Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Beekissed]

Oh wow my chickens would go insane over this!!!! They LOVEEEEEE grains! They ALWAYS pic the grains out first and leave the layer feed. They will only eat the layer feed later once ALL the grains are gone. What they basically do right now is this, they are eating the grains out and then the next morning they finish up the food that was left in there. Still having left overs and still working on trying to get it right so no left overs at night.

That IS my layer ration...with some whole grain and boss. That's what fresh ground layer looks like...you just can't see the finer ground bits lying under the whole grains in the mix. In the layer, oats are not always ground and the corn looks merely crushed and then there are finer ground grains in the mix that are like a powder or meal.

 

[Triple Willow]

My hope is to finish around 5-6 lbs I guess. More importantly though I don't want to flip any. That really is my biggest concern. I don't want to spend a ton of time and energy raising them to lose some right near the end. So my real overall goal is just healthy birds. But I do have to fit processing in somewhere between hunting seasons too.

What do you hunt?

 

[Triple Willow]

Heaven forbid! 

HA! HA!

 

[Triple Willow]

Oh yeah, I sure do agree! Eggs & bug controll.

I have had my chickens kept up for a while due to dog drama but they have got to get busy! This tick situation is freaking me out! In all my years I have never even heard of much less seen "seed ticks". They are beyond bad! They will make you almost appreciate regular ticks!

 

[Windy Bay Farm]

That will be in Volume III of her new book series. It''ll be titled "Feeding Your Chook Addiction: Brewing the Perfect Fix" and will be available on April 20th...

 

[Windy Bay Farm]

That's what I am currently beginning...hitting the barley mix right now in the feed can and will soon be adding some BOSS long about next month.  It's an easy seasonal switch...layer ration starting in Feb and running until around July/Aug, ease into a cut down ration in the middle of molt and then add some fats in the fall, keeping the cut down ration and fats in the winter.  Start back with layer in the end of Feb.  That's about as wild as my feed tweaking gets and the feed is all mixed in a big trash can, so it transitions slowly from one to the other as the feed filters down into the can and gets added to the top, etc. 

Right now it has a 50 lb bag of layer at the bottom, a 50 lb bag of barley in the middle and a 50 lb bag of layer on the top which I have been using for a bit..just now picking up on the barley in the middle and will let the layer mix in with it from both ends.  Next month, I'll throw in some BOSS and work it into the mix.  It's an easy, breezy seasonal switch that I don't stress over about proportions and percentages. 

Until I hit BYC, I had never really even looked at the protein percentages on my feed bags!  I free range, so it's a supplement at best and better than my grandma ever fed...her flock got shelled corn right off the cob and free range in all seasons. 

Thanks once again, Bee !! Your info is invaluable !

 

[Kassaundra]

I have had my chickens kept up for a while due to dog drama but they have got to get busy! This tick situation is freaking me out! In all my years I have never even heard of much less seen "seed ticks". They are beyond bad! They will make you almost appreciate regular ticks!

We have lots of seed ticks here. I have a funny seed tick story, when I was a late teen a group of friends and I were riding around in the country and I see a plant I really liked in the middle of nowhere (I have always loved gardening) anyway they stopped so I could get a better look possibly see about taking sample or seed home. After I finished looking at the plant I got back in the car, we had not gone but a couple of feet before I realized I was covered in seed ticks. I started screaming for them to stop the car, I ran out in the middle of the road and started stripping. To this day I am glad of two things in particular, one that it was a country road, and two that I was wearing underwear that day! Oh and three, my dress was white that day so I could see them before it was to late.

 

[3 NH reds]

@3 NH reds... Do you have water moccasins where you live?

I would guess that is what it was. Have not seen it recently and the pond is to nasty to swim in so we can admire from a distance

Last time I went swimming in the river we were sort of shooting these little rapids and it shot me right into a large, brown water snake! I put my hand out to fend him off and he was swimming hard to avoid me but it was closer than I had wanted to get...touched the booger with my hand! He was probably the more scared of us two....

We've been cleaning out the backside of our old shed and encountered three different snakes, two of the same kind but different sizes. I caught the largest and put him in the nearby woods, the middle sized one got away under the building and the smallest I caught and gave to the chooks. Little Red snatched it up and got the big protein for the day.

None of the snakes were poisonous and they were all quite beautiful. I'm just glad none were a copperhead or rattlesnake.

We get a ton of Gardner snakes in the spring in the hay. They don't bother me but at some points you might think it is a plague, some of them end up in the coop when I add hay. good protein for the girls if the snake is a slow one. Got an intact snake skin one day kind of cool

 

[TexasLisa]

I tried putting some unpasteurized vinegar (Bragg's brand) in a gallon jug of regular vinegar to grow the mother in the cheap stuff. It really does work! I poured about 1 cup of good vinegar into the gallon of cheap vinegar and that mother is growing like crazy. I wouldn't doubt if the new jug doesn't have more good stuff in it that the expensive stuff did. Going to start a couple more gallons today.

Thanks for that B~IP Bee! LOL

Willow, maybe I need another cup of coffee. Are you saying you added 1 cup ACV to a gallon of white vinegar? I am assuming you put a coffee filter on it and put it in the back of your pantry? How long did take?

We have lots of seed ticks here. I have a funny seed tick story, when I was a late teen a group of friends and I were riding around in the country and I see a plant I really liked in the middle of nowhere (I have always loved gardening) anyway they stopped so I could get a better look possibly see about taking sample or seed home. After I finished looking at the plant I got back in the car, we had not gone but a couple of feet before I realized I was covered in seed ticks. I started screaming for them to stop the car, I ran out in the middle of the road and started stripping. To this day I am glad of two things in particular, one that it was a country road, and two that I was wearing underwear that day! Oh and three, my dress was white that day so I could see them before it was to late.

Ewwwww! That reminds me when I was living in Indiana and I was mowing our yard. I was mowing under the trees and bushes. I happened to look down and I had Japanese Beetles all over me. I ran screaming into the garage and started stripping and praying nobody would come up our driveway. My dh (?????) thought it was hilarious! MEN!!

Lisa

 

[Demosthine]

Willow, maybe I need another cup of coffee. Are you saying you added 1 cup ACV to a gallon of white vinegar? I am assuming you put a coffee filter on it and put it in the back of your pantry? How long did take?

Lisa

No, she's meaning you add the unpasteurized apple cider vinegar "with mother" to a large bottle of pasteurized apple cider vinegar. Don't use the coffee filter, either, because you want the mother to be added to the new large bottle. The bacteria that creates the colony we call "mother" will explosively reproduce and you will end up with a huge gallon of the really good stuff for about a quarter of the price of Bragg's. After that, just periodically add more of the cheap stuff to that large bottle and it will keep going, making and endless, cheap supply of your unpasteurized ACV.

If you are in an area with WinCo, you might check them out. They have bulk, regular ACV for about 5c an ounce, which is even cheaper than Costco's price the last time I compared.