Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[B J Hopkins]

I've got a question for you guys. Other than calcium is there a reason that hens need layer feed?

The following is NOT of my own initative: "The ONLY food your flock NEEDS is Flock layer food. It is scientifically developed to give the chicken the nutrition for optimum egg laying and health"
Myself, I ferment the pellet layer ration with Scratch. Chickens from my observation, much prefer the scratch mixed w/layer.

 

[Loghousemom]

Just wanted to drop by and thank you all for your superb descriptions and advice on this thread. As I stated in my last post, we have 39 chickens, a couple ducks and a set of geese, they all get fed the same thing. I learned the bucket inside a bucket doesn't work well for me. I am way to messy and overfill too often, so I use three buckets and just rotate from a single bucket into the double bucket and backslop when necessary.

I am using older buckets that we don't have lids for and I don't own pantyhose, so I just cut a feed bag in half, pulled it over the top of the buckets and put a rubber band around it. Seems to work just fine. Everything is smelling nice and reminds me more of a cold tall beer than a jar of pickles. Either way, the birds love it, and I am not seeing too muck extra work from it.

Right now I am storing the excess screenings in big plastic trash cans, so I am hoping to be able to use one of those for mixing up a big batch of FF and then just scoop out as needed, but I would also like to add oats or something in too eventually. I guess I will just "wing it".

One question I do have, is how long do you wait before you see a difference is the size of egg yolks? I suppose I have had them on this feed for about 5 days or so, and seem to already be noticing more eggs out of my oldest birds, (I have 8 original layers and the rest were hatched this spring just beginning to lay)

 

[Sore Thumb Suburbanite]

does anyone mix their own grains for their flock...or grow them (if they're super DIYers) ...i want to try growing some feed eventually and I wonder if its possible to create your own feed mix for ff. I'm just slightly crazy.

 

[RedRidge]

I've got a question for you guys. Other than calcium is there a reason that hens need layer feed?

The following is NOT of my own initative: "The ONLY food your flock NEEDS is Flock layer food. It is scientifically developed to give the chicken the nutrition for optimum egg laying and health"
Myself, I ferment the pellet layer ration with Scratch. Chickens from my observation, much prefer the scratch mixed w/layer.

Actually this all depends on your goals. Chickens were meant to eat animal protein. The only animal protein in most layer rations is fish meal, and that cannot exceed 3% of the ration without creating fishy eggs, so most later rations do NOT contain enough animal protein. Add to that that the most common source of protein in layer feeds is soybean meal - GROSS!
So... Personally, I wouldn't feed most prebagged feeds out there. "Scientifically proven" is great terminology for companies who want to sell feed.

 

[RedRidge]

does anyone mix their own grains for their flock...or grow them (if they're super DIYers) ...i want to try growing some feed eventually and I wonder if its possible to create your own feed mix for ff. I'm just slightly crazy.

Absolutely! Super easy to do. The only ingredient I have to order from a local distributor that I can't get locally or grow is nutribalancer. I have a small Premier One hammermill, I grind, mix and ferment my grains... Then add other ingredients to balance the ration according to management groups (chicks are balanced differently than layers). Saves a lot of money too. ;-)

 

[Triple Willow]

@BJ Hopkins & RedRidge... thanks for your thoughts on layer rations. I have had all my birds on starter/grower so far and the pullet's egg shells are really hard. Usually a store bought egg I give two pecks on the edge of the iron skillet and it breaks. These eggs I give 3-4 harder pecks on the edge of the skillet and it is still hard to break apart. I guess I need to read some nutrition labels and go from there, but I don't believe I'm going with a layer ration. Sometime in the fairly near future I hope to start balancing my own ration like some of you do. I think I have some good sources for ingredients here, hope so.

Thank you guys again.

 

[CrunchyMeatEatr]

Just decided to try out some FF. It smells a lot stronger than I was expecting, but maybe that's because of the chicken feed ingredients. I was expecting something closer to a sourdough starter smell, and this is NOT that. Still, it bubbles a fair bit and the chicks chow it down!

I'm feeding this to CX chicks. They're about a week old now, huge, and their poops are solid like normal chicken poops. The first three days I fed normal food and they were runny and almost all liquid, some were just undigested food in liquid. No more! I can't help but feel they're healthier for it!

What is the biggest downside to using metal with the FF? What exactly is the negative chemical reaction? I have a glass bowl for the FF right now since the amount I'm feeding is small yet, but a wire sieve is the best option I have for straining. It seems to be coming out OK thus far, but I'm wondering what the concern is?

because the FF is so acidic it will literally EAT metals. Stainless steel is ok. If you're storing it in most any kind of metal container not only does it dissolve the container, but as a byproduct of the acids dissolving the container, the metals leach out into the food. Then can then lead to metal poisoning for the chickens, and possibly for you if you're going to be eating those chickens. so, storing in metal is a bad idea. However I use a stainless steel slotted spoon for serving up mine, and that's not a problem, especially since it's not sitting in the mix. Some other people have used sieves for theirs as well. They found that the cheapo ones started to rust and degrade fairly quickly unless rinsed immediately after usage, if I remember correctly. If you could find a stainless steel one at maybe a resteraunt supply or cooking shop it would last much longer I would think. I might still give it a rinse after using. 

You especially need to be careful with any galvanized metals as the galvanizing is mainly zinc and lead which can lead to heavy metal poisoning. Many things dissolve in even a milder acid such as vinegar. If you want to see something really cool, drop an egg in vinegar, the shell will dissolve leaving the rest of the egg in tacked.

 

[Triple Willow]

I'm going through 1 - 50# bag of starter grower/week for 10 - 20 week olds and about 25 - 6-8 week olds and no forraging right now. Does that sound like a lot?

 

[Triple Willow]

Just decided to try out some FF. It smells a lot stronger than I was expecting, but maybe that's because of the chicken feed ingredients. I was expecting something closer to a sourdough starter smell, and this is NOT that. Still, it bubbles a fair bit and the chicks chow it down!

What is the biggest downside to using metal with the FF? What exactly is the negative chemical reaction? I have a glass bowl for the FF right now since the amount I'm feeding is small yet, but a wire sieve is the best option I have for straining. It seems to be coming out OK thus far, but I'm wondering what the concern is?

You might check and see if your feed has meat in it. That will make it stinky. Also, I make my feed thicker, kind of like a dough. Then it doesn't need any straining. Just scoop and serve!

 

[Beekissed]

It does. It took me two to three weeks to go through a bag of starter when feeding 54 meat chicks and they eat much more than DP birds.