FERMENTED FEEDS...anyone using them?

[paneubert]

Hi all, I haven't been on this thread for awhile. I usually do FF here and there during the summer months (too difficult during WI cold winters) they all love it and act like its a major treat. ANyhow I have eggs in the incubator, and I am wondering how young you start them on FF? Since this isn't what they will have as their main source when they are older, I want to use it mostly as a supplement (good gut flora etc).

No reason to wait. Day 1.

 

[crawford-3546]

^x2...that's their first meal

 

[Jensownzoo]

Yup, the earlier you establish that beneficial gut flora, the better they will be able to fight off the bad things.

 

[paneubert]

Yup, the earlier you establish that beneficial gut flora, the better they will be able to fight off the bad things.

And the earlier you start them on it, the more likely they are to eat it with no complaints. They have eaten nothing else, so they don't know to be picky. Not like the day old chicks will demand crumbles or something.

 

[saraem]

Do you all just feed this in an open trough type feeder? I have been putting in a small dish but my RIR loves to scratch and will try to walk all in it to scratch around.

 

[Molpet]

Do you all just feed this in an open trough type feeder? I have been putting in a small dish but my RIR loves to scratch and will try to walk all in it to scratch around.

I have several 3-5' rain gutters w/- end caps mounted on 2x2 and/or 2x4. The runs iare sloped so the rain runs out the open ends

 

[ashleymroles]

Do you all just feed this in an open trough type feeder? I have been putting in a small dish but my RIR loves to scratch and will try to walk all in it to scratch around.

I got a big black rubber bowl at the farm supply store. It's the perfect size for my 7 chickens and tall enough that even if they're standing in it, they can't scratch it out.

 

[ChickNanny13]

Learned about FF awhile back when towards the end of my Quad Flock, they did love it. End of last Oct I got 2 RIR & 2EE chicks, put them on FF (medicated), that 50# bag lasted until Feb this year, then switched to Multi Purpose. LOVE the benefits of less poop, less stinky & firmer too....Less water needed...no feed loss....of course the nutritional value. Fill their feeder 3x day (7am, 11am, 3pm) until they were about 5 months then cut back to 2x (7am & 3pm) but little bigger scoops. I let them out in the afternoons in my backyard (fenced) which they dug up I wasn't expecting them to start laying until end of April but got surprised mid March with an egg from an EE! In a few days one of the RIR laid and by the end of that week ALL were laying an egg a day! Yikes, it's just me & Hubby and I had more eggs than we could eat so the family started getting fresh eggs too!

Got nothing bad to say about FF, the feeder was an issue in the beginning. I used that chick feeder (round one) but sealed of the center hole with a mayonnaise lid. Then graduated to the trough type, removed the top when they got older but had Hubby raise it with 2x4. The last change was a plastic dog food tray, fortunately they haven't tried scratching in it so that's the latest. Any other ideas?

 

[Beekissed]

If you'll look at the gallery of pics for this post you'll fine quite a few homemade trough style feeders for FF that work very well and won't cost much to make, very easy to build. I use simple V shaped wooden troughs that take mere minutes to construct and work very well.



The trough below was made from an old wooden miter box of my Dad's...worked great.



The little one is a V trough for chicks...



This is a large one I'm currently using...the bar across the top is for easy moving and to keep the adult birds from standing in the trough and hogging the feed.





This PVC trough below is not mine but one of the designs of one of the members here and I think it's rather clever....many folks doing PVC for the FF and loving it.

 

[Leigti]

Here is a very low-tech trough. I got the idea here.