Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Kilsharion]

Just the sound of that confirms that I can't do it. With a full time job working 40 hours a week Monday - Friday, and rushing home to take care of 300+ animals (still having to feed rabbits, goats and sheep), have an egg/farm business, extra curricular activities, working out, etc, etc, etc, will not allow me time to do FF.

I can only wish.

Ah sounds about like my schedule...

I work about 40ish hours a week unless we have a project deadline looming and are in the red. Then we're looking at (no lie) at least 70+ hours a week....including working weekends.
I don't really have extra-curricular activities for obvious reasons - and, I don't get to work out other than what I do around our place. I just streamlined my cycle through the chores in the day. And, rely heavily on my husband and son or neighbours to take care of things if I get stuck at work and can't make it home. I'm blessed in that regard. Also blessed that my job is such that I can get BYC time while I'm working.

 

[Costa Rica Art]

I would HOPE it was less. Here in Northern Arizona (and almost every where I have traveled) it is normally $.25 (thwnty five cents) per gallon from those machines.

We fill all our bottles, 2 - five gallon, and 3 - two gallon bottles every week for just the two of us, and at $.25 per gallon, it costs me $4 per week for sixteen gallons of water. When I have been in WalMart and bought their water, they charge $.24 per gallon, but then added tax, so it actually cost more there than at the other places I have shopped and stopped.

I have never been sick a day in my life, but three years after moving here I was in a hospital with Kidney Stones, some of which were so big, we were trying to pick names for them. OUCH. The doctor and nurses told me that the water here was the reason for my hospitalization. We have been on store bought water ever since.

Skip

We had bought a home in a canyon in California which had an 80' well (water up to 20' of the well head) but it was near a creek with cattle up stream.

Every now and them the creek would flood as it drained other canyons as well. I wasn't wanting to drink liquid cow pies or other bad stuff so I researched and bought a 5 stage water filter which included a charcoal filter plus reverse osmosis and a UV internal light, booster pump, a 4 gallon storage tank, an above counter faucet and an ice maker kit for something like $600.00.

I just discounted the cost as over time not counting the hassle, the wasted gas, time and grunting heavy water jugs around the system paid for itself with the cheapest price per gallon of water (it is 8 years old now).

The ice maker in the freezer produces nice clear ice plus cold drinking water thru the freezer door (I don't need a filter in the freezer), my coffee tastes great.

Another huge benefit is the humidifier tank on my Bi-Pap does not calcium up like it would from regular tap water. I also use the water for the FF as we get water now here in Costa Rica from the local muni water system.

I can use local filters or order the better ones from the manufacture of the system.

If you would like more information about the system, PM me and I'll be glad to give you the exact cost and the web page you can use to see the system and order it if you wish.

 

[J2Jonner]

Started my first batch of FF in a 5 gallon pail just now. Started the culture with a few Acidophilus pills that I had bought a couple years back and forgot about (for humans) - they indicate 1 billion CFU's of Lactobacillus acidophilus & Bifidobacterium longum. I just didn't want to wait for the LAB culture sitting on top of the fridge to finish cooking to get the LAB! I suppose I can add some from there next week too in case there are "local" kinds that would be good. Thank you all for the wealth of information!!

Jon
New BYC Poster

 

[Kilsharion]

Welcome to the forum, Jon

 

[bbdal]

In reading on here, it seems lots of people use ACV in their ff. Is this just as an additive? I read elsewhere it is not a suitable culture and that you "don't have to" have anything added to get ff going. Is there added benefit to start with a culture? What would be good suggestions? I have yogurt and probiotics on hand. Or just let it do its thing without adding anything? Do you guys add ACV just for the benefits it provides or to help with ff? Thanks!

 

[greenhorn]

Just wanted to say this thread has been a great help with my own birds. We used the OP's method of giving our broiler chicks one bag of fermented feed then we went to a mix of fermented grains with soy bean meal.

I think our mix comes out to about 22.5% protein before it's fermented. It's 2 parts wheat, 2 parts oats, 1 part cracked corn and 1 part soy bean meal. We try and ferment for 24 hours before giving it to the birds. From our research fermenting soy bean meal removes the antinutritional factors from the meal. The chick feed we use has SBM in it and we always fed it to our broilers for the first 4-5 weeks and wow did that create a stink. Now with fermenting first the smell is wayyy down and the birds seem so much more healthy.

These broilers are very active outside in their run, they forage like crazy, scratch for grains and eat the fodder we provide for them with vigor. I've not seen broilers act quite like these. We do get 2 different kinds of broilers from the hatchery we go through and these have white legs. They yellow legged ones seem to grow a tad faster but have a higher mortality rate. Speed isn't the issue, getting birds to finish in 8 weeks is plenty fast enough and allows us to harvest about 25 a month. Every 4 weeks we order 25 new broiler chicks, put 25 more in the large coop and harvest 25. Works out pretty good, once we get the freezer full this year we plan on selling a bunch to help with feed costs. I think this fermenting method has dropped my feed bill in half and made our birds much healthier. The fodder thing is another avenue i'd look into because it's also very nutritional and inexpensive.

I want to thank the folks who put this thread together and everybody who offered their great constructive input. BYC does have some very informative threads about keeping a healthy flock. I have learned a lot here in the past couple years!

I have gone beyond whats probably available in this thread and didn't read the entire thread but it did kick me off to a new direction to learn some very important stuff. Now I know my broilers were sick their entire lives from eating raw soy bean meal and it's probably another reason why we Americans have such health issues.

