Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[shadetech]

If I were to want to, say, feed out a cup of FF a day could I keep a rolling batch going, kind of like a sourdough? Where I would start with 2 cups of feed, water to cover, and UP/ACV in a bucket system. Then feed a cup the next day and add another cup of feed and necessary water. Using this as a continual feed system, or would the remaining feed go bad?

Sorry, I try to out think the simplest things. They say ignorance is BLISS, but I think I am just above the blissful state. Sometimes I wish I'd never heard of Bartorstown.

My chicks came in a week ago and am about to try this out.

The chicks are doing great on start and grow crumbles and seems like you can watch them grow. Ravenous little critters. UP/ACV in the water. Have 6 Dark Cornish and 22 Layers, several of which are roos. Hope to keep them all as my foundation stock, except the less impressive roos.

I thank you all for the info and will continue to follow this and many of your other threads.

henry

 

[Beekissed]

No..it shouldn't go bad as long as you keep feeding it fresh and the cultures have something to eat. I'd just do a little 1 gal. bucket system, for no more feed than that.

 

[galanie]

Ok I have a silly question. How do you "do" the crumbles? Just let them lay in the bottom of the bucket and scoop? Cause I'm thinking they won't stay in an inner bucket like the whole grains do and just leak out all over.

 

[Beekissed]

Some of the dust from the crumbles winds up in the lower bucket...and this only feeds your cultures growing there..a good thing. When one bucket is inserted down into another, the water rises to the lower sections of the top bucket. This keeps the cultured water in your feed mix...then you just add enough water to that to cover your mix. The starter crumbles will swell and you may even have to add more liquid to get a good paste going on. This is easy to scoop and feed....actually, I wish I could grind my whole grains into a mash for this very reason. Much easier to feed, soak up the fermented water and ferments more quickly.

Just play with it awhile...that's what I had to do. I still have my original water, it smells very fermented and it comes up into my grains when I add more water to the bucket at the top. It will be a milky buff color and have swirls of "mother" (cultured bacteria..the good stuff) in it.

The holes in my bucket are small.... a 3/32 drill size. Anything bigger and you will lose some of your ground grain into your lower bucket and it will have to be cleaned out eventually.

 

[galanie]

What I did was drill big holes and hot glue window screening to the inside of the bottom of the bucket. I'm just too lazy to drill tons of holes lol. Been fermenting whole grains and cracked corn for a couple weeks now and my birds will barely touch the crumbles. In fact I think only two of them will eat any crumbles at all. So in order to use them up, I'm wanting to ferment them. Only thing, when wet it turns into a paste and I was thinking it would all end up in the bottom. But I often get in trouble by thinking!

So now I'm going to set up a smaller bucket and go ahead and drill the small holes. It could be that my drainage with the screening is too fast for crumbles.

 

[shadetech]

Thanks Bee,

I think I'll pick up a couple "Easter Buckets" at work tonight and start this tomorrow. I would rather start small and work up than waste a lot of time and money. I've done too much of that in the past.

and now for a non relevant portion of this thread.......
Oh, and good book "The Long Tomorrow". I hadn't read it before, but looked interesting so I got it. Interesting story.

henry

 

[Beekissed]

I've never read it! That line is from another book about keeping our minds looking towards eternity instead of the here and now. When you think of life that way, things that would normally stress you just don't have the power to do so. It also makes one re-evaluate their goals in life...are we building a life here or should we be building towards our life there? I find it simplifies my life so very much to realize that all these things will be gone and useless one day, so I don't attribute them with the importance that most folks do. Most of my mind's focus is on that long tomorrow...

 

[myhubbycallsmechickeemama]

So would it be better to use cut grains opposed to whole grains? I wonder if my feed mill would do that for me?

I'll be feeding 35 little meaties and 10 pullet chicks. Can I just feel them all the same food after the crumbles are gone and would they be getting ample protein with just the corn, oats and barley? Sorry for all the questions!!

ETA: I was thinking about starting a batch and wondered...could you inoculate your starter with a 1/2 cup or so of sourdough starter to get it going a little quicker. I made my own sourdough starter using wild yeast.

 

[shadowmane]

Questions are good. They get answers for the rest of us.

 

[Beekissed]

So would it be better to use cut grains opposed to whole grains? I wonder if my feed mill would do that for me?

I'll be feeding 35 little meaties and 10 pullet chicks. Can I just feel them all the same food after the crumbles are gone and would they be getting ample protein with just the corn, oats and barley? Sorry for all the questions!!

ETA: I was thinking about starting a batch and wondered...could you inoculate your starter with a 1/2 cup or so of sourdough starter to get it going a little quicker. I made my own sourdough starter using wild yeast.

Yep...I did it with the ACV mother. I also keep my mix so that I won't have to develop the cultures anew each time.

With layers, if you want them to lay at peak performance, I'd have a little higher nutrition....maybe ferment layer mash and whole grains together. You can feed them whole grains and free range, offer oyster shell, etc., but I wouldn't do without the laying mash altogether unless you wanted to see if they could adapt to it. I'm going to try this after the meaties are done and I get a few layers...going to try to wean them off layer mash and just see how much egg production drops. If it does, no harm, no fowl...er...foul

and I'll just put them back on it....at least fermenting the layer mash will extend it's use and increase it's nutrients.

My flocks are always a test lab for me and I'm constantly trying to learn ways to do it cheaper but still do it better, healthier, with top production. My core flock that I've had for the past 6 years has 9 hens out of the original 15(the rest have been culled for nonlaying) that are still laying every day or every other day...and they are 6 years old, one is 7. I'm impressed by this and hope to keep learning from this and refining the techniques that keep dual purpose birds laying better and for many more years.

I would think that folks who don't ever want to kill their layer flocks, out of sentiment, would also be looking for ways to extend their productive years. Who wants to be feeding a flock long after they no longer yield food in return? Apparently there are many on here that do, but I can't imagine why they wouldn't want that useless flock to be more useful for more years than the average.