Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[aoxa]

Almost 4000 posts. Someone please repost the standard ff recipe.

Quote:

• 2 days worth of feed
• cover with water
• 1/4 cup unpasteurized apple cider vinegar with "Mother" (more for larger amounts of feed)
• Mix well
• Cover loosely with an old towel
• let sit for 24 - 48 hours (stirring twice daily) before feeding.

To feed, just scoop some out with your colander or strainer and allow it to drain until it is wet but not soupy. Be sure to use a plastic bowl or feeder to serve the fermented feed to your chickens. Older chickens will take a while to get used to the new flavor and texture, but most chickens learn to love fermented feed very quickly!

Once a day, add more feed to replace what you took out that day. Add a "glug" or two of apple cider vinegar every 3-5 days to keep the ferment going. Over time, your chickens will require less feed as their bodies are getting more nutritional value from the fermented feed, and you will not need to feed as much.

You can keep the same bucket of fermented feed going indefinitely without worry about it "going bad."

Find all info here: http://naturalchickenkeeping.blogspot.ca/p/fermented-feed.html

 

[aoxa]

I do it a little differently myself. I don't cover with that much water. I use a 2 bucket system.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I started a second bucket tonight, now I have 2 buckets going in my house. Hopefully this way one bucket will get to sit long enough to ferment.

 

[Lacy Blues]

That's what I do. I have one 5 gal bucket going for the morning feed and another for the evening feed. That gives them 24 hours to ferment.

 

[Miss Lydia]

That's what I do. I have one 5 gal bucket going for the morning feed and another for the evening feed. That gives them 24 hours to ferment.

Do you add fresh dry feed every day? I am still trying to get the measurements down as to how much to feed, feeding ducks and geese puts it in a different set up than most, I think i have it down to 11/2 gallon per day now. with corn and meal worms as late afternoon treat. I worry I'm feeding too much but they are hungry. Hopefully when spring gets here and there is more to forage for I can cut back on the ff.

 

[Eggcessive]

I'm doing the 2-bucket system with about 3 day's worth of feed(I use 24% gamebird feed with 8%scratch grains, 50:50 which equals about 16% protein.) They like the whole grains and it keeps the holes in the bucket from clogging. I have now added an extra 3rd bucket to which I use some of the fermented liquid in the bottom bucket to start 3 more day's worth, then add food and water. In the 3rd bucket. I keep the water level over the feed and it seems to ferment quicker. So by the time I use up the top of the 2 bucket system, I just dump the 3 rd bucket contents into the 1st bucket and then start another 3rd bucket. Or if I want to clean out the 1st bucket to make sure that the drain holes are open, I do that first.

 

[TamTurkey]

Thank you.

 

[Lacy Blues]

Do you add fresh dry feed every day? I am still trying to get the measurements down as to how much to feed, feeding ducks and geese puts it in a different set up than most, I think i have it down to 11/2 gallon per day now. with corn and meal worms as late afternoon treat. I worry I'm feeding too much but they are hungry. Hopefully when spring gets here and there is more to forage for I can cut back on the ff.

Yes I do add dry feed every day. If they are hungry, you're not feeding too much. I like to keep my birds a little on the hungry side. However, if their feed pans are spotless ten minutes after feeding, I know they need more. Like tonight at feeding time. I have a pen that has 4 bantam girls in it and one very small large fowl boy. I gave them 3 big scoops of food and then I came back around for some reason (don't remember why now) but it was less than ten minutes. I looked and their pan was completely empty, like I hadn't fed them at all! So I went and got another scoop for them. Amazing!

I have decided in the last couple days that I will feed their more interesting portion at night. In the morning, I am feeding the smaller portion like I used to feed at night... they always left some. The last two days I have done this. Just fermented grains in the morning. If I have a fodder pad ready, I'll distribute that between the pens for snacking. For the evening feed, I am mixing fermented grains and as many sprouts of whatever seed I have ready along with dry cat food all mixed in. I'm feeding more at night now than I was feeding for breakfast and they have been cleaning up every bit! This is fantastic to me because I hate to think of them going to bed for a long cold night without having their crops full.

 

[AlivianAcres]

Has anyone here used ff with their rabbits? We keep breeding rabbits for meat and pelts. The 3 adults go through a 50# bag of pellets plus food scraps and an 1/4-1/6 of a bail of hay in 3 weeks...I would love to bring down food costs there!

 

[Miss Lydia]

Has anyone here used ff with their rabbits? We keep breeding rabbits for meat and pelts. The 3 adults go through a 50# bag of pellets plus food scraps and an 1/4-1/6 of a bail of hay in 3 weeks...I would love to bring down food costs there!

I believe there was talk some ways back about using ff on rabbits but I could not begin to tell you where,