Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Leahs Mom]

I can only dream...my mom is stacked. She wears a 32DD and her waistline is the envy of all women who see her, old and young. I will never live up to this little woman who has had nine children. In that pic you saw, she was wearing 2-3 layers of clothing because she was going to be dancing in the cold night during her re-enactment/role~made her look fluffy. She weighs 110.

Tell her I want to know how she stays so thin!!!!! My grandma was under 100 lbs and tiny - only about 4' 10. They used to eat every 4 hours -7a 11a 3p 7p 11p. A tiny meal each time - and I NEVER saw her eat anything in between.

 

[Beekissed]

Arggggggggg! I Sat last night and typed for a long time (two finger typer) only to have the whole thing disappear when I added a smiley, gave up, went to bed. Anyway, I’m doing this in Word so if I lose it on the forum I’ll just copy and paste.
Now let’s see, you asked about the beach, well I can see the Pacific coast from my upstairs window on a clear day. About the only thing I do now is a little surf fishing, too many tourists plugging up the beaches. The seafood is great, there are good eating places around the wharfs where the fishing boats come in to unload (if you know someone who can buy off the boats you save big time). We eat a lot of fish, mostly tilapia. The shrimp are great most any size you want. You can get a good sea bass meal for under 10 bucks. Fruit is very cheap here (what grows here), I bought 3 golden pineapples the other day for $2USD. Every restaurant has some kind of fruit drinks as well as making your own. I make raw milk yogurt which added to fruit in the blender makes awesome smoothies. It is the rainy season now but I do sit in the backyard in the sun especially in the morning with my cup of Costa Rica’s fine dark roasted coffee. The dark roast I buy direct from the growers co-op would compare to the best fancy coffees in the states. The cost of living here varies a lot, any state side foods or products are not cheap, there is an added 34% import tax plus shipping. Beef is high price, I pay 8 bucks a kilo for premium ground beef. Pork is reasonable, fish is OK and chicken isn’t cheap. I had a pig butchered which came out to a $1.80 a pound, it was only partly cut up and we had to wrap it. The taxes on our remodeled 1,800 foot house is around $200 a year. Buying prime building sites can be costly. Wood is very expensive, more so than in the states. Most places including our place is mostly concrete, no fire insurance needed. Cars are very costly, something between 2 and 3 times what they cost in the states, new or used. If a person buys smart and lives in an area not in the big town then it is easy to really cut cost. We’ll end up keeping 10 hens, way more eggs than we will use but when you share with your neighbors, Ticos (the native folks) they seem to be more than willing to share when they find a bargain, it is great. Crime is where the druggies are, big city big problems just like in the states. Heavy drug usage is new to CR and they are having problems catching up. Where we live it isn’t a major problem. Costa Rica’s native population is dropping while more folks are moving here, thousands from Nicaragua so politics and laws are a mess trying to figure out which way to go. What affects the USA also affects CR, it takes about 2 or 3 months to catch up but it always does, the drought in the states sent prices up here and like there, the gouging goes on!
Here is a photo from my back yard, more can be seen on my blog going back near the beginning. http://agardeninparadise.blogspot.com/



Hope this answers some of your questions, you can PM me for more info.

That is beautiful and I thank you for so much good information! It sounds lovely and not much different than living in the coastal regions of the states. We had a CR exchange student while I was in high school and he was quite the big hit here in the hills. Sweet and funny guy. So neat to be able to talk to people who live all over the world!

 

[siroiszoo]

Don't know...never tried it without it. Depends on the surrounding temps as to how much the grain ferments but the studies stated that it would normally take 8-15 hours but is faster when active enzymes were added. Didn't remember how much faster... I'm old and can't remember a lot of things, ya know.

OK, enough of this teasing and inferences....how old is everyone? I'm 46. OH, STOP IT!!!! Stop laughing!

It's not THAT old!!!

50 in December.

 

[Leahs Mom]

I finally put out the heated dog bowl for the feed this morning. (The heated dog bowls are made by the same company as the bird bath heaters...see the "Road Less Traveled" thread for photos of that). It was pretty funny when I put the bowl out there. They all just stood "cock-eyed" looking at it suspiciously and keeping a wide berth around it. Of course someone always tries it out and eventually they'll all get it.

