Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Lacy Blues]

My one bucket in our room for the chicks (who are in the basement of the house - as Clem is in the chick area of the barn, and I do not trust her that much to leave playpens of chicks with her at night) - and the FF smells like we have a wine operation going!

I'd have trouble with all those cords for heated bowls here. Tilly & Rosa are trouble makers, and would surely eat the cords.

I really need to figure out how to slim them down for breeding season.. Any tips?

Ok, after hitting "quote" I see that Tilly and Rosa are geese? Geese don't scratch like chickens do, do they? I was going to suggest throwing their ff in your deep litter. That's what I'm thinking I'm going to do with my girls. I have some horse manure/straw in their yard and am thinking I will scatter their breakfast into this to get them outside in the sun and firming up for their health's sake. I think they'll have a blast tomorrow morning! Lots of chicken tv for me!

 

[B J Hopkins]

Wow, I've been off line for 8 days, Internet connection wasn't working. I now am behind nearly 400 posts!

Good news is I'm getting 12 eggs every other day. In between it's from 8-10 eggs.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Been off for almost a week, ugh! still catching up! I wanted to mention, some of my first layers were 4 partridge rock. All 4 were a year old, Huge girls, from a 4H member that was "quitting" and off to college... They were not daily layers, not very social, the word I would use is tolerant...but did provide a nice large egg a couple times a week. We have several friends that visit and some have small children.. and my parents skin is fragile since they are in their late 70s. I needed more docile birds, for sure. Mom just loves to hold the hens.
I actually traded them for 25CX chicks when i decided to rethink my layers and start with new chicks. I wanted more social birds so the best way i know is to raise them myself. I have 15 babies coming the 19th, SOO excited! I chose Australorps. Love their beautiful eyes! I plan to start them right off on FF. I have everything sitting and waiting for them... Considering a broody box instead tho, may put one together this weekend. Since our thermostat drops to 60 at nite.The next round will be BO's, and then I get my "project" birds, Lavender Orps. Can't wait! I kept my GLW, they are good layers, and Red, my roo, is a sweetheart. No one near us sells chicks, or eggs, even fresh eggs for eating... and this is considered "rural"? Hubby thinks i should offer chicks this spring. I don't know if i can give the babies up...

hehe. But I told him I can try it and see. In the meantime, he is all on board, into chicken math, makes me very happy!

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

Wow, I've been off line for 8 days, Internet connection wasn't working. I now am behind nearly 400 posts!

Good news is I'm getting 12 eggs every other day. In between it's from 8-10 eggs.

Awesome!!!

 

[mammaducky1]

Made an observation with my flock recently and wanted to know if anyone else had noticed this. Raised my first bunch of meat birds using FF this summer and the results were wonderful. We decided to do another batch in late fall and they should be ready to butcher end of December/first of January. HOWEVER - these birds stunk! This was really bothering me, since the last batch had no discernible odor. The odor was slightly different than pre FF, but it was still there and very unsatisfactory (Okay, the nose got spoiled!). These birds just smelled funky.

Last week, as I was walking out to the field to feed them, I was pondering this, and it suddenly hit me, they don't have green grass! We are in central Texas and the weather is so much milder than what most of you experience. We have only had a couple of freezes so far, but of course the freezes had killed the grass. So even though they are on the ground and cages moved daily they just were not getting much in the way of greens.

I immediately added alfalfa pellets to their FF bucket and within 48 hours the smell was gone!!!! The birds don't care for the pellets too much, but when broken down into the FF they don't have much choice. Have read on this thread about people using the alfalfa cubes, and may try this after this alfalfa bag is used up.

So, the question is - has anyone else noticed the difference in smell of their birds since the grass has died back, even though they are using FF? Also curious as to what others are giving their birds in the way of greens.

 

[Pozees]

Made an observation with my flock recently and wanted to know if anyone else had noticed this. Raised my first bunch of meat birds using FF this summer and the results were wonderful. We decided to do another batch in late fall and they should be ready to butcher end of December/first of January. HOWEVER - these birds stunk! This was really bothering me, since the last batch had no discernible odor. The odor was slightly different than pre FF, but it was still there and very unsatisfactory (Okay, the nose got spoiled!). These birds just smelled funky.

