Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Demosthine]

Yep! I'm in the piney woods of East TX, and the wild pigs are a huge nuisance. It's open season here all year round. Kill as many as you can whenever you can. Our property is literally infested with them and they will sure tear up a pasture. There is no other natural predator (of the bigger sized ones) other than humans. Coyotes will kill the smaller ones, but the big ones breed and multiply so fast it really is a problem. We had a 400lb momma and two of her 80 lb "babies" in our pasture 2 days ago. Our big dog almost caught one of them... Also, my husband's a high school football coach and he has literally had more than one teenage boy late to practice before because they were on their way to the school when they saw a wad of pigs. They stopped, went home for their gun, and came back to shoot the pigs. (We live in a very small, very rural community.) You can eat the smaller to medium sized ones, but anything over abt 300 lbs is very greasy and has a nasty taste to it.
I have to admit, I've never canned anything before. Everything we've ever harvested from our garden has just gone into the freezer. :/ It's a skill that I know I need to learn from my grandmothers while I still have a chance...

Like Chocolate said, canning is really, really easy. You can pick up a Presto pressure canner from WalMart for about $60 and they sell the best priced jars in town. i get the name brand Kerr or Ball jars because they've been around forever, but Icxm sure the store brands are probably just as good. It's just my OCD in play. You can try the Pick Your Own website for great directions or Ball's Canning website for some great recipes. Limit yourself to the newer recipes, though. "Grandma's Recipes" because they may not be based on newer knowledge.

 

[AletaG]

Hi RoseMarie. Yes I did read some threads about it on BYC. I did read the one about the three drawer setup. I agree, it does sound pretty neat. But then I read some about it being done all in one container. One thing I'd like to know is do those dang beetles ever escape? I am not very fond of bugs, especially in the house. That's one thing I like about chickens, they eat bugs! I do believe meal worms would be a garage project. lol

This was mentioned once, but darking beetles wings don't work. They cannot fly at all, so any smooth surface over 1/2" high is impassable. God made 'em perfect for small plastic totes...

In the year I have had my hens I have never had worm problems. My ole hens had access to the veggie garden in the fall thu spring happily eating any kind of bugs and worms they found.
Perhaps it because I add cayenne pepper once a month to their FF as a preventive that I have had no problems. Their on a dirt floor and have access to worms 24/7.

Okay, so there's lots of info on BYC about cayenne peppers being used as natural dewormers. Anyone ever looked into whether jalapeños serve the same purpose? I've given my birds jalapeños before that have sat unused for too long, and was just curious if they would work similarly to the cayennes... The birds ate them really well chopped up and fed out as a topping on the FF. And those were some pretty hot peppers. Made my finger tips burn when I was chopping them up.

x2 And dosage... How much/half cup FF? Or some such?

 

[Triple Willow]

@AletaG... That is good!

 

[Demosthine]

With all this talk about worms, it's got me to thinking. I don't recall anyone having problems with worms if they've been ferment feeding. It makes sense, though, because it makes for a healthier gastrointestinal tract, so it is significantly less hospitable to worms.

Maybe Bee can confirm or deny this?

 

[Beekissed]

Bruce has been feeding FF and reported seeing worms in the feces of his birds, so there is one, at least. I'm sure there are more. I've never seen worms in the stool in my flocks whether feeding dry or FF, so I think it's one of those things that, if your husbandry methods, climate/soils/area, or breeds produce high parasite loads, you are going to have them, FF or not.

 

[foreverlearning]

Foreverlearning, that coon sure would be tasty cooked up for this Labor Day weekend... or anytime.

Don't let it go to waste! LOL

Yes it would when I catch it. They are smart though, he knows my rounds even my night ones and stays out of my way. I haven't seen it yet, but I heard it once yesterday scrambling under the house. If they weren't pack animals I would just let it be as a little bit of corn each day doesn't bother me. My fear is it will bring friends and family and at some point go after the chickens, it's only a matter of time. I don't usually have a predator problem (in 30 years) so my coop has metal screen windows and a hook lock on it, very easy to get into.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Like Chocolate said, canning is really, really easy. You can pick up a Presto pressure canner from WalMart for about $60 and they sell the best priced jars in town. i get the name brand Kerr or Ball jars because they've been around forever, but Icxm sure the store brands are probably just as good. It's just my OCD in play. You can try the Pick Your Own website for great directions or Ball's Canning website for some great recipes. Limit yourself to the newer recipes, though. "Grandma's Recipes" because they may not be based on newer knowledge.