Now keep in mind I'm only feeding 6 birds right now so this would be too small for a large flock. This is the LARGE heated dog bowl by Allied Precision; Model 93-UL-1, 5 Quart; 50 2atts, 120 v, 60 Hz. I got mine at the local farm store for $15.99. They're more expensive on-line: http://www.amazon.com/Allied-Plastic-Heated-Bowl-5-Quart/dp/B000A0E9BG



I normally feed the ff in the ceramic dish. The ceramic bowl is about 9" diameter and, thankfully, fits down right inside the heated bowl! I decided to use the heated bowl as a kind of "double boiler" (of course it doesn't get that hot - just terminology here). I put a little water in the big heated bowl. Then set the ceramic dish right inside that.



I can easily just lift the ceramic bowl right out to fill it (I keep my feed inside and bring the bowl in at night if it's empty.)



We'll see how it does when the temps go below the 20's!

 

[neopolitancrazy]

Whew! I just finished reading the entire thread-lots of great info here, people, thanks so much.
47.
I am interested in raising Dorkings, (still looking for a good strain,) and one thing that really strikes me is how much the recommendations for feeding Dorkings (published in the 1800s and 1900s) sound like the recipes for fermented feed here on BYC.
I also really like the aspects of getting the most for your money out of purchased feeds, and less stinky poo.
Thanks for the advice,
Angela

 

[Wax Myrtle]

40 years here, three kids aged 8 to 3, so am gonna have to pretend I'm younger, and maybe the body will believe the fib.

My layers are getting fermented scratch until the new chicks are old enough to eat 15% grower, when everyone will get the same gf. Layers will get oyster shell free choice.

Row of holes chick feeder is being outgrown. I hope to eventually get a length of PVC to make a trough, but it just isn't in the budget at the moment, so I've been mentally scrounging for a substitute I already own. Something they can't/won't walk in. Thinking a glass loaf pan might work, but all of my loaf pans are metal. Eyeballing plastic plant pots and the seldom-used glazed dog water dish. (Everyone seems to prefer the big gravity waterer instead.)

Regarding adding oyster shell to your ferment: I wouldn't. Coming from an aquarium keeper's background, oyster shell/crushed coral is added to water to both harden it and raise the pH. Soaking oyster shell in the ferment will make the calcium "free" but will also greatly neutralize the pH and may stall the ferment. In my opinion, but ymmv.

 

[Lacy Blues]

50 here but someone said you're only as old as you feel. In that case, there are many many days when I am 120! It depends on how hard I worked that day!

I may end up getting a heated dog bowl or two for my hens. They don't seem to like the ff as much as they used to. Or... they don't like the lay crumbles in it. I think they're picking out the grains. I may end up going 100% grain next pay day and then adding vitamins/electrolytes etc to their water. Any feedback as to how that would do for them? I still want to get some fish for a pond I haven't dug yet so they will have some animal protein. Hopefully, next year too, I can get a spot of clover type stuff planted for green feed for them. So many plans! So little energy!

 

[Miss Lydia]

50 here but someone said you're only as old as you feel. In that case, there are many many days when I am 120! It depends on how hard I worked that day!

I may end up getting a heated dog bowl or two for my hens. They don't seem to like the ff as much as they used to. Or... they don't like the lay crumbles in it. I think they're picking out the grains. I may end up going 100% grain next pay day and then adding vitamins/electrolytes etc to their water. Any feedback as to how that would do for them? I still want to get some fish for a pond I haven't dug yet so they will have some animal protein. Hopefully, next year too, I can get a spot of clover type stuff planted for green feed for them. So many plans! So little energy!

Today when I let everyone out the ff I had put in the coop last night hadn't been touched, so I plugged it into to the extension and set it outside where they are use to eating it, when we got home from church today it didn't look like it had been touched, I think the wind and rain and cold is affecting their desire to eat it. Actually the heated dog bowl won't come on till 35* so it was cold and probably didn't appeal to them. I hate to give it up for the winter months when they were gobbling it up a few days ago, so I'll just have to go day by day and see what happens. .I did add Poultry Nutri Drench to my flocks water about 3X times a week, but since i had started using the ff I hadn't done it,

 

[Beekissed]

Mine are still licking their feed trough on the FF, cold or not. They first pick out all the visible grains, leave the rest for awhile, then come back to get the rest. I'm amazed at just how clean they get the trough because this batch of layer mash is like flour, it is ground so fine. Never seen such fine ground mash in all my years.

 

[unkadan]

I had some of that "flour" Bee,,,think that mill was cutting costs and adding more "junk" to the mix,,,,100# barely fit into my storage can. I now switched mills the new mash is a cornmeal texture and once again 150# fit with room for another 50,,,,just sayin'