Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[jeepgirl13]

@kilaharion: ill trade you my giant roaches for your snakes! I let my girls out everyday and haven't seen any of the buggers outside anymore. Its like they come in my house to hide. And my house is clean! I'm hoping they will go away soon. We've only been here a couple months and from what I understand from my landlord the previous tenants were very dirty.

 

[Lacy Blues]

I used to live in Texas ages ago and I remember those water beetles.

It has nothing to do with how clean you keep your house. They're not the filthy german cockroach that infests people's homes no matter how clean they are. I think they might be related to dubia roaches and I'm going strictly with appearance here. They seem to like hiding under things, for instance, I learned my lesson when in my feed room I had let the empty bags pile up on the floor before putting them out in the trash can. The day I picked up those bags to throw them away... BUGS EVERYWHERE and FAST! Man were they fast! My chickens made short work of them though. I just called them over and they went to town on them!

YUK!

 

[Kilsharion]

Wow, your guineas don't take care of your snake problem? Guineas hate snakes, they gang up on snakes, even rattlers. At our home in Caliente California we had rattlers, some over 6' long, they were a problem until we got guineas. You've seen the old western serials on TV where the Indians circle the wagon train, well our guineas did the same thing with the rattlers.

They would circle the snake and pester it. Then one would get its attention by getting in front and close, when the snake would shift its concentration to that guinea another would come in from behind and peck the back of the rattles head.

This was repeated until the snake was dead then the young guineas would keep attacking the dead snake, I suppose to get the feel of the snake, taste or whatever.

There was never a rattler or other snake on our property or in the guineas range. Next time you see a snake either toss it to the guineas or heard the guineas to it, they'll take over from there and I'm guessing they will then keep your place free of snakes.

I'm hoping they do so, this year. I didn't have them last year.

So far, we've only had ticks around for them to control...but, we're getting warm enough, regularly enough that snakes are making appearances around the area. So **crosses fingers** Glad to hear you've had good results with 'em

@kilaharion: ill trade you my giant roaches for your snakes! I let my girls out everyday and haven't seen any of the buggers outside anymore. Its like they come in my house to hide. And my house is clean! I'm hoping they will go away soon. We've only been here a couple months and from what I understand from my landlord the previous tenants were very dirty.

No thank you

At least I can tend to keep snakes out of the house. Once roaches have moved it, it takes either an act of gawd or my mother moving in to make them move out.

**shudders**

Lacy: While I was in rural Mexico a few years back, I was sleeping on the floor of a family home. They keep their doors and windows open to cool their homes and have no screens. I woke up to a tickling on my arm. I reached up to brush it off and jerked up and awake as if I'd just been given a triple shot of espresso straight to the blood stream. I had brushed a massive roach off of my arm and onto my husband....I, to this day, will not let him live down the little girl scream that came out of his macho-man 60-something mouth when he realized what had landed on his chest. I have never seen that man move so fast in my life. I still get the giggles when I think about it.

 

[jeepgirl13]

Ill take your mom then. Lol. The story about your hubby reminds me of something that happened to mine. He went in the bathroom and shut the door and I heard him say oh gross, followed by a slam, and then a girly hoo-hoo-hoo scream thing. Think tigger scared crapless. Anywho the roach flew at him, landed on his chest, and ran circles around his torso before he knocked it off. I laughed so hard at him, but would have cried of it did that to me!

 

[TexasLisa]

Lacy: While I was in rural Mexico a few years back, I was sleeping on the floor of a family home. They keep their doors and windows open to cool their homes and have no screens. I woke up to a tickling on my arm. I reached up to brush it off and jerked up and awake as if I'd just been given a triple shot of espresso straight to the blood stream. I had brushed a massive roach off of my arm and onto my husband....I, to this day, will not let him live down the little girl scream that came out of his macho-man 60-something mouth when he realized what had landed on his chest. I have never seen that man move so fast in my life. I still get the giggles when I think about it.

Ooooh where is the camera when you need it????

