FERMENTED FEEDS...anyone using them?

[skitzkle]

Some how I have chicks! Anyways my latest attempt to prevent fermented balls on chick toes!!

 

[Beekissed]

Good try!!! Are they able to get through the netting to get enough feed?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

.. I'm curious as to why it smells nasty while my all natural stuff smells actually pretty good. lol Also, my mom and I were just talking about organic non-gmo feed. I'm guessing that it's worth the extra money because of the savings. Anyone else do that? Where do you get yours/Who manufactures it?

I'm using Nature's Grown organic 16% grower as the base feed for all the birds, for chicks and molters I mix in 60% fishmeal. A 10:1 ratio gives me 20% protein.
We do a co-op type thing so it's much cheaper than all the stores around here that charge anywhere from $29 to $45 for 50 pounds. The savings from FF allows me to spend more to avoid GMOs which is my primary purpose.
http://www.naturesgrownorganics.com/poultry

Okay I have a random question - do you all keep dry feed out and accessible at all times too?? I just am thinking, what if we wanted to go away for the weekend and they are only used to FF being fed to them daily. Then what?? Whereas if I have dry food available and we leave for a weekend they could just eat that while we're gone and be okay skipping 2 days of FF.

Thoughts?

I'm still using dry since all my coops have bulk feeders that hold a weeks worth of feed if that's their only food. When I let them out they get their FF and a little late afternoon.
I really like the savings of FF but it's really labor intensive to fill 8 scattered troughs a couple times a day rather than fill the bulk feeders once a week.

You wouldn't ever be adding expensive supplements to your feed in the first place. So you would never have to wonder if fermenting them was making them worthless ...

But you already have great forage ...

I'm pondering a liquid vitamin supplement in the FF like poly-vi-sol (without iron).
Thoughts?

That's a good point...but lets take a step back and try to see the forest behind the trees. If niacin is increased up to 7 fold in some grains by the simple process of fermentation, why would anyone even want to add expensive, difficult steps to the feeding process and complicate the whole thing needlessly by adding even more niacin? Why not just try the fermented feeds and watch the results on the birds and if you start to see symptoms of nutrient deficiency then take steps to correct them. If not, you are golden.

I think it all falls under the over thinking column heading. I know it feels like folks are just doing more by thinking harder but sometimes it's just counter productive to constantly theorize without trying some practical application and then weighing the results. Step 1. Ferment all the feed and see if it supplies their nutritional needs. Step 2. Evaluate the success or failure of this first step and proceed to Step 3 if the FF did not provide all necessary nutrients. Step 3. Buy expensive supplements and feed free choice, if possible.

A lot of these nutritional issues could be solved by investing the money that would have gone for expensive feeds and supplements into electronetting and ranging birds in paddocks so they can have a more natural feed available, thus maintaining their own nutrient balance better than we ever could. Takes the guess work out of it all, the investment would pay for itself over and over in various ways that just buying a bag of supplements won't do, and the birds will live naturally healthier lives.

Good points, but then again for 4 months of the year, I have zero forage. This year was worse. It's been 5 months since anything looked green.
I even have rotating pastures and have to turn the chickens into the ones with mature forage by early November or it goes to waste.

Some expensive feeds have the expensive supplements in them already.

I guess I'm not making my point very clearly ...

I consider supplements including kelp because IMO most feeds have the proper ratios of energy, protein, vitamins, macro and trace minerals to maintain a laying flock for instance but not enough for breeders. The only breeder feed I can find locally is conventional and has too much calcium for roosters.
And I'm certainly not going to pay shipping for feed.

 

[jbher]

I feed a certain amount once per day. When I am going to go away for X amount of days, I just times my daily amount by that many and leave that out to keep them fed until I come back. It's the same as leaving a sufficient amount of dry feed out and it won't spoil, go bad, get moldy, etc. My current trough holds enough for 3 days and I can pull out another trough if I need to leave more than that.

Been doing it that way for years, even when I fed just dry feeds and they are fine.

That's amazing it won't spoil! Even in the heat of the summer with humid days?! It is not very often we ever leave - but occasionally we will go camping with my family for a Fri & Sat night. Actually this August we will be doing Thur-Sun. I will have someone stay at my house to stay with our dog so whoever does that can feed the girls. However, on those occasional 2-night away weekends I won't always have someone to come scoop food and feed them. I know I could get a neighbor to grab eggs once they are of egg-laying age but I don't know that I would ask a neighbor to go through much more work than that.

