Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[armorfirelady]

Been pouring the rain here all day and mine have been out in it all day foraging.  Going to be in the low 30s tonight and the air is damp and chilled right now....time to lower the flaps on the hoop coop.  First step towards winterizing. 

The next nice day, I'll be doing other adjustments to start providing windbreaks in the coop and also provide more natural lighting. 

I put the flaps down last night on the south & east sides with the rain since they said rain will be here all weekend. But I just went out and the rain still isn't coming in the north side so I left screen open on the door. My hens were out a little today. They don't venture very far since the hawk attack a couple days ago. Can't say I blame them. Next nice day I am going to put the pine shavings bale in heavy duty contractor bags to protect them for being cut open so I can put them up as wind beaks. Need to put the leaves in a couple of those heavy duty bags as well. I have enough leaves, grass clipping and wood shavings to get me thru spiring. I doubt I will have to open the bags of pine shavings this winter. The temps here are dropping as well. 30 &40s at night barely 50 during the days. Hopefully the snow holds off a couple more months. We never know tho with Lake Erie here....the right cold front & unfrozen lake means lake effect snow

Bee this year for the first time I put cover crop in the veggie garden this fall. It's coming up well and I am sure the hens will like the greens once they go in their winter area. But I am not putting them in there till the snow flies and the electric netting won't work anymore

 

[Beekissed]

You'll love having that green food in storage...right on the ground. The birds will graze it all winter long when it is not covered with snow. Mine have been gleaning grass seeds for the past week now...just all day long, picking seeds.

 

[armorfirelady]

I figure even if the snow snacks it down a quick shovel will at least make it noticeable. Last winter when I shoveled and made the leaves noticeable they were quite happy to scratch through the snow to find more.

 

[OHhappychicks]

Yes to all that....really, any combination of that is going to be fine for your birds. The chick starter is higher protein than I regularly feed, so I don't feel too badly about cutting it down a bit with layer ration and a little whole grains, or just with some whole grains. As long as at least half of their daily ration is a balanced diet, such as the layer or chick starter, it doesn't matter what else you add as long as you don't go up on proteins...their little bodies can only metabolize so much protein before it can affect their body systems, IMO.

One more question....

So if I mix a quarter layer mash and quarter chickstarter to make half a bucket and the rest with scratch and whole grain, will that be the right balance for both layers and chicks? I've read about too much protein, so I agree there. I just want to make sure it is balanced. Mine are starting to lay after a "lay off"

of 5-6 weeks for the older hens and my new spring chicks are just starting to lay the last couple of weeks, so I don't want to upset the eggcart, if you know what I mean!

 

[Beekissed]

That sounds good to me...that's what I would be feeding if I had chicks right now at this time of the year. They get what they need, the layers get what they need and you don't have the expense or fuss of feeding exclusively chick starter or layer mash to two separate flocks. My last batch of chicks were being brought up in peak laying season, so they got half chick starter, half layer mash but without the whole grains.

My granny used to raise chicks on cornmeal...

 

[OHhappychicks]

That sounds good to me...that's what I would be feeding if I had chicks right now at this time of the year. They get what they need, the layers get what they need and you don't have the expense or fuss of feeding exclusively chick starter or layer mash to two separate flocks. My last batch of chicks were being brought up in peak laying season, so they got half chick starter, half layer mash but without the whole grains.

My granny used to raise chicks on cornmeal...

Alrighty then! Sounds like a plan! I will just add my ff chickstarter to my bucket of layer mash and off we go! Maybe the chick starter will help the layer to ferment a little quicker! You know, we really do complicate things so much! If we said we just fed cornmeal to our flocks, we would probably have a lot of comments on the reasons this is sooo not good! But grannies know!

I just mixed chickstarter w/layer mash. I forgot to mention I have boss in there with it. Is that ok for 2 week old chicks? Should I put some grit in the brooder? See, I'm complicating it!!

I forgot to tell you, I love the pic of your chicks in the trough!

 

[Beekissed]

Not much cuter than a little chick doing what chicks do.

Went up to the coop to check the birds and found the coop so snug and warm, just by dropping the flaps. I don't know how folks can walk into a fall/winter coop and not feel that temperature change of warmth inside the nighttime coop. Or maybe very few folks go in their coops at night? For some reason people seem to want to put a heat lamp in the coop at the first chill in the air but if they would only go to their coop in the night and feel the difference between the night air and the coop air, even with a coop that is open air on both ends...it's very noticeable. Damp and chilly outside, warm and snug inside.

 

[armorfirelady]

Yup same thing in my coop and that with north end wide open. Girls are as snug as bugs in a rug cooing away. I go in every night after dark to check on them. Thought it was just me lol.

Plus making sure mites are gone for good. Day 5 or 6 after last wood ash bath and no mites still. Hoping no mite eggs waiting to hatch

 

[RoseMarie1]

Been pouring the rain here all day and mine have been out in it all day foraging. Going to be in the low 30s tonight and the air is damp and chilled right now....time to lower the flaps on the hoop coop. First step towards winterizing.

The next nice day, I'll be doing other adjustments to start providing windbreaks in the coop and also provide more natural lighting.

yep me to on thinking about those wind breaks Bee and getting it done really soon. Was putting on some castor oil on their feet and legs tonight and hoping I got them all. lol Doing that to 17 birds isn't easy to not miss some. I know #13 roo didn't get it as he was on the back of the roost and a pile were around him. I let #1 roo stand on the roost and I got his legs done instead of trying to hold him. Some of the rir hens were wanting to investigate my bowl of castor oil so I'd get them one at a time when they came down to that end.

They were just a squirming to start with and when I started massaging the oil on their feet and legs they got still. I was telling them see, that feels good don't it.

I think one of them even said ahhhh.

 

[Beekissed]

If the ashes are just not cutting it any longer, an investment in pyrethrin powder(all natural and made from the African daisy, a member of the chrysanthemum family) will kick them once and for all. If you can't find it at a garden center you can find it at Amazon and though it's a little pricy at around $20 for a 10 oz bottle, it goes a long way while being safe for use on the animals and degrades quickly in the soil. It works both as a toxin to the mites and also works as a repellent. I would dust the girls and spread some on the roosts only.

I did that last spring around March and haven't seen a mite or lice since. The ashes would work temporarily for immediate relief but they seemed to come back. I'd never had to deal with this sort of thing in my chicken history before getting this old flock back, so this whole bug infestation on the birds was a new thing for me. I'm glad I finally used the tough stuff because they are finally free of being bitten. I keep checking them, expecting to see a new infestation, but the mites and lice seem to finally be gone. Hallelujah!