My husband does NOT like to be scared! He is an engineer,you know. They have to be 'in control' at all times. I (5'1") love to scare him (6'4"). I have just learned to duck when I do scare him, he comes out swinging!!!

Lisa

 

[Kilsharion]

Ooooh where is the camera when you need it????

My husband does NOT like to be scared! He is an engineer,you know. They have to be 'in control' at all times. I (5'1") love to scare him (6'4"). I have just learned to duck when I do scare him, he comes out swinging!!!

Lisa

<-- an engineer

Which probably explains my inability to provide short and concise responses to people's queries....

Ill take your mom then. Lol. The story about your hubby reminds me of something that happened to mine. He went in the bathroom and shut the door and I heard him say oh gross, followed by a slam, and then a girly hoo-hoo-hoo scream thing. Think tigger scared crapless. Anywho the roach flew at him, landed on his chest, and ran circles around his torso before he knocked it off. I laughed so hard at him, but would have cried of it did that to me!

My mom's pretty spectacular.

I've laughed so hard at my husband that I've gotten tears in my eyes...when in the same situation I'd have responded exactly the same as he has. The difference is...I totally admit to being an absolute whimp....he's Mr. Macho-Texas-Heritage-Cowboy-Man...so, when he acts the same way I would............well, it's laughter inducing.

I had a big ol' bug crawl out of the fermenting bucket the other day and across my hand. I shoved my hand down into the fermentation so fast it wasn't even funny. I wound up wearing like a quarter of the feed in the bucket....which the girls were quite content to attempt to help me clean up...but, yeah - no. I'm squicky about certain things...and, bugs on me is definitely one of them......irony is - I've been through training (I trained for para-rescue) that would make quite a few people's stomachs turn.

I have no issues with making up a meal of the critters - but, don't let them get on me. **shudders** My husband doesn't believe that I just stir the bugs in and let them "digest" in the fermentation. Why not? I mean, a bug's a bug - whether they pull it up off the ground or out of their FF....just keep 'em off me.

 

[armorfirelady]

I found this while browsing thru Pinterest........
It combines the talk we had about rain barrels & cup waterers

http://<a href="http://twitpic.com/8cux1i" title="Greatest #chicken watering system ever. #TwitPict on Twitpic"><img src="http://twitpic.com/show/thumb/8cux1i.jpg" width="150" height="150" alt="Greatest #chicken watering system ever. #TwitPict on Twitpic"></a>

 

[Kilsharion]

I found this while browsing thru Pinterest........
It combines the talk we had about rain barrels & cup waterers

http://<a href="http://twitpic.com/8cux1i" title="Greatest #chicken watering system ever. #TwitPict on Twitpic"><img src="http://twitpic.com/show/thumb/8cux1i.jpg" width="150" height="150" alt="Greatest #chicken watering system ever. #TwitPict on Twitpic"></a>

 

[Demosthine]

I found this while browsing thru Pinterest........
It combines the talk we had about rain barrels & cup waterers

http://<a href="http://twitpic.com/8cux1i" title="Greatest #chicken watering system ever. #TwitPict on Twitpic"><img src="http://twitpic.com/show/thumb/8cux1i.jpg" width="150" height="150" alt="Greatest #chicken watering system ever. #TwitPict on Twitpic"></a>

The correct link to the Greatest Chicken Watering System Ever that was reference above. Not sure what happened, but that doesn't work.

 

[Demosthine]

Alright ya'll, I'm stumped. I've been doing the fermented feed for probably six months now and have a seemingly random development of the white film on top. Sometimes it's there, other times it's just the top of a murky bucket of water. I pretty much always get the bubbling and semi-sweet smell of a good ferment, though. Is there something in my city's water supply that would fluctuate enough to kill the mother occassionally?

I'm using the dual bucket method, so when it drains, the film does settle on top of the feed. I don't scoop that all out, though. Even still, it seems to disappear sometimes. I haven't found a pattern that makes sense.