Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[NickyPick]

I've heard layer mash referred to here, then people say they don't feed pellets or crumbles. So, what exactly IS layer mash???

 

[IttyBiddyRedHen]

Started the FF here yesterday. I use the crumbles and some scratch mixed in. It has finally started fermenting really well, after 4 days. Also, I am growing sprouts with BOSS, and add that to the FF. Feed mid-morning, let them eat on it all day. They cleaned their bowl yesterday, and wanted more this morning.

 

[Beekissed]

I've heard layer mash referred to here, then people say they don't feed pellets or crumbles. So, what exactly IS layer mash???

I buy from a local feed mill so layer mash from that source is finely ground grains and other nutrients and is meant to be fed wet, but can be fed dry. It hasn't been processed or heated in any way to get it formed into crumbles or pellets and it has a fresher smell and appearance because of this.

Good mash looks golden and smells like breakfast cereal...has the same nutrients as other types/forms of layer ration but mash is just fresher and you can actually see and smell this fact. Processed feeds look a little grey or beige in color and haven't got that fresh smell about them. My chickens prefer the mash and it makes a lovely ferment...it was actually meant to be fed as a mash or porridge.

 

[aoxa]

I forgot you were a nurse. You must have had your fair share of whiners

I'm just not that person. Never was a people person. Always related more to animals.

I feel confused when people get emotional around me. I don't know what to say, or do. ie: I turn into an awkward mess lol

You simply have NO idea.....    I could have a set of Whiner Encyclopedias full of content, with new issues for each year.  But, for the most part, most of my patients have a need to whine and are truly in pain and discomfort~those are the ones that rarely, if ever, whine at all....these I will lay down my life for each and every day and park my judgements at the door. 

It's the folks you work with and socialize with that fill the Whine Chronicles... 

After you have dealt with true pain and anguish all day, you get a little crusty shell that hardens over your heart for anyone with self-inflicted stress and troubles.  I was a very unsympathetic mother and would tape broken fingers and send them back out to play.  Big gash in the chin?  Clean it, slap a bandaid on it in steri-strip style, and send them back in the pool.  Not that I didn't do the obligatory mother comforting but it was on a timer....no excessive boo-boo lovin'.  Clean it, kiss it, bandage it, forget it...that's my mama mantra.     A no whiner zone at my home. 

I love your attitude towards parenting. I am exactly like that with my nephew, and so is my brother. Saw him wipe out really good the other week while carrying a basket of eggs to the house. Real bad wipe out. I flinched but did not react. Kids usually cry when they see their parents reactions, or if they really hurt. Most times it just scares them.

I have seen his mother watch him fall and scoop him up and "oh baby baby.. it's okay" him. I just don't see what the point of that is

Oh yes.. I do agree with that about the co-workers. The worst cases are usually when the entire staff is female. I do book-keeping for orthodontic clinics. The girls there... Let's just leave it at that..

 

[mrsamplias]

Quote: I choose not to associate with these people. My time is too valuable to be wasted on such non-sense.

I put up with it from my family (my grandparents), but I will not put up with it from 'friends'. This is how I have friendships that have lasted a lifetime (though I'm young yet, but have had the same best friend since I was 12).

I blank out when my grandmother starts talking about the cost of lettuce and how it is outrageous. I go to my happy place.
very smart!! I tell my kids, "You are oil, they are water."

 

[aoxa]

Last time I went to the feed store, I asked for a bag of scratch and when I got home noticed that the ticket didn't say 'chicken scratch' it said 'poultry grains.' Opened the bag and it was completely different from the scratch I've always gotten - had so much more in it - millet, corn, oats,  what looks like the peanut hearts, and two or three other things I can't quite identify. I don't know if they made a mistake or if this is a new scratch blend they do for winter, but I sure do LIKE it! And so do my girls!!


Mine are 21 weeks old on Friday. They've been on FF since they were around 8 weeks old. I just cannot get over how much money I save on FF - there is ZERO waste of feed, they are all so healthy and shiny, and the coop is a breeze to clean!! I spend about 1/3 of the money on feed for 30 chickens that a neighbor of ours spends for 16 chickens. I've tried to get him to switch over  to FF several times but he'd rather complain about the cost of feed than do something about it. Oh, well, that's his wallet, not mine!!

I have encountered TONS of people like that and about all aspects of their lives.  They seem to enjoy stress and the attention they get from vocalizing their stressed situations, so are quite unwilling to do anything proactive to change it because they are getting the benefits of all the attention they crave. 

I choose not to associate with these people. My time is too valuable to be wasted on such non-sense.


