Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[BlackBart]

I was told it was high in B Vitamins. You can see the barley in the mash. They go for that first.
I usually put stale dated bread in the bottom on the trough and dump on the beer mash. The bread soaks up all the juices. People have told me egg production will go down but I haven't noticed it.

 

[Achickenwrangler#1]

Hmmmm, yeah, I'd research it further...after the whole beer fermenting process I'd think most of the good stuff would leach out of the grains, including the barley, but who knows really, not me...I live no where near a brewery so never considered it. Chickens will eat anything, but seem to know what's best given a choice...I'll stick with my wholesome grains and make sure they get all the good parts...it is fairly cheep after all...I just don't believe a waste product, if it were good for something, would not be utilized for a buck by the larger companies...even if it went into fertilizer, they'd try to turn a profit.

 

[BlackBart]

Found the paper from the Brewery, parital abstract from the Dept of Agriculture

Crude Protein 24%-27% undegradable
Fat 6.5%
Ash 4.8 %
Crude Fiber 15% -25% depending on product
Nitrogen Free Extract 46.7%
Arginine , Cysteine , Glycine,, Isolucine Leucine, Lysine, Methionine , Phenylalnine, Proline , Serine , Threonine, Tryptophan, Tryosine and Valine . (didn't post the ratios)
good source of Carbs, water soluble vitamins, highly digestable

As well as animal feed, it is used for commercial composting, dog cookies (?),etc. extracts are used in the Pharmacutical industry and various other unique items.
For Cattle it can replace up to 30% of the regular feed.

The Brewery told me it is expensive to have it trucked out to the dump. Some larger Breweries charge farmers per garbage bucket or truckload
The Brewery I get the mash from is small, so none of the big cattle farmers or the Commercial soil/compost manufacturers want to bother, it is not worth the time (wages) and cost of fuel.

 

[Kassaundra]

Everything I've ever read about spent brewery grain has been nothing but amazing, I would love to use it but the closeset brewery I can find is 1 hr away w/ a close to $5 toll road (round trip). I tried googling for micro breweries in my area, but so far haven't found any, I'm not sure if they don't exist here or I am not looking in the right place.

 

[Achickenwrangler#1]

Sorry, just a hardened sceptic and naturally argumentative! but! What exactly is undegradable crude protein anyway? Hmmm. I'd like to see some studies published by someone other than the brewery..what is the ratio of the highly digestive carbs and vitamins...whoops, there I go again.

 

[BlackBart]

It wasn't done by the Brewery, it was done by the Dept of Agriculture and the Brewery gave me the abstract, with the proper letterhead.
People have been feeding beer mash to Livestock as long as they have been making beer.
Nobody has to feed it if they don't want to.

 

[myhubbycallsmechickeemama]

We butchered our broilers yesterday and they are all in the freezer but one and we ate it tonight!! OMG, I will never feed anything but fermented feed, they were almost 10 weeks and they actually have dark meat on the legs and thighs and the flavor is by far the best chicken I have ever eaten in my life.

My total cost per pound this year was about .26 less than last year, I also paid .17 more per bird this year than last and still saved money.. Save money and have better flavor, can't beat that!!!

As far as I'm concerned, the only way to raise these little stinkers is with FF. So many pros to very few if any cons!!!

ETA: We already have 22 of the 35 sold and will make about $52 profit after the cost of all the feed and all of the chickens and still have 13 chickens to put in my freezer free and clear. Well, except for my time but it was a labor of love!!

 

[Achickenwrangler#1]

So if you estimate the money you would have spent to buy the meat you put in your freezer, that would be the real profit, I mean top quality meat, not the bargain price of chicken you don't know what it ate or how it was processed at closing time, and what chemicals it was poisoned with. Just the fact you have done it all is priceless.

 

[burnyourmoney]

I've been feeding my layer flock of 16 FF since about page 25. I think that was about 2 months ago but who knows. Anyways, they are only getting scratch but today we got 200 meaties. I wanted to jump start the fermentation process for the meaties with their crumble so I took some of the liquid out of the scratch bucket and put it in a new bucket for the crumbles. Instant bubbles! My question however is, what is all this business on the bottom of the bucket? Is it dead yeast? diatomaceous earth?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v603/burnyourmoney/photo-5.jpg

So far the chicks are preferring the dry crumble, but that will change...

 

[burnyourmoney]

Wish I knew how to delete this double post...