Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Beekissed]

Bee, GMO is not my biggest concern right now. My biggest concerns with GMOs are pesticide use (will show up almost no matter what hay I use) and environmental concerns... Not so much the impact on the animals.

Like I said, I suspect the issue came from the containers, not the alfalfa itself. Grow frames aren't happening in the winter up here. We just got a foot of snow in 24 hours. My yard doesn't have grass let alone my chicken pen! It's all mud underneath, too. My site has horrible drainage too and while I am working on it it's tough. Most days my yard is a lake.

By summer I intend to have a fodder system going on. I think that will do wonders. But I am still looking for alternatives to a feed-store based diet for my own personal sustainability. If I can work out how to balance my hens diet on mostly fermented hays and sprouted fodder I will be quite pleased and may be able to switch my egg layers to an "organic" diet eventually with little impact on my budget and the added benefit of being much more sustainable.

I got ya on the GMO thing...it's an unavoidable thing here now and so I don't worry my brain about it. I'm hoping the FF will negate most of the harmful aspects of the GMO grains and then leave the rest up to the Lord. It's not my concern at that point.

 

[Beekissed]

You can use yogurt to ward off coccidiosis. Mix some into your ferment. It works great.



Happy New Year everybody! May the Lord bless you in 2014.

I think the FF has all the capabilities of warding off coccidia all by its lonesome, so I'm not sure if yogurt would add anything there. It helps also if a proper deep litter is used in confined situations, correct stocking of soils, the correct soil culture maintained, good drainage in the runs, etc. I think it's a combination of many things that keeps coccidia down to a dull roar and your livestock resistant to it, with early exposure to the existing soil culture in the coops and runs/pasture to be a wise thing for helping chicks develop immunities.

May the Lord bless you as well, Miss Lacy!

 

[TexasLisa]

Yesterday I was sitting a room with several people and about five of us watching this and I was the only one who thought it was funny. What is wrong with people! They didn't even crack a smile! The reporter faints from the high altitude...THUMP!!! LOL It is funnier with no sound. Anybody else think it's funny? Maybe it's because I am so familiar with fallling...?

I thought it was hilarious! The thing is she did it so gracefully. I can imagine how it would have been if I had fallen!! Don't take it so hard about them not laughing. People are getting to where they can't laugh at the simple things in life anymore. It is all hardcore for them. (Am I being too cynical)?

Lisa

 

[Beekissed]

I thought it was hilarious! The thing is she did it so gracefully. I can imagine how it would have been if I had fallen!! Don't take it so hard about them not laughing. People are getting to where they can't laugh at the simple things in life anymore. It is all hardcore for them. (Am I being too cynical)?

Lisa

Not at all! I think there has been a general loss of a sense of humor in the world over the last few decades. I think it stems from people being told when to laugh by the canned laugh tracks on sitcoms...they have no idea when to laugh in a real situation because the edge of their true sense of humor has either been filed off or bred out of them. I lived in a region for 6 yrs where I swear the humor had been intensely bred out of the population..it was truly depressing to go to work, church and other places and see no real laughter, joy or fun to be had. Me and my boys were an oddity and folks would just look at us strangely and seemed to be trying to figure out what was happening that made our lips turn up at the corners, what that sound was coming from our bodies and what had put that light in our eyes.

Truly...humor is a dying thing. We spent our New Year's night watching Tim Hawkins clips on YT and laughing so hard our faces hurt! I had to change pants twice!!!

We finally stopped to play cards and have our own comedy routine...but soon went back to watching that guy. All in all, it was a good New Year's with good, clean fun and soul cleansing laughter...loved it!

I'm STILL watching this guy!!! Here's one of his music vids....

 

[Triple Willow]

I thought it was hilarious!  The thing is she did it so gracefully.  I can imagine how it would have been if I had fallen!!  Don't take it so hard about them not laughing.  People are getting to where they can't laugh at the simple things in life anymore.  It is all hardcore for them.  (Am I being too cynical)?  

Lisa

I think you're right. I believe most people that choose to live out there in this modern world (if you know what I mean) are addicted to sensory overload right along with their kids who are addicted to being entertained 24/7/365. If something is not just over the top to them they are not interested and surely don't find simple things funny. Just like a day or two ago, one of the kids of the family came in (about 8 yrs old). The child was acting like a dang bird dog searching for a bird- into EVERYTHING- from one thing to another! Of course the "adults" who are supposed to be in charge of the child just sit on their backside and let the kid treat this house like HIS closet or something! After I said "NO!" a couple time it was the "Ohhhhhhhhh I'm soooo boooored!!!" After he couldn't get into everything they left in about 20 minutes. My mama would have beat me to death if I went in somebody's house acting like that, seriously!

 

[Triple Willow]

@Bee... I like the video and the perdy pink tractor! LOL Wish I owned it!

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
Happy New Year..... VBG

Mareks can be vaccinated for but the vaccine only stops the symptoms. the chickens stll shed dander that have the disease in it. This is the way its transmitted. Though it does reduce the amount they still have the disease. Turkeys also get Mareks so if you are implying that exposing to turkeys is a homeopathic way to prevent Mareks... I dont get a warm feeling over that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marek's_disease
http://www.oie.int/fileadmin/Home/eng/Health_standards/tahm/2.03.13_MAREK_DIS.pdf
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ps030

This is only a portion of the research I have done on the subject. I am personally not in favor of vaccinations that only mask the disease. But that is me.

deb "not trying to convince just to pass on info"

 

[Lacy Blues]

I've done it Deb. Several years ago, I lost a large portion of my hatch to Mareks. The next year I located some 4H kids that were raising turkeys from an NPIP approved hatchery. I acquired all of the bedding from their coop. I admit, I was quite nervous about spreading it around due to all the information out there in regard to biosecurity. But I went ahead and did it.

Turkeys get a milder form of Mareks than chickens do. If your chickens scratch among the turkey droppings, they will get this form of Mareks. It is so mild, you cannot even tell they have it yet it makes them immune to their own form of Mareks. I have not had a single case of Mareks in all the years since that time. It has been about 8-9 years now and I only did it that one season.

 

[Beekissed]

That's a good way to form some good immunities, Lacy! I use the same method for chicks and any levels of coccidia in my coop and soils...I just raise the chicks directly in the old bedding from the last broody and chicks, or on the floor of the big bird's coop. I've never had coccidiosis in any of my animals, so it must be working well.

 

[perchie.girl]

I've done it Deb. Several years ago, I lost a large portion of my hatch to Mareks. The next year I located some 4H kids that were raising turkeys from an NPIP approved hatchery. I acquired all of the bedding from their coop. I admit, I was quite nervous about spreading it around due to all the information out there in regard to biosecurity. But I went ahead and did it.

Turkeys get a milder form of Mareks than chickens do. If your chickens scratch among the turkey droppings, they will get this form of Mareks. It is so mild, you cannot even tell they have it yet it makes them immune to their own form of Mareks. I have not had a single case of Mareks in all the years since that time. It has been about 8-9 years now and I only did it that one season.

Interesting.... Off to do research on the practice.... LOL not that I dont believe you .... I do but I am a research kind of gal....

deb