I put up with it from my family (my grandparents), but I will not put up with it from 'friends'. This is how I have friendships that have lasted a lifetime (though I'm young yet, but have had the same best friend since I was 12).


I blank out when my grandmother starts talking about the cost of lettuce and how it is outrageous. I go to my happy place.

very smart!!  I tell my kids, "You are oil, they are water."

 

[armorfirelady]

I am the same way for mothering. I remember when my son wiped out when he was a small child, He barely wimpered and i didnt go nuts over it tho I knew he needed stitches. We washed it & went to doc for stitches. My neighbors were freaking out more than he was lol I figured just all my years an EMT & daily dealing of people on the phone screaming for an ambulance for a hang nail

 

[aoxa]

I am the same way for mothering. I remember when my son wiped out when he was a small child, He barely wimpered and i didnt go nuts over it tho I knew he needed stitches.  We washed it & went to doc for stitches. My neighbors were freaking out more than he was lol   I figured just all my years an EMT & daily dealing of people on the phone screaming for an ambulance for a hang nail

Hangnails hurt lol

Really though? Some people are weird.. Speaking with someone who would call an ambulance for such a thing.

I only once had to be driven to hospital in an ambulance. My cat was attacked by a dog and I tried to console him by picking him up. Uh nope.. Don't EVER pick up a cat that is scared/injured. He jumped at my face and missed my eyes by millimetres. I had to have 22 stitches around my eyes.

Life lesson learned though. I think my fiancée was more scared than I was. I was there crying about them not blaming the cat. I didn't even feel any pain. Guess it was shock? I had more of a headache later than anything. Charlie was fine. He had fallen from a tree (he was fat, and could not hang on - so he fell). Darn dog.

 

[Lacy Blues]

Everywhere I have ever worked is literally filled to the gills with these types of people! Can't escape them, though now I have....

I have family like this and I too avoid them like the plague. I have also slowly cut all my former "friends" out of my life that also have this problem....and that took out most of everyone I know. It's almost an epidemic proportions plague of the mind for society now to complain loudly and often about things they could easily change, but won't. But they still expect you to sit still and listen ad nauseum to their litany of problems.

I'm a fixer, not a whiner. If I have a problem I tackle it. If I cannot solve it, I learn to bear it gracefully...and quietly. The world is more and more lacking in those who are willing to solve the problems and more abundant in those who like to hear the sounds of their voices in a high pitched and rhythmic drone set on the Problem Station.

Don't believe me? Go to the section of the forum that deals with health issues and injuries and try to help. The most frequent flyers on that forum are also those who will either ignore your help and continue to do it "their way"...as that has been so successful for them in the past, or they will deny a million times that your solution will work "for me" and that they could "never do that!!!"~translate "WILL never do that".

It all makes my butt tired and it gets more tired the older I get.

Oh boy is this true! I wonder sometimes how people ever lived a single day without running to a doctor... even for their animals. If a doctor doesn't give the advice, then it is useless to try. I don't go to doctors myself, don't trust 'em. I've seen too much damage done to friends who put their lives in the hands of doctors. I realize they have their place, I'd go for broken bones or some disease but for the disease, I'd probably just get a diagnosis and then see what I could do for myself. Some people think this is foolish... can't help that.

When you ask someone how they are, you really don't want to hear their life story. I am not good at consoling people - so this makes for a really awkward conversation, that I just avoid them the next go-around.
I'd rather have 1-3 close friends than hundreds of whining so-called friends.
I delete any negative people on FB if I see them whining. We actually are severing ties with a 'friend' who continues to write complaints about her job on there. Can you imagine?

Y'know, there was an old man that used to attend the church I went to. Everybody would always shake hands and ask "how ya doin?" The majority of them didn't listen for an answer, just went on to greet the next person. Well, this old man, when he asked "how ya doin?" He actually waited for you to answer and genuinely CARED how I was doing. After he died, that was the thing that I recalled about him that I liked the most. He cared.

If you don't care how someone is doing, don't ask. I'm sure there is something else you could think up to say that wouldn't require any commitment.

I'm not trying to start a fight, and I don't like whiners either. I am not one. But it is really nice, and rare, to encounter someone who means what they say.

 

[Kassaundra]

I have had people call the ambulance for an eyelash in thier eye, being thirsty (both of those young healthy 20 somthing people), paper cut, cat scratch to the leg that didn't even bleed, literally barely red and didn't break the skin and less then 1/2 inch long on her thigh. Normal people would be shocked at what some people call the ambulance for or take themselves to the ER for.