Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[RachaelS]

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Sooooo freaking cool! I think I can do that. Yep, I was doing it WAY wrong. Thank you for sharing.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

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Demos, If only that were the case! However, the "free" dirt is of course always fill dirt, which around here translates into "non-draining clay that will continue to flood my lawn" and pickup only. Same with manure. And not only do I not own a truck, I don't even own or drive a normal car. 9_9; We just don't "need" it! We live within a few block's walking distance of just about everything, even a farmers market! And if we're not within walking distance the two biggest bus routes on the whole east side of Cleveland run within 5 minutes of our house. Municipal wood chips, topsoil, fill and leaf litter often has a waiting list if they deliver it at all. It's cheaper to just buy the woodchips and age them down. There's more manual labor and time involved versus going out and getting manure loaded into a truck for free, but the other option is go from NO car and gasoline bills to lots of them for a car capable of hauling. No thank you! I will just pay my $20-$50 to have it delivered to my doorstep!

 

[Beekissed]

Hey Bee!

Here is a photo comparing the first and second egg from one of my new Marans pullets. Her first egg is on the left from yesterday, and her second one from today on the right!! They weigh 47 and 81 grams respectively....small and jumbo plus!

I bet that second one is a double yolker.




I am sure she will get the hang of it as her body gets hormonally balanced. The size contrast is pretty impressive, though.

NICE! I love the shine and speckle on those.

That happened for one of my new BA pullets the other day....big ol' double yolker honker with both yolks bigger than the single yolks I had been getting. I've seen that happen many times over the years where you'll get a small, almost perfectly round egg and then the next one will be a perfect, oval, large specimen and you breathe a sigh of relief that they really will have decent sized eggs. It's always a toss up who will even out and be your best, consistently large egg layer.

This is a small/medium pullet egg next to another pullet's egg, not the same bird's eggs.

Are you sure these are from the same pullet? In my experience, (only about 9-10 years of paying attention) when a pullet starts to lay, she doesn't lay every day but she would skip a day or two before she gets into the swing of things. This large egg couldn't be from an older, more developed hen?

I've had it both ways, Lacy. Some sputter when they start up and some start like a racehorse after their first pullet egg they are set to go...and they will put those in the nest for years like that. My WRs were that way.

I know of people that work in a slaughter house and don't know how to cut up a chicken.

That's so hard for me to get my mind around....how can anyone look at a chicken and not see the natural areas you'd use to take it apart? How could they live that long and not have seen their own mothers take a chicken apart? Back in the day they were not cut up for everyone...they were always sold whole.

 

[Beekissed]

Starting to gather up my eggs for incubating some of my RIR's. I can't WAIT to see how well they do since I have been doing ff for so long now. AND can't wait to see if they have pasty butt etc. and they will ALSO be on ff. right off the bat. Thinking about sticking more in the bator to hatch out to sell since I dearly love messing with them. ;-) I guess I will HAVE to get NPIP to be able to sell to anyone around here since so many people are NPIP'd. lol

I bought them a flock block and they weren't eating much of their food and some got a diarrhea so I took it away from them and only going to let em have it once a week so they will have to eat their ff. They sure do love that flock block! Since they were having to stay shut up so much in that snow and ice they would have something to do by pecking at the block. But when this happened I said oh noooo you guys gotta eat your ff.

Hey, Rose...wanna do a hatch together? When are you going to start? We can keep track of them over on The Front Porch thread so we can get some good content there. I've got to do a practice hatch with a DIY incubator before I get good eggs to set in March, so it will all be new for me.

 

[RachaelS]

That's so hard for me to get my mind around....how can anyone look at a chicken and not see the natural areas you'd use to take it apart? How could they live that long and not have seen their own mothers take a chicken apart? Back in the day they were not cut up for everyone...they were always sold whole.

This my show my age, but I was raised on hamburger helper, a can of veggies and a can of fruit. Sunday's, we would get real food, like roast or steak with a salad, but all the other days was frozen/processed/pre-packaged foods. My mom grew up poor on a farm, so I think she went the "other" way when raising us kids. All my "cooking" skills I learned once I was out on my own and could not afford all that "fake" food. Here is technique I just posted on another thread:

"Does anyone else cook their pork ribs in the oven? I bought a bunch when they were on sale at HEB, got home and realized I did not have an coals, so I read the instructions on the packet and did it in the oven, OMG, they are GREAT! Super juicy every time! Nothing beats on the pit, but this is a very close second and works great in the winter. Heats up your house with the stove and good food.

