Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Aprildeesunshin]

Ok, so my male goat died. He kept escaping over to the FF. He died with the whey in it. He over consumed it. That night he was okay although didn't come over when we came out. Just thought he was fat and happy. In the morning he was dead....bloat. It was a hard blow. When I had to process him, bloat was the cause, but the feed never digested. it has taken me a couple days to get through this. I hate this! This is my second one that died with bloat in 3 months although they are unrelated issues.

 

[LindaB220]

Ok, so my male goat died. He kept escaping over to the FF. He died with the whey in it. He over consumed it. That night he was okay although didn't come over when we came out. Just thought he was fat and happy. In the morning he was dead....bloat. It was a hard blow. When I had to process him, bloat was the cause, but the feed never digested.

it has taken me a couple days to get through this. I hate this! This is my second one that died with bloat in 3 months although they are unrelated issues.

Oh April, I'm so sorry to hear this double loss.

Hang in there.

It's been a while since I've been on this thread and I've missed it. This was my first thread I ever read. And I've kept up. I've got 40 growing babies in the incubator right now and we'll see how it works. I'm not sure what to do with them. My handyman is too busy with "real paying" customers instead of my piddling couple of hundred bucks. I need my growout pen finished with tin on the top and a real door added. I may have to stretch tarp and improvise. I'm too old for this.

But I see a way to get them out and growing. Bee, it gets in the 60's at night right now. Can I do this with a covered crate and feather dusters or do I need to set them up with the heating pad for a few days. I can put them in the storeroom but it's still not insulated and it gets HOT in the daytime. I could leave the door open and fans for a few days until they get old enough to be outside.

The knee is better after surgery (finally was able to take off those white surgery hose) and I was able to fill in a 6' area a foot deep in the coop yesterday. This is the one that the copperhead was in 10 days ago. I need to get it in better shape and put out mothballs when the rain slacks off.. I have the 3' x 12' growout pen jammed up beside it. I bought the growout pen off Craigs list and Clint picked it up for me. When I got it home I found out that it wasn't hardware cloth on it but the green plastic. I'll have to put up some grills around it to keep out predators. I have several of them from large dog crates.

 

[enola]

Ok, so my male goat died. He kept escaping over to the FF. He died with the whey in it. He over consumed it. That night he was okay although didn't come over when we came out. Just thought he was fat and happy. In the morning he was dead....bloat. It was a hard blow. When I had to process him, bloat was the cause, but the feed never digested. it has taken me a couple days to get through this. I hate this! This is my second one that died with bloat in 3 months although they are unrelated issues.

 

[enola]

Ok, so my male goat died. He kept escaping over to the FF. He died with the whey in it. He over consumed it. That night he was okay although didn't come over when we came out. Just thought he was fat and happy. In the morning he was dead....bloat. It was a hard blow. When I had to process him, bloat was the cause, but the feed never digested. it has taken me a couple days to get through this. I hate this! This is my second one that died with bloat in 3 months although they are unrelated issues.

Have you vaccinated for enterotoximia??

 

[Aprildeesunshin]

Have you vaccinated for enterotoximia??

My vet says to not vaccinate for anything. She owns goats and does mineral, a higher grade baking soda for goats, sweet feed, hay, pasture and a vitamin e selenium tablet every month. I purchased her goats. Those are the only ones left I have alive.

 

[Aprildeesunshin]

I have a question for the experienced out there.

When I was growing up my father raised broad breasted turkeys. He started small then got bigger. By bigger I mean that he went from about 5-6 turkeys - 40-50 turkeys. He sold locally and his turkeys were the prized ones in the area. People from out of town would pick theirs up live and sport them (show them off) then bring them back to be processed. My father, out of the many turkey he sold, only had 1 complaint. The complaint was that they couldn't fit it in the oven. He told them what they needed to do in order to cut it in half. My father is still known in that home town of his turkeys and his home made jerky.

