said, "It's Gluten Free!" Well, I would expect a corn to be gluten free ...

Except of course at the grocery store you can't trust something called "corn" to contain any actual corn.

Every bite of FF is filled with large quantities of active, live and growing prebiotics and probiotics, so no need to add the dried probiotics to the feed. These have the added benefit of being FREE.

This is what is so brilliant about this FF. The more I research fermentation in general, the more I find that different cultures have been fermenting cereal grains (the stuff we feed to chickens) and other foods for AGES. They do this to make the food taste better, and to keep the food from spoiling. There is also evidence that cultures have been fermenting food for ages because they figured out long ago that fermentation ALSO boosts the nutrition of the food ... helps people stay healthier. And I've found science to prove it ... from a reliable source. Win, win, win, win.

The thing is so often "science" doesn't trust these traditional methods, and/or industry resents that these methods are "free." What can happen is appalling ... persuading "poor" populations they need to abandon traditional local foods in favor of imported industrial foods is pure evil, IMO. When we replace the essentially free traditional foods with industrialized "equivalents" that speed up the process and "simulate" the textures and flavors of those traditional foods, we put a huge financial burden on the populations, which can be devastating enough by itself, but we also take away the nutrients those cultures lived off of for hundreds/thousands of years ... so we make them sick. Some of that is innocent shark jumping, some of it is intentional malice.

Take Corn, for example. Back in the day Europe had never heard of corn. Corn is an "American" thing. They didn't know America existed. Traditionally, corn was mostly prepared by soaking it in a lime solution. Then it was ground ... by hand ... and after that it was used for food. The soaking of the corn in the lime helped soften it for grinding, but it also release the full spectrum of nutrients in the corn. But we "industrialized" that process, brought in machine grinders so the corn didn't need to be soaked first. What we failed to notice was that without the soak, cornmeal lacks Niacin, and people who live on a corn-based diet started getting Pellegra, a niacin deficiency.

No problem ... some scientific genius found a way to squeeze some synthetic niacin into the industrial product, and then a marketing genius had the idea to stick that info in big letters on the cardboard box the "food" comes in. "Fortified!" Read as "Pay More!"

Ugh.

The thing about Canola, and Camelina, and Cottonseed Meal is that they are all industrial bi-products. Essentially they are waste products that can be turned into something sorta edible through a lot of processing. We've known for ages that Cottonseed Meal is not good for poultry or poultry products, so it isn't used much except maybe in areas where cotton is grown and they'd rather sell their industrial waste as animal feed than pay to have it dumped.

Ugh.

They have done a LOT to market the "health" benefits of Canola "foods" ... but IMO it still isn't really food. That's why I avoid Canola as much as possible.

I put Camelina in that same category, and am not that impressed by it's "No GMOs!" status. I'd rather know what it is (waste from the alternative fuel industry?) than what it isn't (GMO).

I've been searching for a super healthy and affordable alternative to patented & over sprayed & largely untested GMO soy in poultry rations, but Camelina is not my Eureka! At least not yet. I'll keep digging.

Cuz ... Seeing as I have to feed my birds, I at least want to feed them ... food.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

This does sound like your best option. It's what I'm going to do. I won't be able to free range a lot but will do other things like sprout and have growing beds in the run. Covered of course.

Yes ... I intend to improve the poultry habitats so the birds rely less and less on "feed." This is so very much the whole point of moving away from confinement operations ... let the animals do what they can, within reason, to take care of themselves. Then us humans have to be keen to fill in the gaps ...

 

[Beekissed]

Excellent explanation as to how and why some feeds are touted and some are not...and who pays for the touting. I may be paranoid here, but I've noticed a few of what I would call "ringers" for lack of a better word, spreading misleading and downright slanderous information about the fermented feed on some of the lesser threads that are asking about them.

When I read their posts I'm thinking they are hired by the major feed corporations for this job...it's classic propaganda against a free way to reduce feed consumption and increase nutrition. Who has anything to gain by that kind of campaign? The feed companies, of course. Notice how all the sudden they are advertising probiotics in their feeds? That is no accident of timing...it's to try and offer an alternative~built right in~for fermented feeds. These ringers tend to quote poultry nutritionists...their friends, of course, just offering unsolicited advice...and who in the world hires poultry nutritionists? Feed companies.

If you think a little old chicken forum doesn't have that much sway and pull out there in the corporate world, think again. Two years ago Heinz was not putting mother ACV in the stores. Braggs had the market on it but it wasn't always easy to find. Corporate heard the cry and responded. The cause of the increased need for mother vinegar? You can find it right on these forums. Five years ago everyone laughed at me for using it in my water and you couldn't find anyone who did...now every blog site out there is advocating for vinegar in the water.

Same with the ingredients for homemade laundry detergent..couldn't find those ingredients in one place to save your soul some years back but now they are grouped neatly together at Walmart and Kroger.

They have people who follow the trends and consumer wants and needs and they also have those who try to discourage those trends when they cannot meet the need or compete with the idea of something you can get for FREE.

 

[perchie.girl]

I am reading fast I dont have any input but...

Most plastic containers are benign. PM me and I can give you the details its a long thread and I dont know where my original post is on this....

useless Fact:

"Jump the Shark" is a term that was the result of one episode in the TV series Happy Days. When the FONZ in Leather Jacket perfectly groomed hair was Water skiing and some how Jumped a shark marking the lowest episode of Happy Days.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jump the shark

deb

 

[niqueie]

Corporate greed is as old as time. I think that anyone who has worked in a corporate setting can see the wastes and rediculous posturing of eachother. It has benefits but many drawbacks too. I really liked how you both communicated the problems of the situation at hand. There is only so much we can each do individually, but when people band together much good can be accomplished.

I'm glad to meet many of you here that are similarly minded to me. There are so many around me that think of convenience before anything. I'm glad you have both written the thoughts and researched-opinions for me and others to think about and consider also.

 

[22qZoo]

LDJ & BK , bravo and well said !

Thanks for the heating tips every one ( duh !

) should have known it wouldn't need to be complicated.