Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Beekissed]

It's just speckles...not green, black or grody in any way. The sheep and chickens used to fight over them when they get that way. Fed raw? Peck at it here and there, not much interest. Feed it fermented and nasty looking and everyone wants a seat at the table~NOW.

Been doing it for years and no one has dropped dead over it...I pretty much feed what the chickens will eat. They are pretty darn smart over eating things that are good for them and I've never had them eat anything that was bad for them yet. Chicken barometer...works fine.

 

[Lacy Blues]

ok, great! Thanks! I planned on getting as many pumpkins as I can, the day after halloween or the day of... from the pumpkin lots! Apparently, they sell them off pretty cheap at that point.

 

[Leahs Mom]

It's just speckles...not green, black or grody in any way. The sheep and chickens used to fight over them when they get that way. Fed raw? Peck at it here and there, not much interest. Feed it fermented and nasty looking and everyone wants a seat at the table~NOW.

Been doing it for years and no one has dropped dead over it...I pretty much feed what the chickens will eat. They are pretty darn smart over eating things that are good for them and I've never had them eat anything that was bad for them yet. Chicken barometer...works fine.

I was at one of the local pumpkin farms yesterday. They have pumpkins EVERY DAY that are getting soft on a side or a spot which they cull and dump on their fields. They told me I could take those pumpkins for free.

I took one home yesterday (they only had one as they had already made a dump for the day). But..when I opened it, the inside was looking pretty gnarly.... watery in the seed area and just like it was not something anyone should eat. I didn't put it out for the birds.

So now, the question... Would those be okay to put out for them? It was just looking somewhat "slimy" inside and definitely soft. I keep thinking about the difference between ROTTEN and fermented. Since these are going bad in warm weather, the thought was "rotten" vs. one that is soft because of the freeze/thaw cycle. Am I correct in that thinking?


At the moment, I wasn't sure if it was something that I should let them eat so I stuck it in the compost pile.

 

[Missa Chickabee]

Before I knew I could get the ACV at WalMart I was asking a friend if she knew where I could get the ACV w/Mother. She didn't know what that is but offered Kombuchu. Is this something that could be added to the mix if you're not sure the Mother is any good?
The reason I ask that is the 2 bottles of ACV I bought at WalMart didn't reall look like it had any Mother in it, even though the bottle said it did.
Gave my 71 chickens their first taste of FF yesterday. Absolutely NO hesitation in eating it. They CLEAN their plates very well.

Whoa, yes. My Kombuchu is truly vinegar now.....having been ignored in favor of the higher pursuits (poultry and people priorities...not always in that order).

I guess the only concern I might have about giving the 'Booch Brew' to chickens would be the caffeine from the black tea I originally used in the brew. However, that would surely be minimal if added to a large ferment. Just my thoughts on it.

(with regard to old kombuchu....I really trust my 'smeller' instincts a lot and 'go with my gut' on a lot of things.)

Caffeinated chickens....just imagine....

 

[Missa Chickabee]

Making your own ACV is child's play. Of course you'll need a start of it by getting Braggs or similar. Or if you want to wait for 3-6 months you don't but... Best juice to use is frozen apple juice WITHOUT added calcium. It's ok if it has the "Added Vitamin C" but not the calcium. Just mix up the frozen juice, glugg in some Braggs, cover with coffee filter (held by a rubber band) and sit the whole works in the pantry for a month. Only use a glass or ceramic jar. You'll end up with a slimy layer on top that is tan to cream colored. That is the real "mother." You can taste it with a straw or with litmus paper to see if it's done yet.
Take out the slimy thing and plop it into the next batch instead of glugging in Braggs and you're off and running.
PS - there are more than one reason why the frozen juice is best, the main one for me being that it's only going to cost you $2 a gallon that way if you get the generic. But besides that, the frozen is not pasteurized and so the enzymes you need to make the ACV are still present.

Well you can see how far back I am reading. Slow reader but tortoises get there eventually.

I was wondering if we can add some 'mother ACV' to the regular ACV from Walmart to create good mother ACV. Doesn't seem to say anywhere on the gallon jug of non-mother stuff that it's pasteurized.

Thnx.

 

[galanie]

Before I knew I could get the ACV at WalMart I was asking a friend if she knew where I could get the ACV w/Mother. She didn't know what that is but offered [COLOR=B22222]Kombuchu. Is this something that could be added to the mix if you're not sure the Mother is any good?[/COLOR]
The reason I ask that is the 2 bottles of ACV I bought at WalMart didn't reall look like it had any Mother in it, even though the bottle said it did.
Gave my 71 chickens their first taste of FF yesterday. Absolutely NO hesitation in eating it. They CLEAN their plates very well.

Whoa, yes.  My Kombuchu is truly vinegar now.....having been ignored in favor of the higher pursuits (poultry and people priorities...not always in that order). 

I guess the only concern I might have about giving the 'Booch Brew' to chickens would be the caffeine from the black tea I originally used in the brew.  However, that would surely be minimal if added to a large ferment.   Just my thoughts on it. 

(with regard to old kombuchu....I really trust my 'smeller' instincts a lot and 'go with my gut' on a lot of things.)