My question is this...
My dad DID NOT feed the birds meat bird/turkey crumble. At that time, and because where we lived, those 50lb bags were around $22. He looked into the cattle feed in pellet form, and in his own words he said, "The ingredients were the same. However in the cattle feed there was just more of it." The cattle feed was half the cost....$11 (?) a bag. What do you think? He did not ferment his feed. He just fed them the cattle pellets and his birds exploded!

It has been approx 30 years since then. How drastically has things changed? Did things change in the feed? I tried looking up the differences between the 2 but my efforts have failed so far. Does anyone else out there do this or know about this? What are your conclusions?

 

[Herdsman01]

I have a question for the experienced out there.

When I was growing up my father raised broad breasted turkeys. He started small then got bigger. By bigger I mean that he went from about 5-6 turkeys - 40-50 turkeys. He sold locally and his turkeys were the prized ones in the area. People from out of town would pick theirs up live and sport them (show them off) then bring them back to be processed. My father, out of the many turkey he sold, only had 1 complaint. The complaint was that they couldn't fit it in the oven. He told them what they needed to do in order to cut it in half. My father is still known in that home town of his turkeys and his home made jerky.

My question is this...
My dad DID NOT feed the birds meat bird/turkey crumble. At that time, and because where we lived, those 50lb bags were around $22. He looked into the cattle feed in pellet form, and in his own words he said, "The ingredients were the same. However in the cattle feed there was just more of it." The cattle feed was half the cost....$11 (?) a bag. What do you think? He did not ferment his feed. He just fed them the cattle pellets and his birds exploded!

It has been approx 30 years since then. How drastically has things changed? Did things change in the feed? I tried looking up the differences between the 2 but my efforts have failed so far. Does anyone else out there do this or know about this? What are your conclusions?

Im not sure if this applies to your question but I have finished a pen of CornishX (about 12 birds) on pig starter feed before. This was done as an experiment comparing a few other types of meat bird feed. I remember it was a Kent feed and I want to say it was either 21 or 22% protein. The chicks were started on chick starter for the first few weeks then switched to the pig starter. Those birds were HUGE! They looked like small turkeys. The meat seemed to have more flavor than the birds fed just plain meat bird feed. I also remember they had more fat on them as well, which most likely contributed to the flavor. At the time I think the pig starter was actually cheaper than meat bird feed. If you check out the ingredients on pig feed its basically the same as chicken feed. Never thought about feeding cattle feed though. I would sometimes throw and hand full of our cattle feed ration on the ground for the chickens as scratch. It contains cracked corn, oats, calf manna, protein pellets, etc.

 

[LindaB220]

Im not sure if this applies to your question but I have finished a pen of CornishX (about 12 birds) on pig starter feed before. This was done as an experiment comparing a few other types of meat bird feed. I remember it was a Kent feed and I want to say it was either 21 or 22% protein. The chicks were started on chick starter for the first few weeks then switched to the pig starter. Those birds were HUGE! They looked like small turkeys. The meat seemed to have more flavor than the birds fed just plain meat bird feed. I also remember they had more fat on them as well, which most likely contributed to the flavor. At the time I think the pig starter was actually cheaper than meat bird feed. If you check out the ingredients on pig feed its basically the same as chicken feed. Never thought about feeding cattle feed though. I would sometimes throw and hand full of our cattle feed ration on the ground for the chickens as scratch. It contains cracked corn, oats, calf manna, protein pellets, etc.

I've used 13% hog feed a lot for my Fermented Feed. Two scoops to 2 scoops crimped oats and 1/4 scoop both of Boss and Alfalfa pellets. They did great.

 

[Beekissed]

My vet says to not vaccinate for anything. She owns goats and does mineral, a higher grade baking soda for goats, sweet feed, hay, pasture and a vitamin e selenium tablet every month. I purchased her goats. Those are the only ones left I have alive.

Smart vet!

 

[chicapee]

I have tried the fermented feed the past 3 days and my chickens will not touch it. I will have to chuck it out. Boo