Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[myhubbycallsmechickeemama]

LOL...she's a feisty little poop!!

 

[gg706]

This is a very interesting thread! I am very excited to try fermenting some feed for my chicks!

 

[shadetech]

Dang, I just hate when that happens!!!

Do you keep the guard on the bottom part too or do you just use the tray?

At 3 weeks, I'm sure your monsters would make them look small. Sorry about the them being layers Shadow, just the FF seems to work well for them too. There are some Dark Cornish in the herd for future meat.




henry

 

[myhubbycallsmechickeemama]

So, those of you feeding FF to your meaties.....do you restrict their feed after the first week or just give them free choice?

 

[Beekissed]

I feed twice a day and then change it to once a day. I'm lucky to get them to even eat that...I don't believe I know what to make of these CX I'm raising. They would rather eat food they foraged instead of the feed in the feeder. I'm having trouble getting them to clean up one feeder full in two days time but they are going to bed each night with bulging crops. Wonder just what protein percentage bugs and worms are?

 

[myhubbycallsmechickeemama]

About how much do you feed per feeding. I'm filling a 2' trough feeder once every day which is approximately 1 1/2 quarts of dry chick starter crumbles and it is gone by the next morning. I was wondering if I'm going to need to separate my meaties from the layers because I don't want to restrict their feed.

We raise compost worms and yes, they are very high in protein.

 

[Beekissed]

Which birds were you not wanting to restrict feed on..the layers or the CX? I don't feed a certain amount...just fill the feeder about half full on it's total length. If they have cleaned that up good by the next day, then I'll increase it. If not, I feed the same amount until they need more to get them to the next feeding. When I see a little left in the bottom of the feeder but not too much, then I am on the right track.

 

[Kassaundra]

Finally finished reading this thread.

First let me say I have layers and not meaties, I have been feeding my girls fermented oats for about 1 year now, and had never even thought about fermenting layer pellets until now. Mine were older when I started feeding them the fermented oats, but I just supplement their layer feed they have access to 24/7. They get fermented oats once a day every day w/o any issues.

My method has been a large black trash can (30 gal I believe) that I pour the 50lb bag of grain into and cover w/ water. I have never changed the water out only added fresh to the old everytime I add the feed, so my fermenting water is about 1 yr old, I scoop it out each day until it gets low then refill it. I go about 3-6 wks between fillups, does anyone do this way w/ the layer feed????? I don't think I would like to mess w/ a 5 gal bucket that had to be added to every couple of days, but something that I could do once every several weeks w/ the whole bag of feed.

I have always heard you shouldn't add chlorinated water, so for those that have city water, have you used it straight from the tap???? I usually pour out several 5 gall buckets the day before I'm adding grains so it has time to air out the chlorine before I use it.

I also am not understanding the hole filled bucket inside the other bucket, I use a collander scoop (metal wire mesh scoop) but I only do grains right now so maybe I'm missing something (not understanding) w/ the mash stuff????

 

[Beekissed]

Finally finished reading this thread.

First let me say I have layers and not meaties, I have been feeding my girls fermented oats for about 1 year now, and had never even thought about fermenting layer pellets until now. Mine were older when I started feeding them the fermented oats, but I just supplement their layer feed they have access to 24/7. They get fermented oats once a day every day w/o any issues.

My method has been a large black trash can (30 gal I believe) that I pour the 50lb bag of grain into and cover w/ water. I have never changed the water out only added fresh to the old everytime I add the feed, so my fermenting water is about 1 yr old, I scoop it out each day until it gets low then refill it. I go about 3-6 wks between fillups, does anyone do this way w/ the layer feed????? I don't think I would like to mess w/ a 5 gal bucket that had to be added to every couple of days, but something that I could do once every several weeks w/ the whole bag of feed.

I have always heard you shouldn't add chlorinated water, so for those that have city water, have you used it straight from the tap???? I usually pour out several 5 gall buckets the day before I'm adding grains so it has time to air out the chlorine before I use it.

I also am not understanding the hole filled bucket inside the other bucket, I use a collander scoop (metal wire mesh scoop) but I only do grains right now so maybe I'm missing something (not understanding) w/ the mash stuff????

That is interesting! I never thought about fermenting so much at one time but I guess it makes sense to just keep it going like a big ol' kettle cooking. I may have to move to a similar but smaller system when we get the layers in the coop...makes more sense to cook larger amounts.

I went with the bucket system so that I could try it out and also drain the grain better before feeding. My scoop also has holes in it but it takes too long for it to drain the fluid out properly and I don't want to stand there while it does, so I just hang the bucket and let it drain the whole bucket before I scoop the feed. I didn't want to feed the FF as a soup but more as a meal or mash, so the draining the fluid off well, for me, was desirable.

I scoop about 5-6 heaping scoops of this meal out to the trough with each feeding but that will increase as they need more feed for their growing bodies. I guess I could wait and drain each scoop and transfer it to a bucket and then go in the coop to feed it all at the same time but that seems to be a lengthy process that would take too many steps. Right now I just lift the bucket, clip the rope to another section of wire and let it hang a few minutes while I check and fill any waterers and such. By the time I'm done, the mash/meal is ready to scoop out and into the trough.

How many layers are you feeding this way? If you only give them one or two scoops of the FF a day, then it might be advantageous to do it with just a sieve scoop~ but I fill a whole trough for 50 CX, so the amount needing drained is a little more. When I'm only feeding a few layers, I may gravitate to the bigger container of FF, like yours! Great idea!

 

[Kassaundra]

I just do grains mostly oats now, it never occured to me to ferment the layer food until I read this thread, so the grains drain very quickly. I have two groups of layers 9 in each group and each group gets a scoop each day b/c it is just a supplement. But now I am seriously considering adding the pellets to the grain I already ferment. My currrent feeding is very hands off I fill my container once a month or so (of the dry pellets) and it self feeds the chickens the 50 lb bag with almost no waste, so changing over to FF would be more work for me, but if it made a nutritional difference for the good for the girls the trade off may be worth it. I just got 11 chicks that were 5-7 wks old when I got them and started them on the fermented oats too w/o any difficulties (again just as a supplement) I may start fermenting the babies food first since I already feed them daily by hand.

While I was reading through this thread I was struck by an idea (way way way outside the box!!!) While gardening I came across an idea in Korean natural farming about soaking egg shells in vinegar and using that diluted as a Ca++ spray for Ca++ loving plants (ie tomatoes) it is more bio-available for the plants. This got me to thinking what if I cooked my egg shells crushed them and added them to my fermenting grains??? Would it prove to be more bioavailable for the chickens too???