FERMENTED FEEDS...anyone using them?

[ChickenCanoe]

Metzer farms has a blog on managing waterfowl that Holderread contributes to. It's about as helpful as anything else I've found.
...

X2

Most folks in books recommend 4 sq ft per bird but I like to advise going higher than that if you can, even if you free range. If you can't, the 4 sq ft is a bottom line to start from, but I wouldn't go any lower than that unless you have other options for them to exist in when weather is too bad to get out, like a covered run or lounging shed or some such. If you live where the weather doesn't get bad and you never have to confine the birds to the coop you can get by with less but I wouldn't overload it. Sixteen birds in an 8x8 gives you the 4 but since you free range you should be able to get by with it and the one extra...especially if you start a deep litter in your coop that can contain the fecal load and turn the coop environment into a healthier place to be, but remember if you go to deep litter to make sure you have really good, open air cooping...lots of windows and venting, both upper and lower.

I've got space for 20 using the 4 rule and I free range, but you see how quickly that space looks like a little box when they are confined due to deep snow...and I only have 9-10 birds in my coop most of the time now, so I'm giving them 8 and it still looks small. Crowding causes issues of squabbling, fighting, pecking, etc. and decreases the air quality of the coop, so I always advise to err on too much space rather than just enough or too little.

X2
Those recommended numbers are minimum guidelines. More is always better.
I tell people if they are buying a manufactured coop, ignore the number of birds the manufacturer says it will house, their numbers are nonsense.
Measure the interior floor space and then use the 4 sq. ft. thing as your guide. Most of them will hold about a quarter of what they say they will.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

About yeast products in poultry feed: http://www.diamondv.com/languages/en/poultry-nutrition/

That's a link to the general poultry page at the site if a leading manufacturer of yeast-based animal supplements. It will tell you why yeast is sometimes added to poultry feeds.

I believe that feed with yeast in it can be fermented and will only be somewhat redundant. You can't get everything available through feed fermentation from a yeast supplement, but you can get some of it.

I've been adding Diamond V product to my FF after fermentation and just prior to serving. My flock is doing better now than before I started fermenting. That's not science ... I don't know of any science that specifically studies fermenting poultry feeds that have yeast supplements in them. But yeast supplements are not an uncommon ingredient in poultry feeds.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

About ducks ... slightly off topic, but what we've been talking about recently ...

Here is a link to the large round stock tank I'm thinking of getting for my ducks ...

http://www.amazon.com/Behlen-Country-PR82-8-Feet-Diameter/dp/B003B6DAW0

There are lots of stock tank options that would be great water-play features for ducks, but I want something with a lot of surface area and a drain.

In my experience, ducks thoroughly dirty their water pretty quickly and they like to lay eggs in the water. So even though I'd love to have a big, deep pond for the ducks that they could dive in and where the funk would settle ... those are an investment I can't make at the moment, so I'll stick to shallower water features for them. People with large ponds & ducks report finding a lot of eggs in the ponds when they do their regular maintenance.

And to have a water source that the ducks can't climb in but is deep enough for them to rinse their nares and is "automatic," I'm thinking of doing a trough much like the troughs I made for my FF, but with an inlet float valve at one end (they sell small, linear, plastic, inlet float valves at my local farm store for under $15. I'd set it up like this guy here did ... (this post is the source of my trough feeder idea). I think it would be easy enough to level something like that, or move it to a "fresh" spot occasionally.

Quote:

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

I just found this thread here with some interesting duck pond ideas ...

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/473545/homemade-duck-ponds-pics

 

[debp]

Once in the spring and once in the fall.

I think it would be safer and easier for you to just dust them with sulfur powder every now and again...it's cheap, you can find it at any garden center and it's all natural. Both have the same active ingredient~sulfur.

Searching for info on feeding garlic, having seen it suggested in several posts, I ran across this reply to Ariel 188. Is seems that both posts indicate you can give too much garlic. I was going to add a little crushed garlic to my chicks' (3-week old) water. Is this a bad idea? I give ACV in water always. Would garlic be a good addition to help prevent coccidiosis or other digestive troubles. No problems right now, except I occasionally see a runny poop.

 

[triplepurpose]

that's awesome, thanks! All very good ideas. When my friend told me that, I had no clue. The only thing I knew to do with it was make molasses

Yeah, there's different varieties that are selected for thick juicy stems for making molasses and ones selected for big seed heads, for the grain, but all have some sweetness in the stems I'm told...

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

So you are saying it takes 3-4 days to get a good fermentation? I'm using 1- 5 gallon bucket for 31 chickens. When it gets low, I add some water to it and let it sit for a few hours. It looks like it has scobey on top when I add the feed & more water. It then sets overnight to be fed the next day. So my feed might not be fermented enough? I used to keep 2-5gal buckets going, but had to use one to store sap in when we made maple syrup back in march, and I just didn't start it back up. Maybe I should. I assumed that if the feed left in the bucket was fermented and the little bit of water I used to cover it had a scobey on top, and it sit for 10-12 hrs or more, it would ferment. I will check mine as I have to mix more today. Just thinking.

