FERMENTED FEEDS...anyone using them?

[Beekissed]

I have bad news. I can't get chickens this spring. This year has been very hard on me financially. I took yet another blow when I read my mail last night. Another huge payout. My year started with paying the insurance deducible for a new roof and went downhill from there. I have never had such an expensive few months!

I'm going to start working on my coop this fall/winter and be already for chicks next spring.

I have been wanting to get chickens for over 5 years and when I bought this house a year and a half ago I finally had the yard that allowed it.

I am seriously bummed.

I bet!

 

[Tikkijane]

I have bad news.  I can't get chickens this spring.  This year has been very hard on me financially.  I took yet another blow when I read my mail last night.  Another huge payout.  My year started with paying the insurance deducible for a new roof and went downhill from there. I have never had such an expensive few months!

I'm going to start working on my coop this fall/winter and be already for chicks next spring. 

 I have been wanting to get chickens for over 5 years and when I bought this house a year and a half ago I finally had the yard that allowed it.  

I am seriously bummed.

 

[azygous]

Bee, thanks for taking the time to give me your good advice. I'm very grateful.

 

[kile529]

So I'll hop on, too. Today's farmer's market yielded bunnies.

. Anyone know about fermenting their food?

My one dog eats ff {chicken }. Loves it. Still alive. Fwiw.

From what I understand, you either cannot or should not ferment rabbit feed. Apparently they're very similar to horses and have very sensitive stomachs/digestive tracks. Fodder is supposedly the only alternative to dry pellets. If you come across other info, please let me know. I haven't dug very deep into the issue just browsed a few forums...so I could be TOTALLY wrong. lol

 

[kile529]

There are quite a few who ferment their dog's food and says it took care of stomach issues, coat issues, etc. No diarrhea noted.

Woah....fermenting dog food?!?! My husband is already considering holding an intervention....

Actually, he's loving that ff is healthier AND saving money. We go through dog food like crazy with just 2 and we get the middle of the road stuff. (Diamond's Naturals)
Would love to feed BARF butttttt....my husband can't handle that one again. lol But seriously....fermenting dog food?!?!?

Gotta love a chicken forum going to the dogs!

 

[kpgoldstar]

I have bad news. I can't get chickens this spring. This year has been very hard on me financially. I took yet another blow when I read my mail last night. Another huge payout. My year started with paying the insurance deducible for a new roof and went downhill from there. I have never had such an expensive few months!

I'm going to start working on my coop this fall/winter and be already for chicks next spring.

I have been wanting to get chickens for over 5 years and when I bought this house a year and a half ago I finally had the yard that allowed it.

I am seriously bummed.

Oh Jelly, I am so sad for you. If it is any consolation, I have wanted chickens for a VERY long time. I live where I am not allowed to have them. I saved an Organic Gardening magazine that had an article on backyard chickens and hoped and dreamed. I finally just said so what? get my neighbors on board and hope I don't get caught and told I have to get rid of them.

Once I made up my mind I was getting them, just this past late summer, I dug out that old magazine. Guess what the date was on it?? Sept/Oct of 2001!!! Yep, that's right! I had been yearning for chickens for 12 years!

I hope this is just a minor setback for you and you can plan and research and be REALLY ready next spring when the time comes. I got chicks in October so it really doesn't have to be spring. Maybe your situation will change and you can get them sooner than you think.

Keep hanging around and gain all the knowledge you can in the meantime. I wish I had found this site a bit of time longer before I'd gotten my flock. I would have done a couple things differently, most notably gotten a variety of breeds. I only have 4 girls but they are all RIR's and I have to use bands now to tell them apart and all their eggs look similar. A mix would be more colorful in the yard and in the nest box plus maybe some more stark differences in personality. We'll be here ready for you when you are finally able to take the plunge!

 

[Beekissed]

From what I understand, you either cannot or should not ferment rabbit feed. Apparently they're very similar to horses and have very sensitive stomachs/digestive tracks. Fodder is supposedly the only alternative to dry pellets. If you come across other info, please let me know. I haven't dug very deep into the issue just browsed a few forums...so I could be TOTALLY wrong. lol

Yep..they can eat FF and there are a few gals on BYC feeding it to rabbits. Mostly just FF whole grains and FF alfalfa but they are feeding it. Rabbits don't particularly NEED FF due to having specialized bowels that ferments their food for them but FF whole grains are still giving them some much needed probiotics and better nutrients.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

...

I have only JUST begun trying to do this with chickens ... only set my first ever eggs for this purpose this past week ... starting at point A ... or A- ... or A----- ... or further back than that. I knew zippidydoodah about having chickens a couple springs ago ... and even the old-timers here on this farm are perplexed by the idea of a dual-purpose flock on pasture getting to act like chickens ... we don't even have real pasture. Yet.

The pasture here gets renewed constantly. It's just large pens/paddocks that have small breeding flocks rotating between them. Once they wipe one out, they get moved to the next mature succulent greenery. And then comes winter.

