Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Miss Lydia]

It probably would but I would add either an all flock feed or the layer your talking about to get a more balanced diet. I use Flock raiser, scratch grains and Boss and whole oats in my ff. works great.

 

[Chick_In_The_Burbs]

Awesome! Thanks Beekissed and Miss Lydia!

 

[notinoz2007]

I'll scoot on over....saved you a seat!

There is room for more in the hot seat...always room for more.

i'll sit a minute. i appreciate this discussion, its bringing me back to reality. i have taught my kids from the beginning that we will eat our roosters, this worked out well, they were excited to eat the big chicken legs and always asked who was next. i felt this was a little morbid, but my kids have no problem eating our chickens. i like that i can provide something original for them. now they know the difference between our chicken and store chicken and understand the gap between alive and on the plate. so many people dont know anything about the food they eat, and they like it that way.
i must add, sometimes to make things a little easier a fellow bycer and i trade roosters. if i grow one from a chick and love the way it looks and just dont want to kill him myself i give him to her, and she does the same. its like providing each other dinner, lol. just a little more work involved.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Someone was talking about the 3 bucket system which I thought sounded good, since that way you can use the liquid in the second bucket to pour back over your fresh feed and grains you add. I tried it yesterday putting the inner bucket into another 5 gal bucket and poured the liquid from my first bucket back over the new feed and grains. Is that what you mean by back slopping Bee? only thing is I was having a hard time visualizing how to do it with the 2 bucket system. I think a video would be awesome, especially for folks like me that need to see something done to get it. in our heads.

 

[notinoz2007]

I can honestly say that I've never seen crystallized mold...of any kind. The white layer of mother should be more a whitish/gray in color...no crystals. Does your feed mix have a high salt content or is your water real hard?

oh yes, we do have hard water. it does look like salt crystals but i'm not sure about the salt content in feed. i have purina layena crumble and star brand scratch which i think is just cracked corn, millet and a little boss. will see if i have any feed bags around. my mom suggested it looked like a skim of fat, but i dont have any meat in there except a fly or 2. it still smells sour to me, like it did last week. i switched to the 2 bucket and added a little water at your recommendation.
my chickens also still have smelly runny poo after 2 weeks on ff. i feed about 2 cups dry crumble every 2 days just so they remember how to scratch the dirt, and they get about a gallon of veggie scraps a day for 14 chickens. i was thinking maybe thats too much veg? can that be possible?

 

[Ullie]

Someone was talking about the 3 bucket system which I thought sounded good, since that way you can use the liquid in the second bucket to pour back over your fresh feed and grains you add. I tried it yesterday putting the inner bucket into another 5 gal bucket and poured the liquid from my first bucket back over the new feed and grains. Is that what you mean by back slopping Bee? only thing is I was having a hard time visualizing how to do it with the 2 bucket system. I think a video would be awesome, especially for folks like me that need to see something done to get it. in our heads.

This is what I do. I just have a larger tub to set the second bucket in while I pour some of the stuff from the first over it.
Then I put the second bucket back on top of the first, it goes pretty quick and there is very little liquid in the tub which I pour back over the first or just discard.

 

[Beekissed]

Oh, boy....now they've made it even MORE difficult???

When one 5 gal. bucket sits down inside another 5 gal. bucket(or smaller size buckets of the same size), the bottom bucket has about 6 in. of empty space. This reservoir will hold the liquids from your top bucket. When you add plain ol' water to the top bucket, the water filters down through your feed and adds to the hyper fermented water in the bottom reservoir. As it mixes, it rises in level into the feed in the top bucket through the holes in the bottom and sides of the top bucket. This disperses the fermented water throughout the feed in the top bucket. THIS is the backslop....you are using the same fermented cultures throughout all the time you are fermenting and this can go on for as long as you want without changing out that water in the bottom.

The residue and powdered feed stuff from your feed mix will settle into the bottom of the bottom bucket and the cultures there will feed on each new infusion of these particles. This keeps your cultures from dying and letting bad bacteria grow, so this can go on and on and on without every changing out your fermented water. In other words, you only have to use ACV one time...ever..for your feed mix.