I want to start growing our own non gmo organic grains for feeding ourselves and our chickens this year. Hope to get to where we don't have to buy any grains or store purchased breads. Fodder goes a long way and when you use it with scratch feed, fermented grains and non meat table scraps the birds are that much more healthier. Of course the table scraps should be healthy too, which they often aren't so much....

Anyway I don't want to get off topic.

I have been researching about using field peas instead of soy products for a high protein substitute and found an elevator/grainery that does organic beans, peas, soy, corn and some grains, Not extremely far away. Going organic may be a tad more costly though. May have to reserve the total organic birds for our own table if it's going to be too costly for our customers. I think most folks who want farm raised birds are doing it for health reasons though.... Will have to see how it all plays out.

 

[Kilsharion]

In reading on here, it seems lots of people use ACV in their ff. Is this just as an additive? I read elsewhere it is not a suitable culture and that you "don't have to" have anything added to get ff going. Is there added benefit to start with a culture? What would be good suggestions? I have yogurt and probiotics on hand. Or just let it do its thing without adding anything? Do you guys add ACV just for the benefits it provides or to help with ff? Thanks!

1) Yes, it is an additive - and ACV without mother will not provide the intended "additive" which is the initial bloom of probiotics. However, all that being said, adding vinegar to your FF will also erradicate any concern about alcohol being made....some on here have voiced a worry over that in the past.

2) It's a perfectly fine culture as was clarified in the thousands of posts in this thread - hard to wade through, I know.

3) You can totally start without anything except the feed and water if you have well, rain or chlorine/chloramine light/free water....and, are in a good location for wild yeasts. Not all locations are great for such a thing.

4) The added benefit of starting with a culture (ie. yogurt, sourdough starter, ACV mother, yeast, etc) is that you get a quicker kickoff. Going without a starter takes longer as you wait for the sugars in the grains to break down and hope for a wild yeast culture to become interested. You also add a different set of probiotics depending on what's being used for fermenation. All fermenation results in variations of probiotics. I do a mix.

5) All the suggestions you mentioned and the literally hundreds of them in this thread....particularly, the very first post.

6) Using yogurt to start it is perfectly fine. Letting it start wild is fine. It just depends on how fast you want to see results, how you feel about various types of fermentation and how well your area is suited for a good wild culture. Celts used to travel days to get to the "perfect location" that had the wild yeast they wanted for their mead. Different wild cultures will provide different smells and flavours.

7) ACV with mother has quite a few benefits, helps to ease the minds of those concerned about alcohol content from fermentation and is just an all around good thing to use to help ensure a 'clean' fermentation....since we aren't going after beer, wine, mead or anything alcoholic, it does no harm. However, it is not a requirement.

You can search this thread by using the "search this thread" option at the top and bottom of the forum page.

 

[greenhorn]

In reading on here, it seems lots of people use ACV in their ff. Is this just as an additive? I read elsewhere it is not a suitable culture and that you "don't have to" have anything added to get ff going. Is there added benefit to start with a culture? What would be good suggestions? I have yogurt and probiotics on hand. Or just let it do its thing without adding anything? Do you guys add ACV just for the benefits it provides or to help with ff? Thanks!

I think they use ACV with Mother because it has a yeast culture going on in it already. The kind with mother that i've been able to find is organic.

I have also used blackstrap molasses and the chick starter packets you get at TSC. The bacteria in that stuff is definitely beneficial for the birds and I believe it helps in the fermentation process while keeping a good culture going in in the mash. When you back slop it anyway.....

Basically the ACV with mother replaces yeast. You could get a brewers yeast that works best in the temperature you are keeping your mash at. You basically need some sort of yeast culture to get the fermentation process started. Once you have it going on, back slopping will keep it going if you keep everything clean. Use plastic buckets and plastic spoons, never aluminum or wood. Stainless steel isn't bad to use either.

 

[Kilsharion]

I think they use ACV with Mother because it has a yeast culture going on in it already. The kind with mother that i've been able to find is organic.

I have also used blackstrap molasses and the chick starter packets you get at TSC. The bacteria in that stuff is definitely beneficial for the birds and I believe it helps in the fermentation process while keeping a good culture going in in the mash. When you back slop it anyway.....

Basically the ACV with mother replaces yeast. You could get a brewers yeast that works best in the temperature you are keeping your mash at. You basically need some sort of yeast culture to get the fermentation process started. Once you have it going on, back slopping will keep it going if you keep everything clean. Use plastic buckets and plastic spoons, never aluminum or wood. Stainless steel isn't bad to use either.

Brewer's yeast doesn't do anything for fermentation. You would be better suited to add it after you have drained your FF.

Brewer's yeast - beer brewer's yeast - is obviously good for fermentation.

Brewer's yeast - NUTRITIONAL supplement - is not the same as an active yeast used for making of breads, wines or beers.

I apologize for my ambiguous statement and hope this clarifies.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/1...ence-between-brewers-yeast-nutritional-yeast/ If you want to know more.

 

[greenhorn]

Brewer's yeast doesn't do anything for fermentation. You would be better suited to add it after you have drained your FF.

Hmmm.... Seemed to work when I made mash in the past.... There are other yeasts that will find the mash eventually through the air but still yeasts right?

What does the mother have that brewers yeast doesn't?

From my understanding brewers yeast does ferment the sugars in the grains etc they use to make beer why wouldn't the same yeasts ferment the grains used to make mash?

According to this brewers yeast is actually used to ferment: http://beeradvocate.com/beer/101/yeast

Since grains contain fermentable sugars, seems like it would work.