Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Glenda Heywoodo]

Ah OK, i thought that since they are supposed to digest the feed much better they'd be using up more of the feed hence less waste output.

I'm certain that the feed being fermented isn't causing loss of feathers, what i meant was as I'm feeding a little less, they may be getting less protein hence causing them to pick/eat feathers, i had a similar issue with a different rooster not to long ago and that was due to low protein (50% of their diet was bread).

He's too young to have a moult like this (8-9 months) and the weather is too cold for mites to be a big issue IMO. I think I'm just going to go back to free choice dry pellets for now and see how much of that they eat in a day. I may or may not try fermented feed again in the future.

Glenda Heywood
May I suggest my WET MASH PROBIOTIC RECIPE FOR CHICKENS.

WET MASH PROBIOTIC RECIPE FOR A SINGLE CHICKEN.
IF CHICKEN IS MOULTING AND IS STRESSED DO THIS FOR ITS HEALTH:
ALSO IF TREATING SICK CHICKS OR ADULTS.
IE: WORMING, ANY TYPE DISEASE OR COCCIDIOSIS ETC:

Glenda Heywood now the
natural probiotic recipe is this:
1 qt of dry crumbles
2 qts of milk, sweet, sour, or buttermilk or a mixture of all or some
1/4 cup of non flavored yoguart ( no artificial sweetmer)
mix good.
do not make sloopy JUST WET AND CHICKENS WILL EAT IT BETTER.
chickens do not like sloppy feed AS IT STICKS ON THEIR BEAKS.

ADULT CHICKENS
NOW THE IMPORTANT INGRIEDIENT FOR EACH CHICKEN FED.
and add 1- 400 mg of Vit E (PER CHICKEN FED WET MASH PROBIOTIC:
MIXTURE) by cutting the end off the vit E capsule for each chicken fed this wet mash.
putting the vitamin E in the wet mash and mix wet mash good to get vitamin E in every chickens amount.
this for each chicken your treating.

so for each chicken use 4 tsp of mixture and 1-400 mg of Vit E.
twice a day for them till the birds feathers are grown out then,
just three times a week feed wet mash and
cut back on the vitamin E to 400 mg once a week.

and feed each chicken:
4 tsp full of the wet mash probiotic and what they will clean up in 20-30 minutes.
then clean wet feeders and restock dry crumbles.
IE: or each chicken your making wet mash probiotic for:

DO THIS
4 tsp of feed and 1 tsp of the yoguart and just enough milk
to mix it good not sloppy wet. And add the 400 mg Vitamin E once a week if not sick.

IF SICK :feed 1-2 vit E 400 mg twice a day per chicken that is sick.

CHICKS RECIPE:
DO THIS
IF CHICKS ARE SICK add a 1000 mg vitamin E
ONCE A DAY TO THE ABOVE:
ie: 1 QT OF CRUMBLES AND 2 QTS OF SOME
KIND OF MILK AND 1/4 CUP PLAIN YOGUART.

(this is for any and all kinds of sickness ).
ALSO IF TREATING CHICKENS WHO ARE SICK.

DO NOT put Apple Cider Vinegar in the water while giving medication.
OTHER WISE use 2 tabelspoons of ACV to the gallon when not feeding medication.
pm ME ANY QUESTIONS
Glenda Heywood

 

[Beer can]

Kinda sours you when you see you've had comments erased magically with no reason given....

 

[Glenda Heywoodo]

Kinda sours you when you see you've had comments erased magically with no reason given....

Beer Can
Well I certainly did not want to upset BYC.
So rather than complain to the moderator:

I just did what I thought would solve every ones problem.
As my opinions were mine only.

And because every one complained about it
I thought best to let the gang read it their self.

Finally I figured it out. Just put the URL on for my post.

And how to put the article back on with out any pictures or

on.
And finally I figured out how to go and take

them off .
and just put the URL back on with out the

.:

As I did not know how they

got there .

I did not put them

on!!

You all have a nice night.
Glenda L Heywood

 

[Glenda Heywoodo]

Glenda, I've searched and searched for your article on probiotic mash and couldn't find it. Could you provide a link to that article? You must have had a HUGE family and tons of freezers to be able to put 500 roosters in the freezer every year!

That's a lot of chicken meat! Did you all consume that many in a year or sell them?

I got to look at a few posts from your last time on BYC but they too seemed to consists of just copied and pasted information about things from other sources, so was wondering if you have any real life articles about raising chickens from your own experience? That would be fascinating to hear, especially since you raised so many chickens per year.

