Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Bossroo]

Layer mash is finely milled feed that when mixed with water makes a "mash" consistency. It is meant to be fed moist, which is why it's ground fine. Not many folks feed it moist nowadays but it traditionally was fed as a moistened feed. The mash I currently have access to at this local mill is more coarse ground than I am used to buying and it seems to have more corn in it than the feed I used to get at my old town.

As with anything that is bagged, the more fine the particles, the more actual volume you receive per bag. Like pecans....it may say 12 oz on the bag but if it's finely chopped it has more total volume of nuts in the bag than do the bags with pieces or whole nuts. With fresh milled feeds, the bags are all standard size and the boys filling and tying those bags just fill it, tie it closed and put it on a pile. Bigger pieces of grain will have spaces in between and won't fill the bag as solidly and fully as will finely ground grain, which is why, if I'm going to buy premixed feed, I always buy mash instead of crumble or pelleted style feeds....more for your money.

When one purchases a product by weight, one recieves the stated weight. ie. 12 oz will contain 12 oz of product. When one buys finely chopped product vs. larger pieces or whole, one will actually recieve LESS volume of that product if finely chopped since the fines will occupy air space that is created if it was whole. When the guys bag the grain/ feed at the mills ... there is a device at the dispencer that measures the WEIGHT of the grain/ feed that fills the bags that shuts the grain/ feed flow AUTOMATICALLY when the desired wieght ( example: 50 lbs.) is reached. Therefore, the finely ground grains will have less volume than the whole grains.( I know a mill owner personally that I buy my grains from. I help the guys grind and bag one ton of fresh ground grains that I buy every 2 weeks for my horses. Yes, each and every bag must be labeled as to contents and weight by law.) If the mill owners allowed their employees to fill all the bags equally by volume, no matter if the grain was whole or finely ground, , they would be out of business in short order. Besides, when the label states a weight or volume , it had better be that stated weight or volume or the BIG brother from the Dept. of Weights and Measures will decend upon them with HUGE fines for deceptive labeling/ business practices.

 

[Beekissed]

Huh! I'd always read differently about the whole smaller particles being more cost saving than larger particles on items....go figure. That's good information to know and I'm sure that it holds true in a lot of ways.

But not for a moment do I think we get out full weight's worth on products just because the bag says so....no matter what gov't dept. is over that. ESPECIALLY if a gov't office is over it and inspecting for it.

You can trust govt offices if you wish, but I used to work for the gov't and I know the laxity of how they work, so I have little faith in their regulatory efforts. Just like the USDA and the FDA, the DWM is no doubt easily swayed by whoever has the money.

As for me and my chickens? We'll continue with the mash cut on feed.

 

[Zootopia]

Hey I mix too much chick starter, they really don't seem to eat as much of it this way, but they are thriving.Thing is will it be ok for several days/?

 

[Beekissed]

Sure...keep it submersed in the fermented water or just keep it pretty moist.

 

[bluedubloonfarm]

I need to get a video of this: Our chicks have chick start (dry) available to them at all times, I started feeding them the fermented feed of that very same chick start (with kefir) and they go absolutely psycho over it when I bring it to them, while they shun the dry stuff. I have never seen chicks go SO crazy over a food source. They are only 2 weeks old and I started feeding them them the FF when they were 5 days old.

I also did an experiment, we have 10, 7 week old cornish X. 2 Weeks ago I bought a 50lb bag of feed for them and gave it to them dry the whole week and it was gone a week later exactly. Then I bought another bag fermented it all for them, and I still had half a bag left yesterday and it has been a week since I bought that bag. Noted, they do have access to pasture and I do only give them a certain amount each day increasing with their weight, but all this just to say: I am jumping for joy for fermented feed!!!

Thank you for sharing this!!

 

[Beekissed]

Wow! I'm so pleased to hear results of that kind. I started out on FF and I buy my feed in bulk so it's difficult to measure how much they would eat as a dry and unfermented ration vs. FF rations. Seeing as how your CX are probably even needing to eat more week by week they would be eating more the second week of your experiment and still only consumed half a bag. Thank you for giving us a clear picture of the difference between feed consumption of the different types of feed.

 

[myhubbycallsmechickeemama]

I am feeding 46 chicks (35 CX, 5 Delaware, 5 GLW and 1 Blue Cochin) with FF and they will be 2 weeks old on Monday, I will have used a 50lb bag of starter tomorrow. I think that is really good for that many babies plus....there is ZERO waste!!!

 

[myhubbycallsmechickeemama]

Beekissed....how long is it taking your grains to ferment? I will start my CX chicks on grains starting Monday and was just wondering how far in advance I need to prepare the feed. Thank you in advance!!

 

[Beekissed]

I just do mine every evening after last feeding. This gives them around 15 hours to ferment. I'm not sure if each kernel is then fermented but I know the grain is softened and is soaked through with fermented liquid, so this should be good. To get a greater level of fermentation I would say that they would have to ferment for longer than that. I'm thinking about setting up two more buckets so that I can get greater fermentation times between feedings....I would say the more fermentation, the better.

One study was fermenting their feeds for 14 days, but I don't know that I'll ever be set up to be able to do that.

 

[Paul Ewing]

I just got in 130 CornishX Friday and put aside 32 of them for a FF experiment. I am just using fermented 22% chick starter now, but got bags of oats, barley, cut corn, and milo to start them on in a few days. The chicks really took to the fermented chick starter and it isn't too much more of a hassle to scoop it out and into the trough feeders instead of the standard tower feeders I use for dry feed.

The one problem I see right away is that this is going to cause a huge fly problem. I have swarms of flies all over the brooder and around the feed bucket. What are other people doing to keep flies out of the feed bucket and feeders in the brooder?