Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Taniamax]

With you having a feed mill close, you are in a great position to get some good grain mixes that are fresh. I'll tell you something I've found out, though...for the past few years none of my chickens really want to clean up cracked corn. Use to be they would gobble it first thing but something has changed...I'm thinking it is the GMO and I have read studies done that indicate that animals just don't prefer it and even some wild animals will leave it and not eat it at all. Whatever the change, it makes the cheapest grain also the less preferable to the chickens...and I had forgotten that fact.

Even these meaties, who will eat anything that moves and most things that don't, will leave the corn and some of the wheat in the bottom of the feeder. When next I make a grain purchase, I'm sticking with barley as the biggest percentage and then adding some oats, then maybe will add some layer mash to fill it out.

I have not read this entire thread yet, still working my way through it. But, when I came across this tidbit, I had to stop reading and write. What you are describing with your chickens, is what other farmers and ranchers have been noticing. Why aren't we up in arms about this? Why are we even giving this stuff to our animals? I wonder if any of you have been reading some of the research coming out about animals fed GMO's? It is pretty clear that this stuff is seriously flawed. Personally, I am afraid to eat it and rarely even eat meat unless it is organic because I don't want to eat from animals fed GMO feed. I've attached a link to a recent peer reviewed study from the University of Caen about rats dying premature deaths with huge tumors when fed GMO corn: http://www.naturalnews.com/037249_GMO_study_cancer_tumors_organ_damage.html
There are other similar studies that I've read about GMO soy. All the studies I've read are frightening: early death, reduced fertility in future generations, tumors, cancer, and so on. I am not even mentioning the impacts on insects. This is serious stuff. We should not allow anyone to mess with our food supply, and yet, we have.

 

[normanack]

That study was seriously flawed. Note I'm not saying its conclusions are necessarily wrong, just that it was not a well-done study.


http://boingboing.net/2012/09/21/of-gm-corn-and-rat-tumors-why.html

http://boingboing.net/2012/09/21/authors-of-study-linking-gm-co.html

 

[Taniamax]

Here's another article about the GMO feeds in the Daily Mail from the UK.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet.../home/search.html?s=&authornamef=Sean+Poulter


And some good quotes from folks in the know about the subject:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/sciquotes.htm

 

[Taniamax]

That study was seriously flawed. Note I'm not saying its conclusions are necessarily wrong, just that it was not a well-done study.
http://boingboing.net/2012/09/21/of-gm-corn-and-rat-tumors-why.html
http://boingboing.net/2012/09/21/authors-of-study-linking-gm-co.html

This is not the only study on the subject. It adds to the growing evidence that GMO's are not safe. Is it a risk worth taking? Do we want our children and our grandchildren to be the guinea pigs? If there is any doubt, why mess with nature?

 

[Beekissed]

I have not read this entire thread yet, still working my way through it. But, when I came across this tidbit, I had to stop reading and write. What you are describing with your chickens, is what other farmers and ranchers have been noticing. Why aren't we up in arms about this? Why are we even giving this stuff to our animals? I wonder if any of you have been reading some of the research coming out about animals fed GMO's? It is pretty clear that this stuff is seriously flawed. Personally, I am afraid to eat it and rarely even eat meat unless it is organic because I don't want to eat from animals fed GMO feed. I've attached a link to a recent peer reviewed study from the University of Caen about rats dying premature deaths with huge tumors when fed GMO corn: http://www.naturalnews.com/037249_GMO_study_cancer_tumors_organ_damage.html
There are other similar studies that I've read about GMO soy. All the studies I've read are frightening: early death, reduced fertility in future generations, tumors, cancer, and so on. I am not even mentioning the impacts on insects. This is serious stuff. We should not allow anyone to mess with our food supply, and yet, we have.

I agree...and many have tried to fight the Monsantan monster but it is all about money and that most always wins in this world today. We live in a society that doesn't WANT to know the source of their foods and, until that changes..and it isn't going to, this will be what we get. For now, this is life as we know it and the opportunities to eat anything pure and good are pretty slim, no matter how we try. Even the wild game is being tainted.

I don't stress over this as I have faith in something greater than all this filth and evil in the world, so I live a life with peace for my future and faith that everything comes out right in the end. I'm working towards a bird flock that subsists almost entirely on forage unless until winter months but even the forage is tainted by the chemtrails they are spreading, the soils are contaminated...everything is slowly being poisoned..especially us.

 

[bruceh]

i remember as a kid living on the jersey shore and seeing fields upon fields of sweet silver queen corn. we would be able to go right to stalk and grab one, flick out the worm and eat it.. how sweet it was.

today the corn is tasteless. i miss those days. try to find pure strain silver queen today. i don't each much corn anymore. just can't get the same taste.

i do grow a garden. nothing better than a home grown chicken with the daily pick of vegies from the garden. it is a combination of pride and the flavor that makes meal the best.

 

[Beekissed]

My recuperating layer flock got their first good dose of fermented feed this morning and they licked their plates clean. It definitely seems to have put a pep in their step already...more active today and moving well, foraging well and singing like they should.

 

[Miss Lydia]

My recuperating layer flock got their first good dose of fermented feed this morning and they licked their plates clean. It definitely seems to have put a pep in their step already...more active today and moving well, foraging well and singing like they should.

 

[normanack]

This is not the only study on the subject. It adds to the growing evidence that GMO's are not safe. Is it a risk worth taking? Do we want our children and our grandchildren to be the guinea pigs? If there is any doubt, why mess with nature?

I agree with you. But to play devil's advocate, with climate change and world population growth threatening the planet, we simply cannot sustain current agricultural practices without even more widespread deprivation. I don't think Monsanto et. al. are pursuing the right answer. But I do think we need to think about alternatives, even if they aren't the kettle of fish we prefer.

I think Monsanto is a heartless corporation that puts profits first. I think the genetic modifications they are making are tainted by that. But perhaps it is possible to pursue the research and find safer ways to provide food for the world.

 

[griffinkid02]

i remember as a kid living on the jersey shore and seeing fields upon fields of sweet silver queen corn. we would be able to go right to stalk and grab one, flick out the worm and eat it.. how sweet it was.

today the corn is tasteless. i miss those days. try to find pure strain silver queen today. i don't each much corn anymore. just can't get the same taste.

i do grow a garden. nothing better than a home grown chicken with the daily pick of vegies from the garden. it is a combination of pride and the flavor that makes meal the best.

Bruech, You might be interested in checking around the Heritege Gardening threads on this site. There are people, and a growing number, who are participating in a swap and trade style of farming using seeds collected from the surplus of the previous years planting. Some of the smaller agribusiness Co-ops also work in this. The seeds used are Heritage seeds, which means they are are the strains that were planted 50+ years ago, kept pure (or as pure as possible when you consider cross polination capabilites of some pants) by the fact that the people using them just save seed from last year to plant this year, and don't bother to purchase the genetically modified stuff sold today. It's a bit of work to make the contacts and get started, but from what I've seen from the threads I read where people mention it, it's a very open community, with people actively interested in spreading the movement. I wish I could offere you a ink to such a thread myself, but i don't raise a garden since I don't have the land for it, and thus don't follow those threads myself. But, if you'd be interested in lookingi tno, I think it would be worth your time