Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Beekissed]

Pretty much. If it's a processed feed like starter, commercial mash or pellets, keeping it moist~as in paste consistency~works just as well and there won't be a need to drain it. What happened with mine is I'd place the starter in the bucket, cover it with the water, stir, and then next morning it will have soaked in and the grains will have swollen so much that it would just be paste instead of soupy. This worked out great because I didn't need to drain off any fluid and it was just the right consistency to feed easily.

After I added whole grains to the mix, I'd still get the swelling and absorption of the fermented fluid but it needed draining to remove the water from the grain mix before feeding as it would be more of a mealy consistency with water standing in it.

It really depends on what you are feeding, how often you are feeding and how much you are feeding whether you need to drain it each time or whether you need to keep it submersed at all times.

 

[Zootopia]

I have fermented starter in the brooder for my newly hatched chicks and sprinkle dry on the floor a couple times a day so they learn to scratch/forage. DD used to complain about the brooder being in the spare room because of the smell. (they were in the small brooder to about 2wks then to the bigger brooder in the shed.) She thought I'd stopped hatching (Fat chance

) I have had my mix for almost 2 wks now, I just keep adding to it as needed.

 

[galanie]

Something I didn't mention before: Drilling large holes like 1" in the bottom of the top bucket then hot gluing screen inside works great after all. And it's a ton less work. It didn't work with me at first, because the soybean meal was plugging up the holes. Now that I'm not using that, Whatever I put in there is draining and working just fine.

Soybean meal even plugs up the size holes you use, Beekissed. It plugs up everything and the chickens don't even eat it much. Now that I have that stuff in a different container by itself and just dip out a bit and feed it every few days, it's all going smooth.

So there ya go. No need to kill yourself drilling millions of little holes. Drill big ones and hot glue the devil out of screening to cover the inside bottom of the top bucket in your system. I drilled six before hot gluing on the screening.

 

[bj taylor]

i'm starting my ff process tomorrow. at the end of this month i'm leaving for 3 days & a friend is looking out for my chickens. to make things more simple for her, i intend to have her feed dry food. will this be a problem for the chickens - will it throw their health off?

 

[Beekissed]

I don't imagine it will. They might even enjoy the change. I throw some dry barley on the ground for these CX when I want to distract them from going into the coop when I am scooping out their FF....keeps them off my feet until I get done. I still have to lock them out while I'm doing it because the dry feed isn't quite as appealing to them as the FF but it will distract them long enough for me to duck into the coop and fasten all the doors!

Distracting the sharks with chum....

 

[hannahransom]

My feed is a paste-like consistency, not totally submerged in water anymore because of how much it soaked up. Will it get moldy if I leave it like that? I am wondering weather I should throw it into another bucket and submerge it. I just don't want to lose all of that feed, but I am happy with it being paste consistency if it will stay fine like that. There were definitely a couple of bubbles and it smells good.

 

[shadowmane]

Just add a little more water to it until it is submerged. It don't have to be to far over the feed, just enough to submerge the whole bit. If it swells up more, add more water. I recently had to take liquid off of my batch for my layers, as there was way too much liquid and not as much feed. I simply used the liquid for the bucket I have for my meaties. You have to keep a bit of a watch on it so it don't get away from you.

 

[myhubbycallsmechickeemama]

When I was fermenting starter, I was doing it in a big tupperware bowl and it was the consistency of paste and I just left it to double overnight. I fed it all the next day and I wasn't worried about it getting moldy in that amount of time. As long as it's not going to be setting for an extended period of time, your paste should be just fine without being submerged..

 

[shadowmane]

I found my first dead one this morning. I think I'm going to have to put them on dry feed for a few days to get them eating. I've had them since Monday and they don't seem to be eating very much. I took them off the paper towels yesterday, so they're just on the wood chips. I'm really bummed about the dead one. This is my first loss, but its my second flock. All of the layers came out great, and in fact, all 5 of the layers in this flock are still going strong. I'm going to have to keep monitor on them. One loss is bad enough. I only have 12 more meaties.

 

[Beekissed]

Do you think it's the feed? Let us know if they improve on dry feed....could be our first sign that things don't work out on FF or it could just be that it was not going to live, as sometimes happens with CX.