Well alrighty! I can now say that I've read all 8056 posts in this thread.
It took 5 days of reading between chores and whatnot, and several nights of staying up way too late. There's a ton of great information scattered throughout, but I have to say that just before midway through the thread it really got interesting. Soooo much sciency stuff and technical 'discussions'. It was great.
If I'm honest, I have to admit to being a little bummed that many of the OT's have moved on. I would have loved to pick a few of those brains.
For those that haven't read the entire thread, I
highly recommend that you do. It is a fascinating topic and I really think that the thread 'pioneers' really deserve that bit of effort from us, considering how much time, effort, and research they put into this thing. And an extra bonus to reading all of it: you'll find the answers to your questions. They're there. Promise. I was keeping a list of questions as I read along and ended up crossing each of them off the list long before I reached the end of the thread. An extra added bonus: you'll be able to separate the hogwash from the nuggets of truth easily because you will have the benefit of all the work in sorting it out done for you. Gotta love that.
Also...
props to Tikki for that faq. I found it prior to finding this thread and felt like I was ahead of the game once I started reading here. It was kind of weird reading about the idea of the faq long after actually reading the faq. haha.
Now, stepping off of my soapbox...
If anyone is interested in how I'm integrating FF: I started up a batch a few days back. Just layer pellets (Coyote Creek brand) and water. Nothing more. It fermented up nicely in my barn, uncovered and slightly soupy for the first day or two and gradually thickened to an oatmeal consistency by day 3. I purposely made a small-ish batch for the first round. By day 4, I backslopped and added feed and a bit of water. I only eyeball measured the feed and water. Stirred it with a stick. (I'm far from fancy in this endeavor.) I used a small Sterlite bin that I had laying around from my BSF bin projects. I'll likely move the batch to larger bins that I can stack on a dedicated wheelie cart for ease of moving around in the event the barn becomes too hot.
I fed some to my entire flock of 100+, which includes ages from 1 week to about 4-5 years, including roo's. No one balked at it. Everyone dug in just fine and ate every bit I offered. I fed it both right on the ground and in feeders, heck, I even chunked some on the base of a tree and they ate that too. I briefly entertained the thought of hiding dollops of it around the farm...in the wood pile, on fence posts, half under rocks, etc just for my own amusement in watching them find it, but practicality won over and I didn't have time to be playing hide n seek with the chickens today. I did cobble together one of Bee's lovely 'V' trough feeders and tried that out with some FF too. She always said they "lick it clean" and I doubted she was being serious, but within a half hour, that trough was licked clean.
So, if you're still reading this thread- thanks for posting pics of the trough, Bee. I love its simplicity. I'm actually looking forward to it gaining that well-used farm patina. Simple old tools are quite charming, IMO.
I don't know yet if I'll feed FF solely or not. In a recent conversation, the water soluble vitamin issue came up and it's been nagging at me since. It's likely that I'll discontinue dry feed, but I do plan to add BSF to the menu provided the research pans out as I hope it will. AND provided the BSF is not added work on my part. Being a permie, it's important that each system on my farm perform multiple functions that decrease rather than increase my workload while also increasing yield. This is true for BSF on up to chickens and rainwater systems and even the structures (i.e. barn) themselves.
I'm still working out what daily ration amounts should be for my flock and whether I should move to a different base feed for FF or stick with the layer pellets I am currently using. I'm ramping up for a new breeding program and still sorting out all the details. I don't really have any questions to ask at this time, but I'll be watching the thread for any new developments.
