FERMENTED FEEDS...anyone using them?

[Leigti]

I'm getting some new chicks this weekend. And I plan to feed them fermented starter feed. Do they need chick grit?

 

[lazy gardener]

Yes, and no. Conventional wisdom says that if they just eat chicken feed, they do not eat grit. However, there are plenty of folks who counter that statement by saying: God designed chickens with a gizzard which is designed to hold little stones or grit to help grind their food. Those gizzards NEED grit to develop properly. And your chickens will eventually be eating something other than chicken feed, I presume. This is what I like to do: I start my chicks on fermented feed in the first week. (be sure to put it in something that they can't fall into.) Initially, I just plop it on a scrap of wood or cardboard. Then, into a shallow container. After they are filling their crops nicely, I introduce them to a plug of sod from my yard (be sure you haven't used any herbicides/insecticides) I use a piece about the size of a pie plate, and place it upside down, right in the litter. They go nuts over it. They get: a bit of grit, minerals from the soil which they WILL eat, their first greens, a healthy dose of micro-organisms to improve their gut flora, a few tiny insects and maybe seeds, and their first dust bath.

 

[bbhorsefly]

I've never used chick grit. Especially fermenting my chick starter, I can't imagine they need it. Then again, I've always had chicks when it was warm and got them outside as quickly as possible to peck around and pick up their own.

 

[lazy gardener]

Not always an option in the frigid north. By giving them the sod, it allows them to get a gut full of good stuff while still in the brooder.

 

[Leigti]

I might be able to find a little bit of dirt with some grass attached with this type of feeder work with fermented feed, it seems like they would get their heads stuck. But maybe I'm just being a worry wart

 

[lazy gardener]

For chicks, I like to put my FF in an open shallow dish, after they are eating it well from a flat surface.

That should work. I've never used one of those before. Sometimes I use one of the round ones with the qt. jar in the middle, just leave the jar empty. But, IMO, a regular dish works best. They'll walk through it, and muck it up, that's what babies do.

I use dog bowls for my big girls, and they pretty much keep their feet out of it.

 

[COChix]

I might be able to find a little bit of dirt with some grass attached with this type of feeder work with fermented feed, it seems like they would get their heads stuck. But maybe I'm just being a worry wart

I fed FF to our hatched chicks last year out of this type of feeder as well as the round feeder that Lazy Gardner mentioned. Had no issues what so ever. I started with putting piles of ferment on Tupperware lids in the bottom of the brooder. Then after a couple of days of that and then I switched to a feeder to cut down on the mess. Didn't have any issues with heads getting stuck.

 

[Leigti]

Thanks for the advice. I think I will start with a plastic plant saucer, then probably advance to the plastic chick feeder. I also use dog bowl type bowls for the bigger chickens.

 

[RoseMarie1]

I start mine out with a thin lid with some ff in it and then a plastic mayo lid and then graduate to a paper plate which they will tear up big time if it's not gotten out soon. lol The chicks seem to like pecking at pieces so I just try to sprinkle it around in a paper plate until they get the taste of it and learn to eat.

 

[All Ball]

Beekissed, thanks so much for this suggestion! I have been testing the birds by keeping one of the bowls in the coop - they have historically preferred to have food dishes outside and will act as if there is no food if it is in the coop, so I am trying to get them used to it.

My mini-coop is so small that I would not have room for a box, but I could take your suggestion and leave a couple bowls in the coop, provided that my bully doesn't stand at the door and block it. I'll see what happens - and coincidentally the quantity of sparrow poop has diminished quite a bit, for some reason, in the bowls outside, although they are still eating.