Oi, just a note on house brands. Walmarts house brand jars SUCK.

We were buying emergency backup jars for jam making and I wanted to pick up emergency back up rabbit feed too. Feed store was out so I decided to try the Wal-Mart brand "small world", which turned out to be a really decent quality feed for a REALLY low price. Just FYI. Hard to beat $0.30/lb, but I don't feed it regularly.

Walmart didn't have the pint ball jars so we bought their house brand.

Some of the jars did not seal after 4 hours after coming out of the canner. Ball jars have always sealed within 20 minutes for me. They did all seal overnight but who knows how long it took in reality to seal.
One of the jars had a hair molded INTO the glass. We didn't use that one. It was a little scary. I was worried it could break.
The glass on the walmart jars is thin and light compared to ball jars; I would think it would break easier. And in a "fight" (like in the canner bumping around other jars) against a ball jar, you know which one is going to win and which will shatter and cover your canner in glass and jam....

Just throwing that out there.

 

[Triple Willow]

Oh boy, heat advisory through Sunday here. Heat index is at 102'F right now- hot and humid! Birds and dogs panting and me too when I'm out there.

 

[RoseMarie1]

Just keep your DL deeper in the areas where it's needed most and keep turning it in to the DL. Pretty soon the litter pack there will start to attract bugs and such as the moisture builds up under the litter....and your chickens will find it one day and toss that stuff all over the coop in a search for the bugs. Then you can fork it back under the roosts and keep turning it in each day or so until the process happens all over again.

That's how I do it under my roosts...every other day I look to see if poo is on top of the litter and just take the pitch fork and turn it into the bedding or throw excess bedding from other areas on top of it. That keeps the flies and gnats from accessing it, keeps smells down and also feeds your litter pack bugs. Sort of like keeping a bin of earthworms...the worms don't like to come out in the open to feed on garbage and such, so you place them under the top layer of soil so they will compost the scraps. Same concept...the bugs that live in the deepest litter don't like having to come to the surface to feed on manure, so turning it in a little will help with all that.

The reason I know this is because if I turn the manure in the same place, I don't unearth any manure that I buried the time before! It's gone...been disseminated into the bedding below by all the busy little workers there.

I didn't realize there was a holiday this weekend?

I kind of lose track of time when I'm not working and don't have kids in school. Guess I won't be doing anything special that I don't normally do anyway.
You can raise your feeder up enough that they have to put their necks up and over the lip of the feeder and access the feed...that way they aren't diving head first into the feed and this lessens the feed going so far up their beaks.....like such...it doesn't eliminate all the feed on their beaks but it helps to not shove it up their nostrils each time.




I'd just take a pointy object and lightly clean those nostrils but I wouldn't get too vigorous on it...wouldn't want to poke the mucosa in there that is past the beak material. Mostly, the birds seem to eliminate all that on their own when they drink or eat in wet grass, so I wouldn't worry too much unless it's causing trouble with their breathing.

Lisa, I've never heard of that nor seen it in any of my birds, so that is a mystery. Maybe she dusts more in the cool of the dusting spots when it's hotter and gets more dust in her breathing passages? If she is acting fine otherwise and no other birds are getting that cough, you could wait and see what develops...could just go away on its own. If you don't want to do that, you could always dose her with some raw honey and garlic or even castor oil, to see what happens.

You shouldn't have to change out their water so frequently unless you are looking for something to do...maybe once every two days? If their water is getting dirty, it may be to your advantage to raise it up so they can't kick scurf into it.

OK so I'm doing right. I guess I just need to do this everyday to get the bugs going in there since the flies are so bad after it.... Would it be ok to get some mealworms and put in there?
That little chick is so cute in the feeder. lol

 

[Triple Willow]

Here's a funny video, "chicken police". Y'all with rabbits will appreciate this. LOL