Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[RoseMarie1]

Yeth, yeth! Keepths the cutesy little ticksies, she does! They are her preciousssssss....

lol you havin' too much fun with this.

 

[KPenley]

I have a question for those who ship hatching eggs. I started feeding FF about 2.5 weeks ago. I shipped some hatching eggs out last Friday. The buyer said when she received them that there were tiny drops of water on them and an odd smell - "musty/earthy smell... hard to describe but like damp rich potting soil." That sounded like a FF smell to me. She said that they quickly dried off and we will see how the incubation goes. Has anyone ever had this happen with their hatching eggs?

Sounds like condensation? Perhaps due to heat? I have occasionally had condensation when shipped eggs were being acclimated to room temps, but not funky smells. Best wishes for your buyer. She'll know soon enough if the heat got to them.

 

[RoseMarie1]

Thanks to bee sharing her knowledge last fall I only use pumpkins, gords, cukes, zukes & cayenne pepper as natural dewormers. I use the cayenne pepper more during the warmer months and give them the veggies all winter. I freeze them all chopped up and give them to them all winter. They all freeze great. The pumpkins I put on a pallet & covered with a tarp. I'd break one up a week & the girls devoured them. My mom & cruise the neighborhood for them after Halloween

oh man I sure wish I'd known about this idea but will keep it in mind for next summer for my chickens. WOW they will be CHICKENS next summer and not chicks! I will ALSO be getting eggs or maybe MORE chicks by then.

Thank you for sharing this idea! I'll have to cruise myself after halloween and find me some punkins to.

I still have cayenne pepper on my bushes so I'll have to stick some of that in the freezer for them. Do you cut the pepper up or just toss it to them?

 

[Lacy Blues]

I have a question for those who ship hatching eggs. I started feeding FF about 2.5 weeks ago. I shipped some hatching eggs out last Friday. The buyer said when she received them that there were tiny drops of water on them and an odd smell - "musty/earthy smell... hard to describe but like damp rich potting soil." That sounded like a FF smell to me. She said that they quickly dried off and we will see how the incubation goes. Has anyone ever had this happen with their hatching eggs?

I've heard that if you wrap them in bubble wrap and completely surround them, that it can cause condensation. Obviously, I have no idea if you did that or not, but some people put them into a "tube" of bubble wrap, leaving the ends open for ventilation.

I've never shipped out hatching eggs but I did trade birds with a guy. He told me that my birds smelled "sweet." I hadn't really noticed that but he thought maybe it was from the fermented grains?

On, pumpkin seeds and related plant seeds being good for worming, I have a question. What about the leaves of these plants? I have pumpkin plants growing up the wire on the sides of my birds' yard and they pick at the leaves. I have 1" poultry wire up about 24" so they can't reach out and strip the plant but the leaves are against this wire and they trim them for me. Would the leaves be beneficial for worms too? I'm growing them up the wire to provide some shade from the morning sun here. As soon as it shows its face, you can get a sunburn! Man o man! It gets hot fast here as there are no trees on my property to provide any shade. For the pumpkins that grow, I provide little hammocks for them and they do fine.

 

[Beekissed]

I'm not sure about that...I've only read about the seeds containing cucurbitin but they made no mention of the leaves. I'm smiling over your pumpkins kicked back in tiny hammocks, cool drinks in their hands, catching some sun....

 

[Beekissed]

oh man I sure wish I'd known about this idea but will keep it in mind for next summer for my chickens. WOW they will be CHICKENS next summer and not chicks! I will ALSO be getting eggs or maybe MORE chicks by then.

Thank you for sharing this idea! I'll have to cruise myself after halloween and find me some punkins to.

I still have cayenne pepper on my bushes so I'll have to stick some of that in the freezer for them. Do you cut the pepper up or just toss it to them?

Rose...I hate to break it to ya, but those big ol' birds at your place ain't chicks

anymore.

Them's chickens!

 

[Chickengirl1304]

I have a question for those who ship hatching eggs. I started feeding FF about 2.5 weeks ago. I shipped some hatching eggs out last Friday. The buyer said when she received them that there were tiny drops of water on them and an odd smell - "musty/earthy smell... hard to describe but like damp rich potting soil." That sounded like a FF smell to me. She said that they quickly dried off and we will see how the incubation goes. Has anyone ever had this happen with their hatching eggs?

It's because the post office had them in a room cooler than the person had them to they got condensation on them. I've had that happen too. As for the eggs smelling? Just get an egg and get it wet a bit and smell it. Tey don't smell very good hahahhaa. But I don't know how well they're going to hatch for the person if they were sweating and had condensation on them. It may have washed the bloom off allowing bacteria to get in?

 

[Triple Willow]

I have a question for those who ship hatching eggs. I started feeding FF about 2.5 weeks ago. I shipped some hatching eggs out last Friday. The buyer said when she received them that there were tiny drops of water on them and an odd smell - "musty/earthy smell... hard to describe but like damp rich potting soil." That sounded like a FF smell to me. She said that they quickly dried off and we will see how the incubation goes. Has anyone ever had this happen with their hatching eggs?

Hi KYTinpusher. I don't know who ships eggs, RedRidge maybe? They weren't cool before they were shipped were they, maybe it was condensation? The smell is strange though. It looks like you would taste it in the eggs. What kind of feed are you fermenting? Strange.

 

[RoseMarie1]

Rose...I hate to break it to ya, but those big ol' birds at your place ain't chicks

anymore.

Them's chickens!

LOL well yeah I guess you're right again.

cockerels and pullets......big ole cockerels and pullets. Today Bee I did something I haven't done yet and it sure did feel good to. I think I have like 11-13 of those cockerels I need to get rid of and these boogers are trying to hog all the food. Sat. hubby is taking them to sale to a guy. Anyway they peck the pullets until they'll leave the trough and go to the other feeders I have in there. So today I let the majority of the pullets in first so they could feed and then I let the cockerels in so they could feed. SOME of them got inside while I was trying to let the pullets in but it wasn't but a couple of them. I noticed for the past 2-3 days how they were doing the girls so I let the girls eat first this time.

Yep they ARE big that's for sure. The guy that bought two of my cockerels, mine was just a little over 3 months old at the time he bought them and he said his 14 pullets were 4 months old and he said my cockerels were larger than his 4 month olds. The RIR's were 4 months old yesterday and the BA's will be 4 months the 9th of next month.

 

[KYTinpusher]

Thanks everyone for the answers. Maybe it was just condensation. From the tracking, they were at the PO most of the day and they may have had the air conditioning blasting away, so the eggs could have gotten pretty cool. Since the moisture was still beaded and not smeared, it sounds like it happened as she opened them. But with the smell, I thought maybe it had something to do with the fermented feed. We'll know within a few days if they develop or not.