What was your preferred method for hatching and brooding chicks? What type of flock management did you do? Were you breeding for particular traits? What breeds did you show? Did you keep chickens in coops/barns or were they free ranged? Did you have an egg selling business? I'm assuming you did if you were raising 500 hens per year...was that a family business?

Man...chocolate cake for dinner every single day???? You were one lucky gal!!!

Tell us more! You have had a fascinating farm life with all those animals and the work you did from an early age...I LOVE hearing about such things. My parent's lives were much like that...a lot of hard, hard work at an early age, though they didn't have a huge farm like y'all had...just medium sized places.

Glenda Heywood
Well beekissed
What can I say, we were farming in 1942 till my folks retired in 1974.

An yes we had a lot of work to do.
It was not a question if I wanted to .
But we had to help out as the family all worked.

And yes we sold eggs for 18 cents a dozen so needed a lot to get by.
Also we milked 30 cows and sold the cream,

And fed the skim milk to the pigs, Daddy raised beef and pigs and sold them at sales..
Chicken was every day food back in the day for a large family to use up.
Plus we helped my grandparents and others.

As for my article I wrote them and yes posted some.
As most of the questions needed my same answer.

you are such a funny guy(yes I foun out you are a guy).

I guess you all must think I am stupid for trying to explain my life to you all.

So please considerate it done and I will let you think what you want of me,
Likewise I will think what I want to of you and your opinions.
Glenda L Heywood

 

[Glenda Heywoodo]

Glenda, I've searched and searched for your article on probiotic mash and couldn't find it. Could you provide a link to that article? You must have had a HUGE family and tons of freezers to be able to put 500 roosters in the freezer every year!

That's a lot of chicken meat! Did you all consume that many in a year or sell them?

I got to look at a few posts from your last time on BYC but they too seemed to consists of just copied and pasted information about things from other sources, so was wondering if you have any real life articles about raising chickens from your own experience? That would be fascinating to hear, especially since you raised so many chickens per year.

What was your preferred method for hatching and brooding chicks? What type of flock management did you do? Were you breeding for particular traits? What breeds did you show? Did you keep chickens in coops/barns or were they free ranged? Did you have an egg selling business? I'm assuming you did if you were raising 500 hens per year...was that a family business?

Man...chocolate cake for dinner every single day???? You were one lucky gal!!!

Tell us more! You have had a fascinating farm life with all those animals and the work you did from an early age...I LOVE hearing about such things. My parent's lives were much like that...a lot of hard, hard work at an early age, though they didn't have a huge farm like y'all had...just medium sized places.

Beekissed:
To answer your question best I can.

Quote:BK
What was your preferred method for hatching and brooding chicks? What type of flock management did you do? Were you breeding for particular traits? What breeds did you show? Did you keep chickens in coops/barns or were they free ranged? Did you have an egg selling business? I'm assuming you did if you were raising 500 hens per year...was that a family business?

GLH
(A ) MY MOTHER bought the chicks and sold the roosters in part yes
.(B) We had a freezer and canned a lot them.
;
(C) At Xmas time we each had a orange. Once in a while we got a
can of soda my father usually bought us a treat, maybe twice a year.
My land that was 25 cents or maybe 30 cents each can of coke!!

(D) We got to go to church every sunday and then we had dinner at Grandma's.
(E) Oh! yes our sunday treat for me and one of my brothers was to get 10cents
each to go to the Rialto picture show in Missouri Valley Iowa!!

(F)Which my mother provided the MILK, EGGS, CREAM, MEAT AND POTATOES
as my grandparents were retired and did not have as much as we did on the farm.

(G) so you see times were hard and we lived life to work and help our family.

(H) Oh, yes my mother sent meat, eggs, cream and milk and eggs and vegetables,
every week to the church. That was a very heavy donation in its self.

(I) and oh! yes my mother raised white Embden geese.

(J) As for the chocolate cake yes it was baked daily and not on sunday.
As for me eating it, I did not like desserts as much as I could have but I did eat the meal.
My father loved chocolate cake and we baked to please him.

(K) My parents were very hard working people as we did also.

(L) Us kids had to help put the hay in the hay loft of the barn.

(M) And go behind the hay baler and load hay on the hay rack and unload it..

(N) Also pick up the binder bales of cut oats to (stack up right in shocks,to dry out)

(O) Then have the thresher come to our place and the neighbors came over

(P) and helped, as Daddy went to about a couple dozen farmers to help them thresh.

(Q) Then mother and I had to prepare dinner for say thirty men who came to the house,
and ate dinner, and another 4:30 lunch to feed them.