I think there have been some huge shifts in the whole chicken thing, and it will take a while before we get all our collective "ducks in a row" again now that we've decided to bring chickens home to our back yards and barn yards so to speak. And in reality we'll probably be inventing something new rather than recapturing the past.

probably both

It used to be that barnyard chickens didn't always need a lot of feed because their job was to clean up everything everyone else around them wasted, and patrol for bugs and other small forms of life and keep things stirred up so they didn't get rank. Now ... most of our Back Yards and our Barn Yards are pretty well dead environments.

And our commercial poultry rations are formulated to keep a specialized factory bird alive for a matter of weeks (meaties) or months (layers) maximum. IMO, the feed needs some tweaking. Pastures? Fresher feeds? Animal products? More living soils?

X2

And a lot of people can't have roosters or more than 3 birds, so are stuck buying chicks from hatcheries, and raising them by hand, and then they are pretty well pets instead of livestock, so we want them to stay healthy and productive for years instead of months. And of course back in the day people had roosters and hatched their own chicks and a broody bird was a blessing not a curse.

The living conditions need tweaking compared to previous ideas ... can't have chickens ruining the neighborhood, etc.

I work with a lot of small cities around here, educating city councils about backyard chickens. It amazes me that they vote on ordinances (that city attorneys copy from other city's ordinances that aren't in the best interest of chickens) and they've never seen a chicken or a BYC coop. I've actually been successful to get council members to visit local coops before they decide to vote on new ordinances. It's like pulling teeth in most cases.
I lived in Costa Rica for a while working with Macaws and even in the burbs of the capitol, most people had chickens. I never needed an alarm clock to get to work on time and I grew to love waking to the sound of roosters rather than an alarm. It's just too bad I can't hear my roosters when I'm inside the house. Maybe a good thing for the neighbors.

The birds themselves need tweaking because basically all hatchery birds are now leghorns in disguise bred to artificially produce as many healthy offspring at the factory as possible ... alternatively, many of those "heritage breeds" from "real breeders" have been ... lost ... by being turned into show birds.

X2 - again.

It is going to be work, and it will very likely be highly individualized work. Particularly for those of us just starting out.

I'll have to re-find and re-post the article I once posted about a poultry operation working towards a localized bird ... it was interesting, though I didn't agree with everything about it, and it was for layers instead of dual-purpose birds. Salatin is starting something similar this year with his layers.

Every time I try to make this post shorter, it just gets longer.

Another problem is that someone has to produce the food for an ever increasing urban populace globally. That's the only reason I don't absolutely hate commercial farming.
Everyone doesn't have the means to produce their own food.
Overpopulation and the continuing shift from agrarian to urbanization of the human race make solutions extremely difficult.

Just like anything else that is naturally good for animals, not all animals are born with the genetics for good immune system health, and the natural goodness of the feeds and natural remedies can only take them so far. There is no magic bullet or miracle cure or any snake oil mix that will insure the health of all birds living in all conditions in all areas of the world. That is why I advocate for the yearly cull.....this bird is a cull in my book. She contracted an overgrowth of harmful yeasts in her digestive system when none of the other birds have done so. It's a bird problem, not a feed problem, method problem or even a flock problem unless you have several birds coming down with the same issue. At this point one has to realize that no matter what you do, some birds are born culls and there is no way around that. I've never had a case of sour crop in 38 yrs of chicken life and there has got to be a reason for that...it could very well be that it's because I cull yearly for weak birds, non layers, too old, etc.

I say, amen, to that whole paragraph.

Giving Amoxicillin is only going to make it worse...it's a broad spectrum antibiotic and will kill everything...but the bad guys grow more quickly than the good guys and whoever establishes on that gastrointestinal mucosa first wins the game. So giving antibiotics are simply not the answer for this type of malady, as it just encourages further harmful yeast overgrowth.

If you won't cull this weak bird, then just use one thing...try one thing at a time and wait until it works. Either the castor oil or the Monistat, but if you give both you'll never know which one worked or which one did not. Dose and watch the bird for about 3 days and see what happens...she will either show improvement, no improvement or further decline. Then make a decision at that time to either try the other remedy or not according to the level of improvement.

After all the harmful yeast overgrowth is gone the FF can help restore good intestinal health and, in a normal, healthy chicken, it can help prevent certain bacteria and harmful yeasts from having an overgrowth, but a lot of that depends on the strong genetics of the bird.

