Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Achickenwrangler#1]

That's kind of the beauty of it...it doesn't go bad since it's fermenting like silage in a silo. Course you can contaminate it, but so far I haven't. I feed one scoop a day, and my bucket holds four scoops, I add plain water as it evaporates....at first I wasn't getting a good ferment so I added more vinegar, then it got very pungent for my nose and more so as the weather warmed up, just went back to adding plain water and smells like pickles. And at the end of the day I add another scoop and mix it around. Just smell it, look at it...taste it. you'll know, I go pretty small, one of those gallon and a half ice cream tubs and a nail bucket...I'm going to go with a second bucket as soon as the next ice cream is eaten and the boys have used all the nails, cause I think it could ferment longer than what I do now.

 

[Costa Rica Art]

I've only followed this in bits and pieces and now I have to ask a big question, has anyone fed the FF to laying hens? I have thought about this for a little time as my hens are slowly being replaced by some sturdier stock which I hope can become a duel purpose bird. To my knowledge there aren't any so called stock raised in any amount in Costa Rica. So far I've just been selecting hens that are heavier and lay a good size egg. My roo is a good heavier bird and so far the ladies are laying good size eggs. I got lucky and had one of the hens go broody so as soon as she leaves the chick she has I'll be saving eggs from two of the good heavier girls that lay good size eggs. So with all of this going on I wondered if the FF would be helpful in producing good weight and good eggs????

 

[jrsckn]

I'm feeding it to my layers but they're not old enough to lay yet so I'm not sure about the effect on the eggs themselves BUT, I have zero odor from the coop or run and I've only raked the run out once since I moved them in on May 6th and that was to remove the dead grass. When I first moved them outside, they were on dry crumbles for a week before starting ff and I could already smell them so it makes a big difference in smell.

 

[Achickenwrangler#1]

I'm feeding it to everyone, broodies, layers, chicks and pullets and even the roosters...I have a jar of calcium on the side in case they want it..one little bag lasted three years. Everybody looks healthy and the chicks are growing like weeds.

 

[chicks4fun]

I have been feeding it to the layers and my older chicks (about 3-4 months old now). I wasn't sure about the smaller chicks that are only about a month old. I make a large batch each day, most goes to the meaties but the rest gets divided between the layers and young birds. They simply love it.
It's been really easy to make & I've been lucky that mine has never gone bad. I just add grains at night and a little more water---it's been that easy. Also once a week I might add a splash of Braggs ACV to boost it up.

 

[Island Roo]

I processed my meaties on tuesday at the 10 week mark - 7.6 pound average.

They were only on FF for the last 3 weeks. I lost track of the food consumptions so not much info on costing but I did notice a few things with the FF:
- Food wastage went to zero. Prior to FF we lost a lot of food the sloppy eating / shovelling
- Overall smell significantly improved
- Activity level - increased (more interest in forage)
- Diarrhea cannon - silenced
- Poop - more solid but still not well-formed like my brahmas
I'm new to meaties but I already have some customers raving about how juicy, tender, and tasty theses birds are

and they are used to farm fresh chickens (not mine).

I'm convinced enough about FF that I will definitely try it from the start on my next batch.

My hens usually get some FF as a treat and get all excited when they see the bucket. Now that the meaties are gone I think I'll go full FF on them.

 

[Island Roo]

One more thing - I noticed that as I increased the proportion of corn over the last couple of weeks, the FF became more difficult to strain. I even started a new batch and it got soupy. I guess you can use corn stitch to thicken gravy....

I ended up pouring the ferment liquid over the dry food and adding enough water to saturate the food but not let soak. I still ended up with ferment liquid in the bottom bucket for the next batch. That was easier to deal with but I'm not convinced that it fermented as well.

 

[ChestnutRidge]

I've only followed this in bits and pieces and now I have to ask a big question, has anyone fed the FF to laying hens? I have thought about this for a little time as my hens are slowly being replaced by some sturdier stock which I hope can become a duel purpose bird. To my knowledge there aren't any so called stock raised in any amount in Costa Rica. So far I've just been selecting hens that are heavier and lay a good size egg. My roo is a good heavier bird and so far the ladies are laying good size eggs. I got lucky and had one of the hens go broody so as soon as she leaves the chick she has I'll be saving eggs from two of the good heavier girls that lay good size eggs. So with all of this going on I wondered if the FF would be helpful in producing good weight and good eggs????

There has been some research about the effects of FF on laying hens. You can read a summary of their results in the abstract here: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00071660902736722#preview

Basically, their results were: bigger eggs, stronger shells, better resistance to salmonella and camphlylobacter, better wight gain, less attractive plumage, and increased aggression. They theorized that the increased aggression and less attractive plumage might have been because they were hungry and couldn't do natural behaviors such as scratching, etc. in the laboratory setting with just wet food. I guess the control hens with the dry food scratched in their food more? Not sure. Here's a bit from the article:

"The observations that the
birds seemed to be hungry in the mornings
although feed was left from the day before, the
increased aggressiveness of the hens as well as the
poorer plumage condition point in that direction.
Wet feeding does not allow the hens to
perform their natural feeding behaviour, i.e.
searching and pecking activity (Forbes, 2003),
which may likewise contribute to the increased
aggressiveness."

 

[kelpieschick]

Hey everyone, my guys just turned 3 weeks old and are doing great. We've switched from their starter crumbles over to the 19% grower pellets which seem to ferment just as well. They smell slightly different than the crumbles when fermented and the birds like it slightly less but still clean it up. I have not weighed my guys yet but will get a scale in the next week and start training them to stand on it. I really like these little birds, they are sweet and lots of fun to watch. They are feathering in nicely and will be able to start going outside next week. Yay!

 

[vfem]

Well we processed our birds and they only weighed out between 3.5-5 lbs after process. Not all that impressed with the weight, but we already had one for dinner and it tasted amazing.

Time to start planning the next batch. Hehehehe