Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Renee97038]

Are you stirring these daily? I always stir mine at least once a day.

 

[Kassaundra]

Hi Everyone,
I'm fermenting my own whole grain (NOT crumbles or pellets) feed concoction for 50 broilers, currently 11 days old. I inoculated my ferments with some of the liquid from bubbies brand lacto-fermented pickles, so they are lacto ferments and not alcohol/yeast ferments. All three batches I've done keep getting this... stuff... on the surface. I'm not convinced it's mold. It's not really fuzzy, but not slick like a SCOBY either. It's also pretty resilient. When I stir it it floats back up to the surface afterwards in little flakes. I thought at first maybe it was bc. I was including BOSS and Butternut squash cubes, but did the next batch just grain/peas and completely under water... same stuff appeared. I have also wondered if it is fats from the seeds or something. Someone posted a pic of similar about 1200 pages back (!!!). Someone replied saying they'd been using feed like that for months with no ill effects; someone else swore up and down it was mold. Harmless mold? It doesn't smell like the molds I'm familiar with. It doesn't exactly smell like sourdough either (but I have 50%+ worth of peas in there). It does smell strongly... fermented. Not yeasty or alcoholy, but pretty over-powering if you stick your head right down in the bucket. The darker spots are due to bits of BOSS or grain underneath. Perhaps this is normal for continuous laco-ferments but not for alcohol/yeast ones and that would explain why some people get it and others don't?
This bucket has been going for about 7 days and sitting undisturbed for about 12 hours

This second bucket has been going for over a week and sitting undisturbed for 3-4 days... I figured if it were mold it would look worse than this by now.

It is not a bad thing, won't hurt the chickens at all.

 

[Kassaundra]

The only stirring mine gets in when we scoop out to feed them.

 

[mommacassey]

Hi Everyone,
I'm fermenting my own whole grain (NOT crumbles or pellets) feed concoction for 50 broilers, currently 11 days old. I inoculated my ferments with some of the liquid from bubbies brand lacto-fermented pickles, so they are lacto ferments and not alcohol/yeast ferments. All three batches I've done keep getting this... stuff... on the surface. I'm not convinced it's mold. It's not really fuzzy, but not slick like a SCOBY either. It's also pretty resilient. When I stir it it floats back up to the surface afterwards in little flakes. I thought at first maybe it was bc. I was including BOSS and Butternut squash cubes, but did the next batch just grain/peas and completely under water... same stuff appeared. I have also wondered if it is fats from the seeds or something. Someone posted a pic of similar about 1200 pages back (!!!). Someone replied saying they'd been using feed like that for months with no ill effects; someone else swore up and down it was mold. Harmless mold? It doesn't smell like the molds I'm familiar with. It doesn't exactly smell like sourdough either (but I have 50%+ worth of peas in there). It does smell strongly... fermented. Not yeasty or alcoholy, but pretty over-powering if you stick your head right down in the bucket. The darker spots are due to bits of BOSS or grain underneath. Perhaps this is normal for continuous laco-ferments but not for alcohol/yeast ones and that would explain why some people get it and others don't?
This bucket has been going for about 7 days and sitting undisturbed for about 12 hours

This second bucket has been going for over a week and sitting undisturbed for 3-4 days... I figured if it were mold it would look worse than this by now.

I haven't had a bucket go for more than a day undisturbed, so I haven't seen mine get like the second picture, but even when I started out with the 1-gallon container, this "bloom" like in the first picture showed up on top. It is totally normal. Apparently, it's because of the fermentation process. I've read either on this thread or in a different FF thread that all you have to do is stir it back down into the food.

I don't really put effort into stirring--like was just mentioned in the post before mine, I don't stir my feed, except when I'm getting scoops out of the bucket to feed to the chickens. This stuff on top doesn't stop the chickens from eating it whether you stir it into the feed or manage to get a little into their feeder.

Also, I add sunflower seeds to my FF and they are definitely a floating treat. I manage to scoop a few into each bit I feed my chickens, though, and they still like them.

 

[LindaB220]

It is not a bad thing, won't hurt the chickens at all.

Hey Kassaundra, glad you checked in. As far as I know you are the longest user of fermented feed.