Good advice.
I have worked hard to save a bird with extremely rare genetics but coddling weak birds is a slippery slope.
I'm sometimes amazed reading threads (especially hatchalongs) where people strive to save every chick. And in my mind, I'm thinking, that bird should never be allowed to breed.
I'll get some flack for this but I think the same about humans.
Even though I have chickens in my backyard, I'm not a BYC person in the truest sense. The only chicken I've ever owned with a name was called barbecue because the vet wanted the patient's name and that's what popped into my head.
In my life, I've been involved in many aspects of poultry. Early on, we had flocks of 100+ leghorns for egg sales, small batches of meat birds, as well as pheasant.
I worked in the commercial industry, mostly chickens and turkeys and with an emphasis on feed manufacturing.
I've had a small BYC flock of 10 DP hens, big batches of meaties (in the form of CornishX, Freedom Rangers and specialty DPs) and mixed flocks of about 30 different breeds.
On my current path, I'm trying to salvage, what I consider one of the more amazing breeds of chickens. The gene pool is small, so culling for vigor is imperative. That said, I'll go out of my way to provide the best nutrition I can. I've done a lot of research into the feedstuffs, mineral content of the soil and resultant forage where the birds originated and am trying to replicate some of that.
This is where many of us differ in our management and chosen methods of animal husbandry. Except for most urbanites in the same city with 4 same age hens in a small coop and run, almost everyone's situation is different.

I feed my dog RAW MEATS ORGANIC BONES etc. Research it. IT IS THE BEST WAY TO FEED YOUR DOG! You can look up BARF feeding dogs. (Biologically appropriate raw food)

The genetic origin is they're basically meat eaters.

My dog eats Ol' Roy Kibbles and Chunks...and raw meat and bones in season(deer and chicken butchering), kitchen garbage, garden left overs, cracked eggs, apples by the bushel, loves rotten bananas, rotten animals, and will eat chicken feed if he gets a chance.

Best way to feed your dog is subjective, as it is with the best way to feed your chickens.

Dogs are also opportunists and will eat just about anything, but mostly meat.
I don't buy into the thing where the food never changes. They like variety.

I have bad news. I can't get chickens this spring. This year has been very hard on me financially. I took yet another blow when I read my mail last night. Another huge payout. My year started with paying the insurance deducible for a new roof and went downhill from there. I have never had such an expensive few months!

I'm going to start working on my coop this fall/winter and be already for chicks next spring.

I have been wanting to get chickens for over 5 years and when I bought this house a year and a half ago I finally had the yard that allowed it.

I am seriously bummed.

I feel your pain.
I lost my good paying lifelong job in '06 and except for brief stints that ranged all the way from 4 hours to 9 months, I haven't been able to come close to that.
I've pretty much given up. On the bright side, we're not the lone rangers. Life's tough all over.
Bless you. I hope this doesn't sound trite but all we can do is hang in there.

Bee, thanks for taking the time to give me your good advice. I'm very grateful.

I'm grateful as well. Even though we've clashed a bit, I do appreciate your experience and sharing.

 

[Tikkijane]

From what I understand, you either cannot or should not ferment rabbit feed. Apparently they're very similar to horses and have very sensitive stomachs/digestive tracks. Fodder is supposedly the only alternative to dry pellets. If you come across other info, please let me know. I haven't dug very deep into the issue just browsed a few forums...so I could be TOTALLY wrong. lol

Yep..they can eat FF and there are a few gals on BYC feeding it to rabbits.  Mostly just FF whole grains and FF alfalfa but they are feeding it.  Rabbits don't particularly NEED FF due to having specialized bowels that ferments their food for them but FF whole grains are still giving them some much needed probiotics and better nutrients. 

Hmmmmm. I think I have some research to do, lol....

 

[jbher]

I work with a lot of small cities around here, educating city councils about backyard chickens. It amazes me that they vote on ordinances (that city attorneys copy from other city's ordinances that aren't in the best interest of chickens) and they've never seen a chicken or a BYC coop. I've actually been successful to get council members to visit local coops before they decide to vote on new ordinances. It's like pulling teeth in most cases.
I lived in Costa Rica for a while working with Macaws and even in the burbs of the capitol, most people had chickens. I never needed an alarm clock to get to work on time and I grew to love waking to the sound of roosters rather than an alarm. It's just too bad I can't hear my roosters when I'm inside the house. Maybe a good thing for the neighbors.

I'm hoping it was you that wrote that above, I had to copy and paste it as a quote

A friend and I worked for over 9 months last year with our city's council to get our ordinance changed. It was a major UPHILL battle. LOTS of education needed to happen. Even after all that our city attorney then used a neighboring city's ordinance to copy from and then made ours even more strict. NO free range time allowed (because a few council members said "I don't want to drive around and see CHICKENS walking around yards"), our ordinance also give size RESTRICTIONS (coop can't exceed 30sq ft and runs 50sq ft - they even put a height maximums on building too! Nevermind the fact that we have tree houses built in the city that are twice as big as any chicken coop can be. Same goes for play houses people build and SHEDS oh my... the sheds in some lots are HUGE.). We provided them with MANY examples of what coops look like. We gave presentations and spoke to our council every chance we got. We started out last April with a "no" vote. We were turned down. But we gained enough momentum and news coverage - along with securing one-on-one chats with council members and we gained our YES in October!! However, this new ordinance is a one year trial. So we are going with it and hopefully it will show them that chickens are seriously no big deal. Then we will go back to them so they can loosen up their firm grip on the rules. I can't wait to move to the country in a couple years!!!