Last week, as I was walking out to the field to feed them, I was pondering this, and it suddenly hit me, they don't have green grass! We are in central Texas and the weather is so much milder than what most of you experience. We have only had a couple of freezes so far, but of course the freezes had killed the grass. So even though they are on the ground and cages moved daily they just were not getting much in the way of greens.

I immediately added alfalfa pellets to their FF bucket and within 48 hours the smell was gone!!!! The birds don't care for the pellets too much, but when broken down into the FF they don't have much choice. Have read on this thread about people using the alfalfa cubes, and may try this after this alfalfa bag is used up.

So, the question is - has anyone else noticed the difference in smell of their birds since the grass has died back, even though they are using FF? Also curious as to what others are giving their birds in the way of greens.

I am going to try it - I have also noticed a slight but discernible odor, just have a small laying flock so I can imagine it's much more noticeable with your meaty bunch. Good thinking!

 

[Miss Lydia]

I have been buying hay for my geese, grass hay, timothy ,orchard and my chickens are eating it too, so I would think that would qualify as greens? They seem to like pretty good , plus since i only have 32 in my mixed flock they also get Romaine lettuce 1X a week

 

[3 NH reds]

Glad I could help

My dog once ate an entire bundle of rotten asparagus and only threw up once. This asparagus was really, really bad. It was in the wet garbage, and she is a bad poodle who LOVVVES asparagus. It was moldy and nasty.

Bad dog..



See culprit here.. who had just ripped apart a garbage bag FULL of chick litter. To eat their poop. No she wasn't sick this time around. See the shaving stuck to her eye? LOL

Mine will eat almost anything cat poo is a favorite in dog world. When we had a batch of puppies we got them upstairs at 6 weeks and they were everyplace. one chewed into a lamp cord but never did that again, no harm done just learned a life lesson. I still prefer the fermented scratch grains but this is a money savings idea and it is cleaner to scoop and feed

 

[pigeonguy]

Anyone heard from Bruce???? Starting to worry about him.

Ya he's OK . Called him and he was busy didn't have time to talk said he would call back when he get a chance. Will ask him to drop you a line when he does.

 

[Costa Rica Art]

Ok, after hitting "quote" I see that Tilly and Rosa are geese? Geese don't scratch like chickens do, do they? I was going to suggest throwing their ff in your deep litter. That's what I'm thinking I'm going to do with my girls. I have some horse manure/straw in their yard and am thinking I will scatter their breakfast into this to get them outside in the sun and firming up for their health's sake. I think they'll have a blast tomorrow morning! Lots of chicken tv for me!

When my flock stays inside due to lots of rain (the door is open but they stay in) I take cracked corn and scatter it in the deep litter. It gives the hens something to do which keeps the heavy discussions down. Also I've looked the next day and do not see any wasted corn in the litter. If they stay in because of foul weather they scratch up the dirt floor which makes one stumble if not careful, the corn in the litter stops them from scratching up the dirt and I don't stumble as much LOL! I feed the FF in troughs on the concrete walkway around the coop which they scratch out all over the cement but when the trough is empty they clean up what they scattered.

Also, something I've noticed when the mash has no water standing on top is when I get smells other than the sourdough smell.

But as soon as I add more water the smell goes away. When I feed that FF it has a little different odor but the flock dives in and eats it all.

We have high humidity year round which sets us up for mold and other unpleasant problems/odors so keeping the FF submerged keeps it smelling like sourdough, the flock gobbles it down and I am happy.

Fermenting for 72 hours seems to work very well, I'm going to add another fermenter and see how the FF does with a 96 hour ferment, from what I've read what the FF develops is more beneficial the longer it ferments, the lactic bacteria and good yeasts dominate, and the pH is acidic which IMO is what adding ACV with mother does given enough time.