Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Beekissed]

I do, I do!!!! They started something They couldn't finish, and since you don't have a television they couldn't watch the weather channel, so they weren't able to plan ahead

Maybe the nest box was the warmest place in the coop, so they decided to camp out there and so laid an egg to justify hogging the nest. One of the pullet eggs were badly broken but not eaten..just a little bit frozen. I fed it to the flock. Incentive pay, ya know....

 

[perchie.girl]

Maybe the Pullets needed someone to show them how.... just curious no one has been laying right? Maybe you need some falsies in there.

just a thought

deb

 

[Beekissed]

Maybe the Pullets needed someone to show them how.... just curious no one has been laying right? Maybe you need some falsies in there.

just a thought

deb

Yeah, I had a 6 yr old hen laying for some months now and when I added light to the coop for an experiment, she stopped laying for a few days.....the others were on lock down in the coop with her when she was laying, so they had the idea and they had the "falsie" in the nest each day they were locked up. That didn't impress them much...even when I saved up a few days of her daily offering and placed them in both nests. Then, in the past few days she hadn't laid and I figured it was just too darn cold for a senior citizen to be laying...then on the coldest day yet, she made a deposit and two of the youngsters did too.

I unplugged that light and put on the heat lamp last night, but I doubt it was the deciding factor as it did little to heat the coop and it didn't provide any more or less light than my experimental light.

I think they just love making a fool out of me....

 

[LindaB220]

You want to hear a funny? I got three eggs today.;..one from my old layer and two pullet eggs.

Two of these slackers decided to come into lay on the the coldest day we've had all winter and my old gal had skipped three days before laying this one!

It was 10 below in that coop this morning and that's with a heat lamp going all night and it never got higher than 9 degrees today with a windchill of subzero temps.

Go figure. I have no explanation for it all.

 

[Lacy Blues]

You want to hear a funny? I got three eggs today.;..one from my old layer and two pullet eggs.

Two of these slackers decided to come into lay on the the coldest day we've had all winter and my old gal had skipped three days before laying this one!

It was 10 below in that coop this morning and that's with a heat lamp going all night and it never got higher than 9 degrees today with a windchill of subzero temps.

Go figure. I have no explanation for it all.

You know how pregnant mares have their foals when a storm is coming or upon them... right? It seems that if they're close to the time to deliver, maybe its the barometric pressure or something that just pushes them over the edge? Women give birth to babies before/during big storms too don't they?

 

[LindaB220]

Bee, got a question. All along I've heard that FF keeps the chickens from pooping as much as before. On Mother Earth News an article stated that one bird will deposit 8-11 lbs manure a month. How much less does you think FF keeps it down. 4 lbs, 6 lbs? Or am I totally missing the point?

 

[Beekissed]

Could be!

It took a pretty severe weather system to get them to lay....wonder what it will take to KEEP them laying?

 

[Beekissed]

Bee, got a question. All along I've heard that FF keeps the chickens from pooping as much as before. On Mother Earth News an article stated that one bird will deposit 8-11 lbs manure a month. How much less does you think FF keeps it down. 4 lbs, 6 lbs? Or am I totally missing the point?

I don't know that they poop less on FF, they just poop less undigested matter. I see the same amounts of poop, though the poop seems to have more fine particles and breaks up rather easily in your hand whereas regular poop from dry feeds seems more sticky and gooey. In the studies it states they have less "dry matter" in the feces but I think they mean undigested grains because I see the same amounts of poop from my birds.

It also seems to break down in the bedding like magic...I can turn the bedding over on top of some poop under the roosts and then try to find it the next day and it seems to have disappeared. I think the bugs just come and zip it out of there or it just crumbles up into a soil consistency because it just is gone.

 

[BCMaraniac]

You know how pregnant mares have their foals when a storm is coming or upon them... right? It seems that if they're close to the time to deliver, maybe its the barometric pressure or something that just pushes them over the edge? Women give birth to babies before/during big storms too don't they?

Full moons, actually......LOL......always more babies on full moons

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Hey ChocolateMouse... was that first liver hard or mushy?

So that is hard to answer because in general livers aren't hard. I think of gizzards as hard, livers are the softest organ. Having said that, the liver felt totally normal compared to all the other healthy livers I have handled from rabbits, chickens, and even a young locally farmed pig. You could squeeze it lightly or slice it with a decent knife and it would not crumble or mush. On the other hand, the yellow liver disintegrated into several peices as I removed it from the body cavity. It seemed to come apart just from rubbing it lightly. I am not sure how an animal can live with that inside of its body, something so fragile it would crumble if the gizzard ever knocked into it a little rough. It is a mystery to me!

Bee, the chicken soup was great! Lots of flavor!