Since we live in the city I will only be able to free range them when I am home and physically outside with them. And even then, they will be in some sort of tractor that my husband will build. It's against our ordinance to free-range :-( We're hoping to change this next year. But until then, tractor it is! We will have a coop plus a run that they will spend most of their time in when we're not outside. I was going to do an automatic door on the coop that will let them in the run. So when we are out of town on those weekends would I put the FF in the run? Or in the coop?

Are there any draw-backs to having dry food available? I was planning to have some sort of feeder for dry food that could hold enough that would last a couple weeks. Or at least one week. Then do the FF every day when we're home.

Thank you!!

 

[jbher]

I'm still using dry since all my coops have bulk feeders that hold a weeks worth of feed if that's their only food. When I let them out they get their FF and a little late afternoon.
I really like the savings of FF but it's really labor intensive to fill 8 scattered troughs a couple times a day rather than fill the bulk feeders once a week.

Okay that's exactly what I was imagining that I would do too. I'm happy to hear that others are doing the same and have no issues with it. Thank you!!

 

[jbher]

Some how I have chicks! Anyways my latest attempt to prevent fermented balls on chick toes!!

I was given this tip to use a glass juicer for FF for chicks so I was going to give that a try too.

 

[jbher]

Some how I have chicks! Anyways my latest attempt to prevent fermented balls on chick toes!!

Oh and is there anything cuter than fluffy chick butts? I think not.

 

[Beekissed]

That's amazing it won't spoil! Even in the heat of the summer with humid days?! It is not very often we ever leave - but occasionally we will go camping with my family for a Fri & Sat night. Actually this August we will be doing Thur-Sun. I will have someone stay at my house to stay with our dog so whoever does that can feed the girls. However, on those occasional 2-night away weekends I won't always have someone to come scoop food and feed them. I know I could get a neighbor to grab eggs once they are of egg-laying age but I don't know that I would ask a neighbor to go through much more work than that.

Since we live in the city I will only be able to free range them when I am home and physically outside with them. And even then, they will be in some sort of tractor that my husband will build. It's against our ordinance to free-range :-( We're hoping to change this next year. But until then, tractor it is! We will have a coop plus a run that they will spend most of their time in when we're not outside. I was going to do an automatic door on the coop that will let them in the run. So when we are out of town on those weekends would I put the FF in the run? Or in the coop?

Are there any draw-backs to having dry food available? I was planning to have some sort of feeder for dry food that could hold enough that would last a couple weeks. Or at least one week. Then do the FF every day when we're home.

Thank you!!

Not even, unless maybe the heat was above 104 and the feed was left undisturbed for days and started to grow a surface mold...well, you get the picture.

The only draw back to switching to dry feeds during that time is smelly poops, less nutrition and more feed consumption, is all.

 

[Beekissed]

I was given this tip to use a glass juicer for FF for chicks so I was going to give that a try too.

If you've got a hand saw and a screw driver or drill, some wood scraps and fencing scraps, you can build a nifty feeder that eliminates all that and keeps the chicks out of the feed.....simple and quick.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

I'm pondering a liquid vitamin supplement in the FF like poly-vi-sol (without iron).
Thoughts?


Good points, but then again for 4 months of the year, I have zero forage. This year was worse. It's been 5 months since anything looked green.
I even have rotating pastures and have to turn the chickens into the ones with mature forage by early November or it goes to waste.

I consider supplements including kelp because IMO most feeds have the proper ratios of energy, protein, vitamins, macro and trace minerals to maintain a laying flock for instance but not enough for breeders. The only breeder feed I can find locally is conventional and has too much calcium for roosters.
And I'm certainly not going to pay shipping for feed.

What I currently think is: extra multi-supplements, if a person is using multi-supplements at all, should be added just before feeding time so any water soluble items in the supplement don't get ruined. If people are used to sprinkling a supplement over the daily feed, this is not extra work. If a person portions up and gives their FF a good stir every day, then it is easy enough to add the multi-supplement at that time. Again, this is if a person chooses to use a supplement.

I do think supplements are worth considering for breeders ... Some are multi-formulas that have water soluble vitamins in them, others are more like raw ingredients, like kelp or Brewers Yeast. Maybe straight kelp I'd add before fermenting ...I think that's more about minerals than vitamins ... I'd probably check, but I don't think soaking it would hurt it, probably the opposite. I'm not so sure about yeast supplements ... though I do question the need for extra yeast supplements in FF for all the reasons BK mentions. I don't like the idea of fermenting added yeast supplements ... though lots of commercial feeds do include yeast supplements in the ration.

I do like the idea of adding powdery supplements to a moist feed so they don't settle and get ignored ...

I think I'm going to write to Fertrells and ask them what they would recommend. I'm sure any answer they provide will be interesting!