You don't have to even move these buckets one from another, you just adjust your liquids if you don't want to have to strain off. You don't have to pour anything into that top bucket except plain water when you add fresh feed...and just add enough for your consistency wants.

It's really, really simple and only takes mere seconds each day to tend to or dip out the mix for feeding.

 

[Beekissed]

oh yes, we do have hard water. it does look like salt crystals but i'm not sure about the salt content in feed. i have purina layena crumble and star brand scratch which i think is just cracked corn, millet and a little boss. will see if i have any feed bags around. my mom suggested it looked like a skim of fat, but i dont have any meat in there except a fly or 2. it still smells sour to me, like it did last week. i switched to the 2 bucket and added a little water at your recommendation.
my chickens also still have smelly runny poo after 2 weeks on ff. i feed about 2 cups dry crumble every 2 days just so they remember how to scratch the dirt, and they get about a gallon of veggie scraps a day for 14 chickens. i was thinking maybe thats too much veg? can that be possible?

Yep...it's possible. If you feed rabbits a lot of veggies, they get the runs too. Not enough roughage in the diet will do that. I'd keep those veggies light and only on occasion. I'd not feed any dry crumbles at all. If you want them to scratch in the dirt, put some of the FF down for them...they will eat it right off the ground like any other feed.

Does your mix smell fermented? If not, it could be that you are just feeding wet feeds and this would promote bad mold growth in the feed.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Oh, boy....now they've made it even MORE difficult???

When one 5 gal. bucket sits down inside another 5 gal. bucket(or smaller size buckets of the same size), the bottom bucket has about 6 in. of empty space. This reservoir will hold the liquids from your top bucket. When you add plain ol' water to the top bucket, the water filters down through your feed and adds to the hyper fermented water in the bottom reservoir. As it mixes, it rises in level into the feed in the top bucket through the holes in the bottom and sides of the top bucket. This disperses the fermented water throughout the feed in the top bucket. THIS is the backslop....you are using the same fermented cultures throughout all the time you are fermenting and this can go on for as long as you want without changing out that water in the bottom.

The residue and powdered feed stuff from your feed mix will settle into the bottom of the bottom bucket and the cultures there will feed on each new infusion of these particles. This keeps your cultures from dying and letting bad bacteria grow, so this can go on and on and on without every changing out your fermented water. In other words, you only have to use ACV one time...ever..for your feed mix.

You don't have to even move these buckets one from another, you just adjust your liquids if you don't want to have to strain off. You don't have to pour anything into that top bucket except plain water when you add fresh feed...and just add enough for your consistency wants.

It's really, really simple and only takes mere seconds each day to tend to or dip out the mix for feeding.

I understand what your saying I guess I am not using enough water then because my ff is pretty dry and the water was sitting in the bottom of the bucket not up far enough to get back through the holes into the ff. after it drained down into the outer bucket.

 

[Ullie]

Oh, boy....now they've made it even MORE difficult???

When one 5 gal. bucket sits down inside another 5 gal. bucket(or smaller size buckets of the same size), the bottom bucket has about 6 in. of empty space. This reservoir will hold the liquids from your top bucket. When you add plain ol' water to the top bucket, the water filters down through your feed and adds to the hyper fermented water in the bottom reservoir. As it mixes, it rises in level into the feed in the top bucket through the holes in the bottom and sides of the top bucket. This disperses the fermented water throughout the feed in the top bucket. THIS is the backslop....you are using the same fermented cultures throughout all the time you are fermenting and this can go on for as long as you want without changing out that water in the bottom.

The residue and powdered feed stuff from your feed mix will settle into the bottom of the bottom bucket and the cultures there will feed on each new infusion of these particles. This keeps your cultures from dying and letting bad bacteria grow, so this can go on and on and on without every changing out your fermented water. In other words, you only have to use ACV one time...ever..for your feed mix.

You don't have to even move these buckets one from another, you just adjust your liquids if you don't want to have to strain off. You don't have to pour anything into that top bucket except plain water when you add fresh feed...and just add enough for your consistency wants.

It's really, really simple and only takes mere seconds each day to tend to or dip out the mix for feeding.

No not more difficult

just helping things along.
It's been my experience that If there is no disturbance, the water in the top just sits and soaks in the new addition without enough exposure with the bottom fermented juices.