Fermented Feeds

[kpgoldstar]

Great thanks for the help. It smelled like sourdough real early this morning and now it's ripe like its pickled. I fed some and they went nuts so I guess it's a hit.

You have the perfect smell. Mine always has an odor between sourdough bread and pickles. How large of a batch did you make? How many chickens are you feeding? How dry is your feed now? Are you planning to feed out several days from this ferment and refresh after that?

 

[rottnwarrior]

I made a gallon jug for now. I'm feeding 16 black jersey giants. Not sure what you mean how dry is it. It's pellet feed and some cracked corn so it's pretty much mush. I was thinking I could probably just keep adding feed and water to this as needed and just keep it going like sourdough starter, but since I've never done it before I'll just see how that works out for me. I put 4 or 5 cups of it out thinking it would be gone in ten minutes. I think they ate just over half of it and didn't even bother with the dry food. They can burn through 1 1/2 gallons of food scraps in no time and a couple cups of this held them all day. I'm surprised.

 

[kpgoldstar]

I made a gallon jug for now. I'm feeding 16 black jersey giants. Not sure what you mean how dry is it. It's pellet feed and some cracked corn so it's pretty much mush. I was thinking I could probably just keep adding feed and water to this as needed and just keep it going like sourdough starter, but since I've never done it before I'll just see how that works out for me. I put 4 or 5 cups of it out thinking it would be gone in ten minutes. I think they ate just over half of it and didn't even bother with the dry food. They can burn through 1 1/2 gallons of food scraps in no time and a couple cups of this held them all day. I'm surprised.

Some people keep an inch or so of water over the top, some just mix to a grout consistency. I was just wondering your batch. I don't use mine quite like sourdough starter. I make enough ff to feed out for about 4-5 days so I never have to bother with adding in daily. Mine starts fairly dry but as I feed out the bucket more of the water stays in there which is fine since it is innoculated and I can just add another 4 cups or so each of feed and water when it gets down to about 2 cups and by the next 12 hours when I am ready to feed it is fully fermented again.

 

[rottnwarrior]

Oh gotcha, well I filled the gallon pickle jar about a third full of feed and added water figuring I'd have a few inches of water covering it. Funny thing about that there feed... Lol. Filled that jug right up quick like. Soaked it up like a sponge. So it was like grout. I didn't add more feed today. Just a little water so now it is covered. Your way sounds like it's probably less hassle. I might try that out.

 

[pdirt]

Some people keep an inch or so of water over the top, some just mix to a grout consistency. I was just wondering your batch. I don't use mine quite like sourdough starter. I make enough ff to feed out for about 4-5 days so I never have to bother with adding in daily. Mine starts fairly dry but as I feed out the bucket more of the water stays in there which is fine since it is innoculated and I can just add another 4 cups or so each of feed and water when it gets down to about 2 cups and by the next 12 hours when I am ready to feed it is fully fermented again.

I also don't make a continuous batch like you would with sourdough starter. I know lots of people do it this way, but it doesn't seem like a good idea to me. If you've ever made sourdough starter you know that after some time, you end up with a thick layer of alcohol (the "hooch") on top. Yeasts produce alcohol and yeasts require air. Yeasts help produce the nice bubbles that make bread airy and you have to stir a sourdough starter daily to increase the yeast activity. So stirring FF regularly also doesn't make sense to me as I think it would likely produce more alcohol, especially if the feed was ground finer, like mash. But the LABs (probiotic lactic acid bacteria) don't need oxygen to grow and ferment the feed. So, if you're not using some sort of probiotic starter (such as salt-free sauerkraut juice) and/or doing something to keep the oxygen out (either with a layer of water above the feed or burping a tight fitting plastic lid on a plastic bucket), I think it'd be better to simply make single batches and start over with a tiny bit of the liquid (provided the liquid smells pickled and not alcoholic). Just my two cents.