Caffeinated chickens....just imagine....:cd :yiipchick e

I read a long discussion about the similarity between ACV and Kombucha. It seems that the ACV "mother" and the Kombucha "SCOBY" are almost identical. There is one microorganism in the SCOBY that isn't found in the mother. But there are some 6 or 7 other microorganisms that make up each that are identical. And there are those that have in fact made "Kombucha" with ACV "mother" rather than SCOBY. It can't be said to be true Kombucha but the guy says he can't tell the difference by taste. So yes, I'd say the Kombucha stuff would work great.

If interested, go to the link at the end of this paragraph. Scroll down to what appears at first glance to be a picture of horribly moldy bread. After that is the discussion of the similarity. http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~dna/kombucha.htm

So far as caffeine, I can't imagine they'd get enough to affect them.

 

[Missa Chickabee]

I read a long discussion about the similarity between ACV and Kombucha. It seems that the ACV "mother" and the Kombucha "SCOBY" are almost identical. There is one microorganism in the SCOBY that isn't found in the mother. But there are some 6 or 7 other microorganisms that make up each that are identical. And there are those that have in fact made Kombucha with ACV "mother" rather than SCOBY. So yes, I'd say the Kombucha stuff would work great.
If interested, go to the link at the end of this paragraph. Scroll down to what appears at first glance to be a picture of horribly moldy bread. After that is the discussion of the similarity. http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~dna/kombucha.htm
So far as caffeine, I can't imagine they'd get enough to affect them.

Thanks for this great info. I have scobies coming outta my ears in their 'scoby hotel' and I agree about the caffeine thing.

So what would your thoughts be on throwing a scoby into a gallon of motherless AVC?

 

[ChestnutRidge]

I just looked at your siggie and realized the scratchcradle thing is yours. I love your site! It has tons of awesome info, and you explain it all wonderfully. I've learned a ton from it. Great job!

I agree! I think I linked it on my webpage...it was that informative!

That is very kind of you. Thank you!

You might...but DH and kids are not so impressed! LOL At first DH walked into the garage and asked what kind of alcohol we were brewing (I brew kombucha and he brews beer so it was a reasonable question, although we typically don't brew in the garage). Then a few days later he asked if I'd finally gotten around to learning to make cheese! Then sourdough. Now he wants to know if something died. Actually, there are some roaches decomposing in it...

I'm glad to hear someone else say this. My garage just has a dirt/gravel floor, so critters sometimes dig their way in. For this reason, I keep my FF in my 'mudroom' which is really a little entry room leading to my front door that houses the laundry, litter box, and feed. People - mostly just us - have to go through this room every time they enter or leave the house. I was just adding more feed and water to my first batch and rolling along really well until it smelled like something died in there. It smelled awful, and my husband freaked out. That was the end of that. I haven't let anything go for more than a week since. Has anyone else had the "smelled like something died" problem, and is the feed still good at that point?

my egg production has dropped from 11 per day to 9 yesterday and today 6 this is out of 13 layers that are laying. with that being said, it could be a couple things. 1) change in diet 2) time of year 3) they have found a new spot to lay free ranging. 4) 32 new chicks being placed in a pen next to theirs. only time will tell. i am not pressed for eggs. i don't treat my birds like vending machines.

I'm voting for #2 here. My girls are molting and barely laying 3 eggs a day between them. I would guess that's what the issue is, especially if they are 16-18 months old or so now.

 

[galanie]

  Has anyone else had the "smelled like something died" problem, and is the feed still good at that point?

Mine has. When I first started FF, I brewed it in the garage during the summer and OMG I was convinced that a dog had died in that garage. I now use Kefir whey rather than ACV and it smells much, much better. More like ferment and less like death. However, I noticed that if I let it go w/out adding fresh whey for very long, it'll get that way again. Not sure what's going on with that unless we're just not using enough out of there and replenishing it with enough to keep the good stuff going. Or maybe there's bad bugs out there overwhelming the good w/out regular innoculation.

ETA: I also suspect flies might have something to do with it. They loved the stuff when it was in the garage and the other day I left the bucket out and some flies got to it. After that I started noticing it didn't smell as good.

 

[Pozees]

Being that we can't actually physically increase the ratio by just having bacteria colonies, I'm going to lean towards there is 12% more protein AVAILABLE. As in it's there already, but, there is only so much that we can absorb in the time it takes the food to travel through our system. From what I have gathered on this thread and reading other reference materials linked to, most people aim to feed as close to 19-21% crude protein as possible to meaties, but the majority of that passes out the other end undigested in regular feed. Basically wasted. But you need to feed that high percentage to make sure that the birds are absorbing the maximum possible amount. With the fermented feed the protein is easier to absorb so less of it passes through. This results in the birds needing to eat a smaller total volume to get the same benefit.

We humans have a similar situation with taking vitamins, the pills that you buy over the counter and take, take long enough to dissolve and get absorbed by our bodies that most of the good stuff actually just passes on through. That's why it is so much easier to just eat foods that naturally have those vitamins, they are easier to absorb and less is wasted. You can get more benefit from Eaton an orange than from taking the same dosage of Vitamin C chew-ables.

I have read most of this thread and wanted to say I agree with your assessment of the increase in protein meaning available/absorbable. One reason an egg is often referred to as the perfect protein is that all the proteins are usable by the human body. Fermenting must modify the structure of proteins we are feeding our birds.

Have not started this method yet, but I am planning to in the next several days. It makes more sense than ever to try and decrease the cost of feeding grains. My local feed mill will no longer publish a price list because grain prices are changing so rapidly.