Fermenting feed for layers?

[gjensen]

Thank you Bee, for taking the time to put that together. I will review the links.

I am going to try it. I will track it somehow, and probably use a control and play with it.

I will wait until I break the breeding pens up. You know how radical change is.

Labor was a concern for me before, but I have more time now. It will be interesting to try. I will share the results with you.

Concerning gut health and medicine. In practice, we have lost some of our good sense. It is all built around the drug companies. That has been my experience anyways. Research has a new interest in the gut and it's connection to a variety of things. Our body's are an amazing creation. It is as complicated and diverse as the earth itself. We know very little.

 

[Beekissed]

The numbers. Overall Mortality was 35% and now is at 20%. That is for chicks hatched from day one two six weeks.
The TWO most remarkable improvements are

1-> With sticky bum, that was a major problem and now maybe 1 in a 100 chicks require a cleaning. (Cleaning = the gentle removal of waste unclogging the cloaca) The previous number 20 in every 100 chicks required cleaning.
2-> I had a serious problem raising ( fancy bantams )Phoenix and Wyandotte bantam chicks. In 2012 I only raised 4 phoenix chicks from a 60 chicks I hatched. I could not figure out why they were dying,( they showed no signs of disease) now with the fermented feed I raised 50% of the chicks I hatch. Still not great but much better. In fact for the first time ever I have Polish, Phoenix and Wyandotte chicks that actually grow-up.

I think I should add what do I ferment. I buy boiler starter ( 18% protein ) and then mix it with crushed corn. The ratio is one scoop crushed corn to 4 scoops boiler starter. There is no Layer starter available in my area. Nor is their any untreated( non-medicated) feed available. I live in a very remote area. I made my own mother using crushed apples and water and patience. I tried to find the fancy vinegar this thread suggested, but that was simply not possible. I ferment my feed for at least 3 days before feeding it and use all of the fermented feed before 7days has past since the beginning of fermentation.

Then lastly I think I should add the even though my chickens after 6 weeks eat normal chicken feed the mortality number in chickens from 6weeks to 12weeks is also lower than it was before I started with the fermented feed. The mortality dropped from about 5% to 2.5%. This drop however could be due to the improvements I made to housing. With the day-old chicks to six week old chicks I changed nothing about their set-up other than their food and the containers I feed them in.

Hope that helps.

It does help! I add all these types of feedback to a growing list in my head and then note if and when other similar feedback rolls in and compare. If I get more than three people reporting the same results after feeding FF, I'll go ahead and mention it on the thread and ask for others who maybe having similar results. I'll also note it on the growing list of "results" I have when people ask about the benefits of feeding FF.

Thank you Bee, for taking the time to put that together. I will review the links.

I am going to try it. I will track it somehow, and probably use a control and play with it.

I will wait until I break the breeding pens up. You know how radical change is.

Labor was a concern for me before, but I have more time now. It will be interesting to try. I will share the results with you.

Concerning gut health and medicine. In practice, we have lost some of our good sense. It is all built around the drug companies. That has been my experience anyways. Research has a new interest in the gut and it's connection to a variety of things. Our body's are an amazing creation. It is as complicated and diverse as the earth itself. We know very little.

I agree. And, it seems, the more science learns about the human body, the more they find ways to mess it up. It sure would be nice to hear about your experiment as you go along. Some are doing minor experiments on FF vs. dry feeds with meat birds and those have been mixed reviews.

 

[ben harpo]

How do you dish out fermented feed?

 

[Beekissed]

Same way I do dry feed...with a scoop!

 

[Cooper Farms]

I just feed ferm feed to my layers this morning for the first time ey where hesitant at first but then ate it like they where starving although there was dry feed in there. We will se in couple weeks what the diff it makes

 

[Beekissed]

You might want to remove the dry feed so that you can truly gauge the effect of the FF.

 

[pegm]

It now has been about 3 months on fermented feed for my girls with about 2 weeks off for vacation (ours, not theirs), and while they eat it, they absolutely show no enthusiasm for it like so many report here from their birds. It stumps me, they look at it and one may peck at if for a few seconds, then they all walk away and try just about anything else. They eventually do eat it during the course of the day, and aside from less than a quarter cup of scratch (no free range here sadly) and kale or weeds that I pull, that's pretty much what they get in a day, unless I have scraps, which is not too often. They get a good spoonful each (probably near a half cup either way). they just don't jump in and gobble it down as so many report here. I know they are hungry in the morning as they have had nothing since they finished their ff the day before. Plus, now that they are back on ff after vacation, I'm getting runny poops again, which I always had before with the ff. I don't know why my girls are so different from most of the others. Will keep feeding it as I really want them to have the benefit of ff, but I just don't have the same results as many here.

 

[lazy gardener]

pegm: I have a thought regarding your feed situation. I had a bag of layer feed that my girls absolutely hated. I tried feeding it dry, I tried fermenting it. They just wouldn't eat it. It smelled and looked fine. I took it back to the store, and replaced it with a higher protein feed, and they immediately started chowing again. How long have you had your current bag of feed? Perhaps there's something about that that they don't like. I've determined that I won't buy layer feed again, but will give them grower, and supplement with free choice calcium.

 

[Cooper Farms]

pegm: I have a thought regarding your feed situation. I had a bag of layer feed that my girls absolutely hated. I tried feeding it dry, I tried fermenting it. They just wouldn't eat it. It smelled and looked fine. I took it back to the store, and replaced it with a higher protein feed, and they immediately started chowing again. How long have you had your current bag of feed? Perhaps there's something about that that they don't like. I've determined that I won't buy layer feed again, but will give them grower, and supplement with free choice calcium.

u r right I have found that myself I got some what I would call CHEEP feed it was only like $11 brought it home and they didn't want anything to do with it later a buddy came over and I told him about it and come to find out it was over a year old.

 

[pegm]

I feed Purina Layena Sun Fresh Natural and am on my third bag. 2 of which at least part were fermented. They gobble it up dry, but since fermenting, they just wait and wait until finally they eat some. I mix rolled barley, BOSS and some scratch in with it. I just don't know, and runny poop again this am that I had to wash off the coop door. Runny poop is sometimes very dark, and sometimes very light. I noticed when they were back on the dry crumbles while on vacation, they ate a LOT, so I am saving feed with the fermented feed, but they certainly don't seem to like it much. Also, I realize this is not a scientific observation, but when I had them back on crumbles for the 2 weeks, in a seven day period 5 days they all laid. Then again the next week 2 or 3 days they all laid. Now that they are back on ff that hasn't happened again. Yet. We shall see once their systems get totally re-acclimated with the ff. Looking over my records, that only happened 5 times in a 25 day period before I took them off ff. I realize laying will be picking up as the days lenghten, so this may just be a coincidence.