For anyone interested here it is:

Heat oven to 300
Rub the ribs with your normal seasonings
Cook meaty side up for 30 mins, flip
Cook bone side up for 25 mins
Pull out and put your sauce on
Flip to meaty side up again for 20 mins
Pull out and let rest for 5 mins

So far this has worked perfectly for 4 different sets, never over cooked or under cooked. The sauce normally gets nice and caramelized, if you want it more crisp I would put it at a high broil for the last few mins. Enjoy, just had this for dinner and thought I would share."

 

[Beekissed]

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I can understand that. I guess I never really thought about all the people raised on boxed or frozen food. Back in my day, that food was more expensive than the other kind, though that has changed now. We were raised on beans, bologna, rice, chicken and very rarely any beef in the form of hamburger~and that was made to stretch by using it as meatloaf....and then we moved to a large piece of property and started to homestead, so deer was our staple meat with home grown chicken coming in a close second.

It wasn't until I was out on my own after high school that I found boxed foods and this was a large staple of my diet....my sister and I lived a mac and cheese life back then. You could get 10 boxes of mac and cheese for a dollar.

 

[trapperred]

I ferment milk (kefir) and use it as the methoinine supplier in a sprout-soy diet for chicks. I'm finding the chicks grow faster and feather earlier than on a commercial diet, but boy is it fiddly.

Botulism has to be there in the first place in order to cause trouble. I gather the danger is because it (like the fermentation bugs) is anaerobic (i.e. grows without oxygen) and a silage pit is ideal for this. But as I said it has to be there in the first place to be a danger. Is it a common bug in the environment? I wouldn't think so.

Thanks to Beekissed for the how-to on fermenting grains. Such a great way of improving cheap grains.

 

[Triple Willow]

This my show my age, but I was raised on hamburger helper, a can of veggies and a can of fruit.  Sunday's, we would get real food, like roast or steak with a salad, but all the other days was frozen/processed/pre-packaged foods.  My mom grew up poor on a farm, so I think she went the "other" way when raising us kids.  All my "cooking" skills I learned once I was out on my own and could not afford all that "fake" food....

I was raised by a widowed/single mom that grew up during the Great Depression. She worked over 35 years in a factory to raise me and my sister. One thing we were taught was to be thankful for whatever you had because there were people who had far less! We always had decent food but it wasn't always a home cooked from scratch meal. Shoot, working your butt off 40 plus hours a week (production work where what you make depends on how FAST you go, a lot of times below minimum wage) then coming home to kids, house work, all the yard work, etc - my kids would have been lucky to eat! lol When school was out it was fend for yourself which we did with no complaints. Then when mom got home she would cook supper but on the weekend would be the time to go to the grocery and the good food was cooked. I LOVED that fried chicken, and still do! I'd say the easy "processed food" came along because so many mothers started working outside the home and had to have quicker and easier food to fix for their family. I don't know how she did it but I remember us having a garden when I was little.

 

[Triple Willow]

Sooooo freaking cool!  I think I can do that.  Yep, I was doing it WAY wrong.  Thank you for sharing.

You're welcome. It'sreally pretty easy with a sharpe knife. I've never seen that part about taking out the breast bone. But while your at it you need to learn about "the forgotten piece"... I would say that most people under 40 have never even heard of it... "the pulley bone" aka: wishbone. My favorite piece of chicken as a kid. And after you eat it you get somebody to grab the other side and you pull it apart and the one who gets the short piece gets married first (or something like that)... LOL Here is the only decent video I could find showing you how to cut it off but the video is a little crude. (I actually find the dent/joint in the breast and cut into it then angle my knife back toward the top of the breast and cut under it. Whatever, more than one way to skin a cat... or cut up a chicken. LOL)

 

[Beekissed]

You're welcome. It'sreally pretty easy with a sharpe knife. I've never seen that part about taking out the breast bone. But while your at it you need to learn about "the forgotten piece"... I would say that most people under 40 have never even heard of it... "the pulley bone" aka: wishbone. My favorite piece of chicken as a kid. And after you eat it you get somebody to grab the other side and you pull it apart and the one who gets the short piece gets married first (or something like that)... LOL Here is the only decent video I could find showing you how to cut it off but the video is a little crude. (I actually find the dent/joint in the breast and cut into it then angle my knife back toward the top of the breast and cut under it. Whatever, more than one way to skin a cat... or cut up a chicken. LOL)

Oh my goodness!! Now, that's where I want to troll for good food...through a CAFO house and pick up the dying and crippled ones to take home and feed my family.

Trying to get this out of my mind..... Then he cooked it in the scalding pot~3 minutes!! "Don't hit that chicken, kids!!! That's cruel!!!"

I'm appalled.