Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Angelicisi]

Day one!

What age should I start new chicks on fermented food?

 

[albertaeb]

These are my week old cornish cross meat chickens. this is the first batch we are raising on fermented feed and it is going great. there have been no pasty butts and no wasting of food. we have raised meat chickens before and no matter what kind of feeder we used they would waste alot of it. they would some how get it out of the feeder and all over. I was going through alot of feed. Our last batch of 16 cornish chicks ended up costing about 25.00 per bird to feed them out to 8 weeks old. that was with feeding them chick starter at 17.00 for 50 pounds. once they hit about 4 or 5 weeks we were going through almost 75 pounds a week. then about 100 pounds a week the last few weeks. I am hoping with feeding the fermented feed that I will get it down to less then 10.00 a chicken. I have also found a local feed mill and chick starter is only 10.00 a bag for unmediated feed. I have put all our chickens on the fermented feed and they just love it.

 

[Beekissed]

I'm so glad you are having good results and thank you for the feedback on the method! The chicks look great! Will you stop by and let us know your finish weights and the total money saved on this type of feeding? People are always wanting that information when they inquire about the FF and meat birds and I'm not a real good record keeper so I don't keep track of most things.

 

[LindaB220]

Totally off the subject, but has anyone been growing mangel beets to feed in place of some grain. I found a article that give some info on it. See what you think.


http://cru.cahe.wsu.edu/CEPublications/FS053E/FS053E.pdf

I bought some last fall but didn't get them planted. I might do a few now and some more in the early winter for my zone 8b

 

[Kassaundra]

And the follow up on this situation is yes she did and had x rays done also. Hahahaa about it. And seriously not one person said anything about it. Like it never was posted.

Maybe they are practicing what their mother's taught them and if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all.

 

[ShelleyJ]

That's an interesting article. I think I might try raising some just to see how the chickens like them. But it does warn they can have a laxative effect!

 

[LindaB220]

That's an interesting article. I think I might try raising some just to see how the chickens like them. But it does warn they can have a laxative effect!

Yeah, just as a part of the feed. Like a couple of 1 lb'ers a few times a week. I've seen them just cut in half and sat on the ground. But it probably would be good to blitz in a food processor and add to FF Thinking!!!

 

[ShelleyJ]

I wonder how these would be in a wire ball to give them something to peck at? It's amazing how much information there is here. I spend a couple of hours a day just reading old posts. I don't think I'll ever get through some of these forums. This one alone has over 1500 posts.

 

[LindaB220]

I wonder how these would be in a wire ball to give them something to peck at? It's amazing how much information there is here. I spend a couple of hours a day just reading old posts. I don't think I'll ever get through some of these forums. This one alone has over 1500 posts.

I was especially interested in this one and I read the first 500 pages. Then I shifted to page 1000 and continued. Normally I read the first 50 and the last 50 and then start asking questions.

 

[Beekissed]

I was especially interested in this one and I read the first 500 pages. Then I shifted to page 1000 and continued. Normally I read the first 50 and the last 50 and then start asking questions.

That's an excellent way to do it and that's how I generally do a long thread as well...if it's worthy of reading, it's worthy of my time to do at least the basic read.