(R) My grandmother always made the dessert for our sunday dinner. that was not a small item either

(S) And my father was a constant fence builder as to rearranging pasture.
for the cows and cattle, so I learned to help put in many a barbed wire
fence and posts. drive the tractor and many other farm chores.

(T) I will never for get my father letting me drive the horses behind the harrow.
That was the love of my life.

(U) OH! yes we had a pony raised from our mare, called him trigger and broke
him to ride so I could take my little brother for rides.

(V) Oh! yes I also took my little brother to high school on occasion also.
My mother was working in the field and couldn't take care of him.
I loved that, He was so quiet and was part of the senor class at Neola High school!!
.
NOW TO OUR RAISING AND BREEDING AND SHOWING CHICKENS and Bantam Ducks..
(1) We had a large Leahy redwood incubator, which was in our living room. We sold It in 1989.

(2) We raised Modern Game Bantams.and RoseComb Bantams and many of the large fowl breeds.

(A) My husband was a licensed ABA Bantams And Bantam Duck poultry Judge.
(B) He was a licensed APA poultry Judge for largefowl, bantams, Waterfowl, & Turkeys

NOW WHAT I BRED AND RAISED:
(1) My favorite breeds were Cochins and Frizzled Cochins, and Cornish Game bantams.

NOW AS TO WHAT WE BRED FOR: PURE BRED POULTRY!

(A) Have you all ever heard of the AMERICAN BANTAM ASSN?

(B) Have you all ever heard of the AMERICAN POULTRY ASSN?

(C) They both have a STANDARD which all show people have to show poultry by.

(D So we had only pure bred stock to breed from.

(2) AND YES I CULLED FROM YOUNG CHICKS THRU THE SUMMER TO FALL SHOWING

(E) We had some good friends who showed a fair string of purebred chickens.
So every fall we gave them our excess and yes it was severel hundred birds of quality.
AS WE NEVER BELIEVED IN KEEPING ANY CULLS.

(F) (so you see as many of the people on BYC have pets of chickens,)
(I can't hardly say just kill them, instead try and medicate and save them.)

NOW A TO MY BREEDING COCHINS AND FRIZZLED COCHINS AND CORNISH GAME BANTAMS
(A) We lived at Council Bluffs,Iowa and in the country.

(B) We had several chicken houses and,
a pigeon house, Oh! yes my husband also raised Powder Pigeons.
(B-2) I learned the Sour Crop surgery and emptying a impacked crop, Surgery is cut, clean and sew up.
(B-3)also first hand as I was the one who did it.
(B-4) So if you read the articles on those subjects copied and,
(B-5) posted I originally wrote those articles.

(C) And yesI did a lot of the chores as my husband,

(C-2)worked at the UP Railroad and kept 300 plus colonies of bees.

(C-3)And yes I had to carry the heavy suppers of honey on the truck,

C-4) and then I did the extracting of the honey,

(C-5) which was put into 55 gallon drums for shipping.

(C-6)We sold our honey to SOUIX BEE HONEY COMPANY IN SIOUX CITY IOWA.

(ps THAT MY DAUGHTER SAYS IS WHY MY HEALTH,
HAS GONE DOWN HILL, YET I AM 80+ YRS OLD!!!)
(YOU SEE I HAVE BACK PAIN AND ARTHRITIC PAIN EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE.)
(I HAVE LEARNED TO IGNORE IT BEST I CAN, TYPING ON THE COMPUTOR HELPS!!)

(D) Back to raising Cochins and Frizzled Cochins.
I was one of the first in 1975 to get frizzles in the mid west.
So in order to get people to show against me I gave pairs,
of exhibition quality frizzled cochins to people to get them started.

(E) Frizzled cochins require much knowledge of the genetics of frizzling.
You see if you breed two frizzles together you will get extreme frizzles.

(F) Meaning they will breed off the feather follicles and be bare skinned NO FEATHERS AT ALL.

(E)Thus one has to just use a frizzled bird IE: say a COCK bird,

(F) then you mate him to a smooth (a regular feathered )cochin FEMALE, SHE WOULD BE CALLED A SMOOTH COCHIN with frizzle genes.

(G) that(SMOOTH) comes out of frizzle to smooth mating every year. YOU GET ABOUT 1/2 SMOOTH TO 1/2 FRIZZLED COCHINS EACH YEAR.

(H) NO FRIZZLE TO FRIZZLE MATINGS as they are just culls and, That mating would produse extreme frizzles.and
have to be killed. WASTED FEED AND MONEY THERE.

(H-2) A NOTE HERE Modern Game Bantams have to be kept in a heated building from late October thru the winter to maybe April also,in the Iowa snowy cold winters!!