 

[rottnwarrior]

I left the trays out yesterday and the stuff they didn't eat froze. When I let them out this morning they shot straight to the trays and beat them up trying to get the ff. they didn't seem to touch the whole bin of dry feed in the coop. Guess that means they like it haha. I've got plenty of gallon jars so I suppose it won't hurt me to experiment. I'll keep adding to one jar and I'll make two more that I'll just feed from one for a week while the other ferments and keep alternating and starting fresh and see what happens.

 

[rottnwarrior]

Turns out they did eat the frozen ff. even before the fresh table scraps and whole bin of dry food.

 

[Brada Puhi]

I also don't make a continuous batch like you would with sourdough starter. I know lots of people do it this way, but it doesn't seem like a good idea to me. If you've ever made sourdough starter you know that after some time, you end up with a thick layer of alcohol (the "hooch") on top. Yeasts produce alcohol and yeasts require air. Yeasts help produce the nice bubbles that make bread airy and you have to stir a sourdough starter daily to increase the yeast activity. So stirring FF regularly also doesn't make sense to me as I think it would likely produce more alcohol, especially if the feed was ground finer, like mash. But the LABs (probiotic lactic acid bacteria) don't need oxygen to grow and ferment the feed. So, if you're not using some sort of probiotic starter (such as salt-free sauerkraut juice) and/or doing something to keep the oxygen out (either with a layer of water above the feed or burping a tight fitting plastic lid on a plastic bucket), I think it'd be better to simply make single batches and start over with a tiny bit of the liquid (provided the liquid smells pickled and not alcoholic). Just my two cents.

Aloha, This is definitely food for thought. I think more studies need to be done on this.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19373724/

Did you guys see this one. One interesting part is that they started the pullets on FF at week 16. At week 37 or whatever, the FF started outperforming the dry feed by a lot. So the study was too short on both ends. The chicks should start on FF right away.

But the different methods that we use, producing varying amounts and types of "mother" needs to be studied. Guarantee we all grow yeast, but some more than others. Studies would help us refine our techniques to produce the optimum amount of LABs and get the most nutrition out of our grain.

Kden, Puhi

 

[pdirt]

Aloha, This is definitely food for thought. I think more studies need to be done on this.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/19373724/

Did you guys see this one. One interesting part is that they started the pullets on FF at week 16. At week 37 or whatever, the FF started outperforming the dry feed by a lot. So the study was too short on both ends. The chicks should start on FF right away.

But the different methods that we use, producing varying amounts and types of "mother" needs to be studied. Guarantee we all grow yeast, but some more than others. Studies would help us refine our techniques to produce the optimum amount of LABs and get the most nutrition out of our grain.

Kden, Puhi

Aloha, Puhi. From what I can tell on that abstract is they switched the birds suddenly to 100% fermented feed. What a shock that must've been for the birds!

If you've not heard of EM (effective microorganisms), you might find this interesting. EM is a starter culture containing lactic acid bacteria, yeasts and purple non sulfur bacteria. I've been using myself for a couple years and pretty early on since we first got chickens this spring. I have no way of testing the results, but we do have less odor and the birds seem to like the stuff.

Here's the full text of a study done in Thailand using EM in water and to ferment feed for ducks and broilers:

http://www.infrc.or.jp/english/KNF_Data_Base_Web/PDF KNF Conf Data/C5-5-177.pdf

And another done in China on reducing odors from chicken poop using EM:

http://www.emro-asia.com/data/106.pdf

 

[Brada Puhi]

Aloha,

I have heard of EM. I always wanted to get some but it costs $35, and Iʻm a cheap bugger. But that might be a better starter culture for our FF. Better than apple cider vinegar anyways.

The role of yeasts is still unclear to me. I know that too much yeast causes all kinds of problems. Just like bacteria, there must be good yeast and bad yeast. I need to do more research in that area. Or actually, the researchers need to do more research on that. Not just for chickens but for humans!

But I have only heard good stuff about EM. So I think Iʻll take your advice and burn the $35 and start a new batch.

What do you guys think?

Take care, Puhi