Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Beekissed]

Ok. Up-date. The active dry yeast cultures apparently pack quite a punch, that or I got a VERY good set. Just checked on my bucket and not only were their bubbles it was like watching a coke fizz, almost frothy, and had a VERY nice Alcohol-APC smell going. I was, however, a bit dismayed at how much my mix swelled AFTER the yeast started working. Out of a combination of curiosity and need to prevent a "boil-over" I grabbed a couple of greek yogurt cups that I use for treat dishes and scooped out a bout 1/3 a cup for each brooder and offered it. I regularly give my chicks oats, crumbles, and/or whatever other chopped fruit and vegitables are handy mixed in with yogurt, so they are used to eating porridge/gruel. They had recently eaten half of teir nightly ration so they didn't really attack it but when I left them there were 5 or 6 birds per brooder happily sucking it down. I don't think I'll have any trouble converting them over lol. Now I can worry about getting me a strainer to dip it with so they don't have to eat glop at every meal and I might be set. Until I start up a 5 gallon bucket arrangement.

If you just work at adding enough to get it to a paste consistency, it's much easier to feed....easy to scoop, easy to place in the feeder and no soupy stuff left over at the bottom of the feeder.


Quote:
You don't actually lose the mash, it just settles into the bottom of the bottom bucket and when you add water later it rises to mix once again with your feed. The addition of the new, fine grains to the fermented fluid in the bottom of the bottom bucket gives the cultures something to eat and grow on....sort of like feeding your sourdough mix. You don't actually lose it, it's still there and eventually works it's way into your feed ration each time you fill with more water to rise above your newly added feed. I've been using the same liquid for 7 wks now and there is just the smallest amount of silty residue at the very bottom of the bucket, though I've used chick starter and now laying mash with all it's finely ground powder.

That silty residue rises with each application of water and deposits itself within and on top of the new feed ration, so it is getting rotated out, fed and used anyway. And it has the benefit of having more active cultures in it because it has soaked longer in the most concentrated area of ferment.

 

[wingstone]

Has anyone tried this with quail, they sure do eat alot when they are not wasting it.

 

[kelpieschick]

Hello everyone, I am new to BYC, but I had to post on this thread first because I've been following all 35 pages with great interest and I am very thankful for the wealth of excellent information!! It really was a fabulous read.

My little group of 25 meat birds will be here on May 25th and I am very excited. The coop is almost finished, their starter mash is ordered, and I am going to buy their feeders and waterers tomorrow as well as their starter ACV. I have known from the beginning that I wanted these to be really healthy and happy birds. I heard a great quote from a farmer who stopped into the store where I work, he said, "the animals on my farm only have one bad day". I loved it and that philosphy fits in perfectly around here.

I ran into thread by accident when I was following a google lead by someone who said that they gave their chickens wine in their waterers on their last day so that they were relaxed and unafraid for the transport and processing. Typing in wine I guess led to fermentation which led to here and boy, I'm glad that it did! I had no idea that fermented foods existed but I am ready to jump on board already. I already soak Fiber Max (Beet Pulp and Soy) for the horses as well as alfalfa cubes so it is going to be super easy to incorporate soaking and fermenting for the chickies as well.

I am going to stick with the non-medicated starter 22% and 19% grower for now until I have my system down pat and then I can think about adding whole grains as well to cut the feed. I live in an area where you have to book your processing time almost as soon as your chicks arrive so I was a little concerned about them either being too big or too small if I tweaked their diet. I am hoping to raise really healthy, happy birds that get a super grade at the processing plant. I work in an agricultural field so I get to hear the horror stories about people who drop off dirty, unhealthy birds often with diseases and injuries. My goal is for this to never be me!

Thanks again for all the excellent info.

Kelpieschick

 

[Beekissed]

I'm so glad you found it helpful! If I were you I'd schedule your processing date for 10 wks or over for your birds to insure they all get as big as they are going to get. That way you don't have to worry about an early dead line.

Feel free to report the progress of your birds on this thread regarding using the FF so that others can feel more encouraged to try it. So glad to have others on board so we can compare results at the end of the day to see if it was all worth it.

 

[MobyQuail]

 

[MobyQuail]

thanks for the heads up Shandowmane!

 

[shadowmane]

No problem. I've been following your work with the Tatanka and thought this might be a fit with it.

kelpieschick - welcome to BYC.

 

[myhubbycallsmechickeemama]

Has anyone tried this with quail, they sure do eat alot when they are not wasting it.

 

I'm going to be getting Bobwhite Quail here in the next month or so and I'm going to start them off on the FF using the Purina Gamebird starter. This will be my very first time with quail so I'm hoping they thrive on it!! I'll keep you posted on that little project as well.

 

[griffinkid02]

Yeah that is my goal Bee. BTW I am now inadvertently using a two bucket system myself, lol. Though it is nothing like as convenient or nice as yours. I had to split my batch between two gallon buckets this morning to keep them from spilling right over the edges (I swear that yeast, it just KEPT GROWING. I felt like i was trapped in an "I Love Lucy" rip-off) but the second bucket didn't have enough water in it, when I got home tonight it was cookie dough consistency. I fed the chicks (who cleaned up the first two batches last night and this morning, but only picked at this batch, but I also noticed they had hardly touched the crumbles still in the other feeder, so clearly they weren't snubbing) added water, and checked on the second bucket which was very souping and frothy. I moved a half cup of froth-water to the dry bucket and then topped it of with fresh. we'll see how long it takes to get bubbly again.

 

[griffinkid02]

thursday, while I'm off. I'm gonna work on rigging a 5 gallon bucket up so that it will hold all the water i could possibly need without boiling over and then laugh at myself.