FERMENTED FEEDS...anyone using them?

[KristinKH]

I think the first sign will be that your chickens won't eat it. They're pretty smart about not eating bad food. Another sign will be the smell. If it smells bad to you it probably is bad. Also, you'll see if it there's mold growing.

Disclaimer - I'm speaking more from experience with fermenting food for humans than for chickens, and from reading more than from experience with chickens.

Kristin

 

[Tikkijane]

I think the first sign will be that your chickens won't eat it.  They're pretty smart about not eating bad food.  Another sign will be the smell.  If it smells bad to you it probably is bad.  Also, you'll see if it there's mold growing.

Disclaimer - I'm speaking more from experience with fermenting food for humans than for chickens, and from reading more than from experience with chickens.

Kristin 

I disagree. Chickens eat all kinds of dead things. They have 20-30 taste buds to our nearly 10,000. They can taste almost nothing.

Usually, it's something new. Sprinkle some dry feed on top to get them started if need be. I have never had picky chickens....

FF will continue to smell more and more strongly as it ferments. My nose gags out at around 5 days; my chickens have eaten feed that is seriously strong smelling and has been fermenting for 2 weeks.

FF doesn't usually grow mold- it *can,* but usually folks mistake the yeasts for mold.

 

[Tikkijane]

I disagree. Chickens eat all kinds of dead things. They have 20-30 taste buds to our nearly 10,000. They can taste almost nothing.

Usually, it's something new. Sprinkle some dry feed on top to get them started if need be. I have never had picky chickens....

FF will continue to smell more and more strongly as it ferments. My nose gags out at around 5 days; my chickens have eaten feed that is seriously strong smelling and has been fermenting for 2 weeks.

FF doesn't usually grow mold- it *can,* but usually folks mistake the yeasts for mold.

I'll add to this: BECAUSE FF continues to ferment and ferment levels continue to increase daily, it makes perfect sense that the feed increaees in nutritional density. This translates to a need for LESS feed consumption- the more nutrionally dense; the less they need to eat. There's a large variable of what they "need." We're talking a few mouthfuls per feeding is possible. I think mine {less the chicks} are at about 1/2 cup a day total; summertime consumption will be less.

 

[triplepurpose]

New, bigger feeder for the FF....just scrapped together out of some lightweight boards, some wood scraps and part of the woods. Easy to make, lasts a long while and functional. It's 5 ft. long and approx. a foot wide at the feet, less in the trough.

Hey, cool! This looks just like the ones I made a few years ago and we're still using. Except for the bar above the trough, which seems like a great idea for keeping them from walking in the trough, which is annoying. Except: what's to stop the birds from using it as a perch and pooping in the tray? I don't understand how that wouldn't happen...? Mine will perch on anything like that.

 

[triplepurpose]

I'll add to this: BECAUSE FF continues to ferment and ferment levels continue to increase daily, it makes perfect sense that the feed increaees in nutritional density. This translates to a need for LESS feed consumption- the more nutrionally dense; the less they need to eat. There's a large variable of what they "need." We're talking a few mouthfuls per feeding is possible. I think mine {less the chicks} are at about 1/2 cup a day total; summertime consumption will be less.

But also... Isn't energy lost even as density of some important nutrients increases? Matter isn't created or destroyed, it is only changing form (obviously significantly into compounds more digestible and beneficial for chickens). But this takes energy to do, which is coming from calories also contained in the original feed/substrate. Microbes may be pretty efficient at this sort of thing, but even they need energy to metabolize and reproduce, and the fact that FF becomes warmer than the surrounding environment also indicates that some of the original calories are being lost as diffuse heat. So you are increasing density of CERTAIN nutrients, but decreasing total energy of the feed. (Exactly how much I lack the scientific or mathematic ability to say, and The result of which is obviously a win for us and the chickens, at least up to a point--and I am a HUGE FF fan myself. I guess the overal loss of energy is negligible in trade-off, otherwise FF wouldn't work so well. But the point to remember for people intrigued by FF is that nutrients aren't just magically appearing out of thin air (even tho it seems like it ).

 

[Torch404]

What you need to consider is that it doesn't become more nutritionally DENSE it becomes more nutritionally AVAILABLE.

The microbes eat the food using some calories to produce heat. They are eating carbohydrates, vitamins and other components. The whole time they are excreting waste the main bacteria are lacto bacteria and their main excrement's is Lactic Acid. As you have a whole colony of different microbes though there is a lot of different waste products being created.Other bacteria eat those waste products too. Lots of these microbes die and other microbes eat them.


Those minerals etc trapped in the dead microbes are now available (not locked in the fed) once they are eatten and digested. There is obviously an maximum limit to the nutritional availability as there is only so many available nutrients. The longer you ferment the food allows more bacteria to grow so more availability. However the waste products change the environment and different bacteria become more dominate and at some level once the PH gets acidic enough most everything stops.

 

[azygous]

My FF using chick feed doesn't seem to be fermenting. I started it two days ago so it should have the FF tang by now. I read the ingredients and it includes animal proteins in the form of fish and salmon meal. Is that why it's not fermenting?

My chicks will be here in the morning and I am thinking I should toss this out and just feed it dry.

The product is Farmer's Helper Ultra Kibble for Chicks. It was the only thing that came unmedicated.

Thoughts?

 

[monkcat]

Azygous, I can't answer about the ingredients and their effects in fermenting. But, it took 3-4 days before mine started fermenting good. Even then, it wasn't a strong smell. Now, that I have a good ferment going, I can add new stuff and the next day it's going strong. I'd say give it a few days and see. You'll have some dry on hand if you need it, but I'd give it a try. Nothing to lose, right?

For what it's worth, I offer both. Mine weren't started on FF and I felt they really weren't eating enough at times. It may be the effectiveness of the FF that they required less. But, because I am a first-time over-protective chicken mama, I added both. And they eat both at different times. Works for me.

 

[azygous]

Thanks for the response. I'll give it more time.

Tonight, still no ferment "zing", so I added a spoon full of the big chickens' FF "soup" to try to give it a jump. Maybe by morning it'll have a different smell other than wet chick starter.

I'm really looking forward to picking up my new babies at the post office first thing in the morning. I tracked them from the hatchery and found that they landed in a post office just three hours away early this morning, and will sit there on a shelf for 24 hours before being trucked the three hours down to my PO tomorrow morning. I tried to call them to ask if I could drive up to get them today, and couldn't get anyone to answer the d@mn&d phone. It's been maddening thinking of the tiny things sitting just three hours away and not being able to do anything about it.

I wanted to have their FF all ready to feed them, but now that's iffy.

 

[monkcat]

Oh,that has to be so frustrating! I have never ordered anything live by mail before. Would have me pacing the floors. If you've added FF from something else, I bet by tomorrow you'll start smelling fermenty stuff. Especially if it's well established and strong. I'd leave it regardless to see how it goes. Hope all goes well and you get them first thing in the morning.And I hope fermenty happenings occur!