3 to 4 days initial fermentation; overnight + for subsequent batches when backslopping.

In my opinion when you backslop (add new water and feed to the existing FF that has gotten low) it is fermented and ready to feed again in about 12 hours. Mine does tend to get more sour the closer I get to the bottom of my bucket so that is "more" fermented than a newly refreshed batch.

eta: I think the 3-4 days reference was for initial fermentation.

I was thinking more about this, wondering if there was a study comparing "speed" of fermentation benefits between batches either using a starter or not using a starter.

I found this one ... specifically testing millet fermented for 12 hours using a "starter" to see if they could more quickly achieve the nutritional enhancements of a longer ferment. I think this study is particularly cool because the "starter" they used was just part of a previous batch of 48 hour fermented millet ... what we call "backsloping" when we do it here.

"Two varieties of finger millet (Eleusine coracana)

a tannin-containing red variety, CO13, and nontannin white variety, CO9

processed by treatment with enzymes (cellulase and hemicellulase) and fermentation with starters (from previously fermented finger millet batter), achieved the desirable goals of reduced fermentation time (12 h), increased acidity (2.2 to 2.4%), enhanced in vitro protein digestibility (IVPD) (14 to 26%), and mineral availability compared to 48 h uncontrolled natural fermentation (Usha Antony and Chandra, 1998). Fermentation with starters alone increased titratable acidity (1.02 to 1.88%), IVPD (5.5 to 22%) and mineral availability, and decreased phytate (23 to 26%) and tannin (10.8 to 40.5%) in the millets. Enzymatic treatment (3 h, 50 °C) did not significantly alter the pH, phytate, tannins, IVPD, or HCl−mineral extractability but enhanced fermentative changes. Overall, the changes were marked when the 48 h starter was used and the improvements in nutrient availability was greater in the CO13 variety."

Here is a link to that quote from the citation with qualified access to the full study ... http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf980564a

 

[Beekissed]

Searching for info on feeding garlic, having seen it suggested in several posts, I ran across this reply to Ariel 188. Is seems that both posts indicate you can give too much garlic. I was going to add a little crushed garlic to my chicks' (3-week old) water. Is this a bad idea? I give ACV in water always. Would garlic be a good addition to help prevent coccidiosis or other digestive troubles. No problems right now, except I occasionally see a runny poop.

Likely your runny poops are cecal poops. Garlic is really not needed in birds that young, I would think. They are not born with a worm load like some puppies and kittens are. If you are feeding FF you could do away with the ACV in the water if you would like. Garlic won't prevent coccidiosis...at least, I've never read or heard of anything like that coming from giving garlic.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

A while back I expressed my ignorance about "how" fermentation works to "enhance" the nutrition of grains. I believe it works, but all the "hows" have me stumped and a lot of the pro-fermentation information on the Internets is just ... vague. One of the vague claims of how fermentation boosts the nutritional value of grains is through the reduction of anti-nutrients.

Here is the citation of a study that specifically addressed the question of the reduction of the phytate in Rye, Wheat & Oats via fermentation. The conclusion seems to be it is the lowering of pH through fermentation that allows the phytate reductation process inherent in the grains themselves to get to work ...

"Lactic acid fermentation of cereal flours resulted in a 100 (rye), 95−100 (wheat), and 39−47% (oat) reduction in phytate content within 24 h. The extent of phytate degradation was shown to be independent from the lactic acid bacteria strain used for fermentation. However, phytate degradation during cereal dough fermentation was positively correlated with endogenous plant phytase activity (rye, 6750 mU g-1; wheat, 2930 mU g-1; and oat, 23 mU g-1), and heat inactivation of the endogenous cereal phytases prior to lactic acid fermentation resulted in a complete loss of phytate degradation. Phytate degradation was restored after addition of a purified phytase to the liquid dough. Incubation of the cereal flours in buffered solutions resulted in a pH-dependent phytate degradation. The optimum of phytate degradation was shown to be around pH 5.5. Studies on phytase production of 50 lactic acid bacteria strains, previously isolated from sourdoughs, did not result in a significant production of intra- as well as extracellular phytase activity. Therefore, lactic acid bacteria do not participate directly in phytate degradation but provide favorable conditions for the endogenous cereal phytase activity by lowering the pH value."

And for those of us tracking the "how long does proper fermentation take," the results above took 24 hours ... in dough. Dough has already been processed a bit, so if I person is fermenting whole grains their results will likely vary.

Here is a link to the page with that citation and qualified access to the 2007 study: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf063507n

 

[carnivore]

Well, the way I read that, if the grain has been heat treated (how would you know?), there is a complete loss of phytate, and fermentation would not correct it without adding liquid phytase. Better get friendly with a farmer, or grow your own grain!