(I) As "Extreme" or "curly"FRIZZLES can't stand heat or cold either.

(I) Some may come out with tight curly feathers
and then when molting lose their feathers all together.

(J) Cochins as well as cochin frizzles have to be a certain
body type and not long and lanky,
but Broad and round and the head and neck has to fit the body type evenly.

(K) As for Cornish bantams, they are stocky and heavy meated and have to have a very uniform body type.

I just loved them so as then when you have culls in Cornish Bantams,YOU GET TO BUTCHER AND EAT THEM.

(K-2) ALSO there are standard qualities, like no crooked combs, no split wings,

(K-3) no crooked toes, no wry tails, no discoloration of feathers etc.

(K-4) this is what you bred for as well as standard body type of each breed,

)K-5) IE: Correct eye color, head and beak color, and leg color. correct feather coloring

(l) AS FOR MY wet mash probiotic recipe:

I WAS ALWAYS INTERESTED IN FEEDING HEALTHY TREATS,
AND THAT WAS A TREAT.

(J) AS IT CONTAINED MASH, YOUGART, MILK AND VIT E AND B.

(K) I PUT IT ON THE byc AND IN THE npn FOR PEOPLE TO LEARN.

(L) HOW TO HEALTH WISE KEEP CHICKENS HEALTHY AND HAPPY

(M) TO GROW IN VERY GOOD FEATHERS WHEN MOLTING,

(N) OR UNDER STRESS FROM SHOWING OR SICK BIRDS PERSE'

(O) Well I guess I have bored you enough and I so enjoyed the long road,down memory lane.
thanks for the opportunity.
Glenda L Heywood

 

[CoryJill]

This sounds awesome! We, too are trying to eat more fermented foods, so this sounds great. Getting first chicks this weekend. A little overwhelming, but exciting. Can this be done on a smaller scale since I will be getting only 4 chicks?

 

[Shamo12]

I wish that were the case, but mites tend to favor cold weather....most of the threads about mites on chickens seem to be at this time of the year.  If they are eating less, it means they are actually able to utilize more of the proteins that are in the feed, so less feed doesn't equal less protein. 

I couldn't find any mites on him so i just started feeding them free choice dry pellets again. They were eating pretty much the same as the fermented however it would last them until the end of the day (i haven't weighed their feed recently so they make be eating more now), i think this is why no more feathers have been picked. My thoughts are that with the fermented feed they loved it so much they'd finish it up quickly and would be hungry by the end of the day, when I'd lock them up in the coop at night they would wake up very hungry hence eating feathers (that's the only theory that makes sense to me).

I'm going to carry on feeding dry for now and try and move back to fermented feed once all his feathers grow out but this time give them some scratch before locking them up in the coop.

 

[Beer can]

This sounds awesome! We, too are trying to eat more fermented foods, so this sounds great. Getting first chicks this weekend. A little overwhelming, but exciting. Can this be done on a smaller scale since I will be getting only 4 chicks?

Oh yes, just use a smaller container.
I started out with small batches using four 2lb coffee containers and rotating them. Only fill them about little less than half way, the feed expands and makes a mess Lol.
I've seen people use mason jars as well.
Pretty funny researching fermented feed online I actually got on a blog where the person was using the exact same coffee containers I was.

Pretty funny also I hashed out most of my FF process before discovering this thread and came pretty much to the same conclusion most of the rest have. Five gallon bucket and backslop next days feed and less water, oatmeal consistency when using pellets and crumbles, no need for the air blocking water barrier. I actually found it kinda impossible with pellets anyway.
The feed I use now a mash has a lot of grain and legumes and I actually add lots of water cause it doesn't turn to soup/mush, feed scoops right out nice leaving water behind then reuse the water in the next batch, gets it working pretty quickly.

 

[crazyhatlady]

So I've started my first batch of ff for my chicks and flock. My question is for chicks. They're 2 weeks old how much FF do I give them to make sure they are getting enough? Thank you.

 

[Beekissed]

So I've started my first batch of ff for my chicks and flock. My question is for chicks. They're 2 weeks old how much FF do I give them to make sure they are getting enough? Thank you.

If you keep them in a pen and run situation, just feed them only what they can clean up in a day's time. If they leave any behind, feed less the next day. If the feeder looks licked clean by noon, then add more to their daily ration. You'll soon be able to gauge how much they can consume of it as they grow, as seasons and needs change, etc.

I always tell folks it's just like feeding your own kids when they were toddlers....how much do you dish out on their plates? What they will eat and no more and that changes as they grow, so make changes accordingly. If they are leaving food behind, you give them less next time. Finishing too early, add a little extra.