Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Beekissed]

Yay!! More success stories and pics to show it...love 'em!

 

[bloonskiller911]

well my chickens loved the fermented feed, but i am stopping until spring. my wife says when i can devise a situation out side to have at it. too many fruit flies in the house!!! but at least i know the technique and that they like it. Thanks for all of the great information on this thread.

 

[Pozees]

Just wanted to mention my current experience with FF. I have settled on a 2/3 mixed whole grains and seeds, 1/3 layer crumble, adding just enough each day for the next day's feed, and just enough water to see a couple puddles on top, which by the next day becomes something I don't have to drain, I just scoop it out with a plastic slotted spoon. The girls seem to like it just fine. They look terrific, act like robustly healthy chickens, and spend their days kicking all my mulch out of the garden, catching mice and parading them around in front of one another, and confounding me with their refusal to sleep on their roosts.

I wanted to mention, though, that since I cut back the amount of layer crumble in the FF, use of Oyster Shell has increased, presumably because I have 5 Speckled Sussex at POL (6 months old today), and my other two girls have only been laying since July.

My mixed grains are whole oats and wheat, and cracked corn, and my seeds are just a mix of BOSS and wild bird seed (hat tip to BYC member, either here or on the OTs thread someone [Delisha maybe?] suggested using wild bird seed, I would never have thought of it). Crumble is a standard 16% layer made and bagged by our local feed mill. I offer the same grain/seed mix as scratch a couple of times a week, and they get an apple each evening when DH gets home. If I'm home when he arrives, I get a good laugh as his fan club races to greet him when they hear his car coming down the driveway

I am happy to have found this thread and really happy with my results. I can't think of anything negative - the input really isn't much different from keeping feeders filled once you get into a routine - yes it's daily, but especially for my tiny flock, it's literally a minute or two.

 

[Beekissed]

well my chickens loved the fermented feed, but i am stopping until spring. my wife says when i can devise a situation out side to have at it. too many fruit flies in the house!!! but at least i know the technique and that they like it. Thanks for all of the great information on this thread.

Here might be a economical solution to wrap around your ferment bucket for outside storage.....

http://www.amazon.com/Seedling-Heat...463488&sr=8-9&keywords=greenhouse+heating+mat

I've never tried this but would definitely try it out if I had to store my FF outside...one or even two of these bungeed on the outside of the feed bucket would sure keep it just warm enough to not freeze, I'm thinking.

 

[jeapa]

Me too.  I've never seen faster molt recovery and quicker conditioning on poor birds in my life.  Shows that no matter how old you get there is always something to learn.

Look at this pitiful, skinny and parasite ridden chicken...




And look at her 6 wks later.



This one before...



And after...



This one before...



And just the other day, about 8 wks later...



Before...



And after..




It's not our imagination...the feed is working miracles on health, conditioning, feathering and the egg yolk size.  I'm rather pleased that we can take ordinary feed and supersize it with no extra expense added. 

Those photos speak volumes as to the benefits of FF. the difference in those chickens is remarkable for such a short time. They look great!

 

[Turkeytruff]

Thanks. I almost fainted, I just stood there froze, watching! (Duhh) Then it sunk in, she was running to mommy squealing that little head off! Every bird but LilX Ran to their coop. I bent over and grabbed her, and realized, um, i can't lift her anymore! (Duhhh again).. So i had to put the bucket down and unlatch everything. By now, my other pig Bacon, the BIG one, is really ticked grunting and squealing too. HE expected to be fed first, and SHE gets to be out with Mom?!?!?

She was interrupting his evening dinner. As i got those 2 settled down, i heard my Dad laughing his head off. Glad I was able to brighten his day lol.

love it! You'll have me believing in flying pigs yet!
On the FF, I have had great results but now one of the BCMs (a hen who has always been 'scrawny' but was the first to start laying again after I rescued them) has started looking less robust. She is still laying, bright eyed, and always checking out the food situation and scratching in the dirt. Maybe it's because the roo is riding her a lot

- she had 3 small bare areas again on her back. I will be getting the ingredients to make Bee's butter next week and see if that helps.
I have just started adding layer rations to the FF from last night along with the alfalfa cubes. Everything smells good, and they can't gobble it all down soon enough. I had the turkeys jumping 2 feet to try and get some from the bucket and I swear they need snorkels the way they get their heads down into the trough - need to get someone along to take a picture of those gams!

 

[aoxa]

I don't see messy poops on my chickens though one of my WRs with exceptionally fluffy butt feathers has a black piece stuck there that has been holding on for dear life for a couple of weeks. I think that the FF makes cecal type poops a little darker and gummier than they normally would be for some reason and this may be why we are seeing these showing up more on the hairs/feathers that are excessively fluffy around vents. Silkies are just a different breed of cat and I would think they have a hard time keeping manure off that hair anyway but I have no experience with the breed. Could be your feed mix is a might too soupy and they are ingesting more fluids in the eating process than they would normally ingest with just drinking their usual amount of water?

My silkies have the cleanest backends around this barnyard!

Though FF + Silkie chicks...

Yeah.. It's a mess

 

[Lacy Blues]

Though FF + Silkie chicks...

Yeah.. It's a mess

 

[Dianuzhka]

a couple of weeks ago my ff went bad, i think because of the weather, so i tossed out and decided to start a new experiment,
i got some unpasteurized whey and added some veggies and scratch, it's obviously fermenting but smells so fresh, I'm mixing that with dry feed and they are loving it.
I'm gonna star putting some of the dry feed in the bucket and see how that goes. ... just waned to share 'couse i only remember reading ff recipes from vinegar or baker yeast in the thread,
so this is my new experiment.


ho and... beautiful silkies

 

[maryhysong]

a couple of weeks ago my ff went bad, i think because of the weather, so i tossed out and decided to start a new experiment,
i got some unpasteurized whey and added some veggies and scratch, it's obviously fermenting but smells so fresh, I'm mixing that with dry feed and they are loving it.
I'm gonna star putting some of the dry feed in the bucket and see how that goes. ... just waned to share 'couse i only remember reading ff recipes from vinegar or baker yeast in the thread,
so this is my new experiment.


ho and... beautiful silkies

I used home made apple cider vinegar and a little whey from organic yogurt. smells yummy.