And ladies and gents, she makes hers in a 33 gallon trash can. What almost 3 years now in the same bucket? Beekissed has the longest running thread on here for fermenting for meat birds. Too long to read it all but I've read most of the thousands of posts. TikktocJane wanted to have the recipe in one spot so she took all the directions and put it in one stop. Saves you a LOT of reading. I do it dry like thick oatmeal with no water standing on top. You only have to stir daily when you start the batch. Later just feeding. Kassaundra likes hers wet with a little water on top. Both work great. You can use a starter, fermented pickle juice, ACV, EM-1, kombucha or just not add anything. Just water, grains or feed and cover lightly so air can get in. The white stuff on the top is the scoby. Stir it in. Sometimes I get a little black mold on the sides and I just wipe it away and stir down. I store the Fermented Feed Faqs in my storeage in my email.

http://tikktok.wordpress.com/2014/04/13/fermented-feed-faq/

Good luck

 

[Kassaundra]

Hey Kassaundra, glad you checked in. As far as I know you are the longest user of fermented feed.

And ladies and gents, she makes hers in a 33 gallon trash can. What almost 3 years now in the same bucket? Beekissed has the longest running thread on here for fermenting for meat birds. Too long to read it all but I've read most of the thousands of posts. TikktocJane wanted to have the recipe in one spot so she took all the directions and put it in one stop. Saves you a LOT of reading. I do it dry like thick oatmeal with no water standing on top. You only have to stir daily when you start the batch. Later just feeding. Kassaundra likes hers wet with a little water on top. Both work great. You can use a starter, fermented pickle juice, ACV, EM-1, kombucha or just not add anything. Just water, grains or feed and cover lightly so air can get in. The white stuff on the top is the scoby. Stir it in. Sometimes I get a little black mold on the sides and I just wipe it away and stir down. I store the Fermented Feed Faqs in my storeage in my email.

http://tikktok.wordpress.com/2014/04/13/fermented-feed-faq/

Good luck

Great one stop spot for getting all your questions answered.

 

[chrissyr]

Hi Everyone, I'm fermenting my own whole grain (NOT crumbles or pellets) feed concoction for 50 broilers, currently 11 days old. I inoculated my ferments with some of the liquid from bubbies brand lacto-fermented pickles, so they are lacto ferments and not alcohol/yeast ferments. All three batches I've done keep getting this... stuff... on the surface. I'm not convinced it's mold. It's not really fuzzy, but not slick like a SCOBY either. It's also pretty resilient. When I stir it it floats back up to the surface afterwards in little flakes. I thought at first maybe it was bc. I was including BOSS and Butternut squash cubes, but did the next batch just grain/peas and completely under water... same stuff appeared. I have also wondered if it is fats from the seeds or something. Someone posted a pic of similar about 1200 pages back (!!!). Someone replied saying they'd been using feed like that for months with no ill effects; someone else swore up and down it was mold. Harmless mold? It doesn't smell like the molds I'm familiar with. It doesn't exactly smell like sourdough either (but I have 50%+ worth of peas in there). It does smell strongly... fermented. Not yeasty or alcoholy, but pretty over-powering if you stick your head right down in the bucket. The darker spots are due to bits of BOSS or grain underneath. Perhaps this is normal for continuous laco-ferments but not for alcohol/yeast ones and that would explain why some people get it and others don't? This bucket has been going for about 7 days and sitting undisturbed for about 12 hours [COLOR=B42000] [/COLOR] This second bucket has been going for over a week and sitting undisturbed for 3-4 days... I figured if it were mold it would look worse than this by now.

I stir every couple days and make sure your adding a little more grains and water every few days too. Mine gets the weird film on top too. From what I read, you want that. Never had it look like the bottom bucket, but I stir more often

 

[RachelJG]

Thanks everyone... I've decided that it is definitely not mold. When I took a spoon to the second bucket esp. the stuff I scraped off looked a lot like something you'd find on a sour dough starter (bubbly and slimy). I don't stir except when removing feed (which should be 2x every other day now since there are 2 buckets). The lacto-fermentation is anaerobic, so it makes more sense to me to avoid aerating the hooch (and making extra work for myself). I had left the second bucket undisturbed for 3-4 days as an experiment thinking that the "stuff" would be easier to identify in an exaggerated form (which it was!).

 

[Latestarter]

Hey RachelJG,

Once you have the fermentation going (like in BOTH of your pictures) you really don't have to worry too much about mold in the feed... The ferment process ( a good strong one) eats the mold. Even if you got a little mold on the sides as mentioned by Linda, just stir it in and feed the ferment. The only way the mold could ever win would be for you to let the container set for a prolonged period (talking weeks for a 5 gallon bucket), where it ran out of grains to ferment or got dry from lack of water. Congrats on doing the right thing for your birds

 

[Kassaundra]

Just curious if anyone else's skin burns when you get the ferment juice on it? Sometimes I scoop out w/ a colander instead of a shovel and when I do my hands will go under the water level, it causes my hands to have a burning feeling and they get red (no sore or blisters). I have a wheat allergy so am not sure if it is the ferment or the wheat, wondering if anyone else has this reaction.