Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Smarcebird]

Thanks Joyful Promise - just don't want it to go to waste. Your birds look very happy! That's really the whole goal here.

 

[myhubbycallsmechickeemama]

Do they go thru much of the dry crumble when FF is also on the menu?

My new chicks seem to prefer dry but my last batch wouldn't look at the dry once they sampled FF. Hopefully their tastes will mature to FF.

Until then, my FF bucket with starter is puffing up like bread dough. Smells yummy too.

No, they really don't but I don't always get around to making their FF so that is why I also offer the crumbles, too. I have 41 layers currently and 13 8 week old pullets. We are butchering the meaties next Saturday so I will have the ferment bucket available for them. I'm not sure what to do about the little girls feed though because I can't give them layers feed. I may set up another smaller system for them.

 

[crazychickenwom]

We have processed 13 of our meat chickens as of today. We started with 21, lost 1 in the brooder at day 3, and ended up with 2 special needs. 1 has died, feet were not growing as fast as her body and she finally gave up trying even though we tried everything... the other special needs chicken, huge crop, is still kicking and eating and growing and flopping around, but it will be interesting to see when she finally gets big enough to process.

The ones that we have processed have been pretty impressive. At 8 weeks the heavyweight was 6lbs 10 oz live and 5 lbs 8oz dressed. very pretty skin and meat, huge breast. Over all I have been very impressed with the FF and will use this method again when I do them in the fall. I will update everyone on how the "floppy" chicken does, and will try to get the pics on later today.

 

[jrsckn]

I forgot to update this thread with my week 3 results so here they are but I must add that I have 8 chicks eating crumbles in a 16 sq ft brooder and 18 chicks eating ff in another 16 sq ft brooder and the smell difference is astounding! When the chicks were on my front porch, I think they were A) too young and B) too close to notice a difference in their smells but after moving their brooders in the garage, I can't believe the difference. I kept wondering when I would smell the nasty CX smell I kept hearing about and then it happened yesterday. It was supposed to rain so I didn't put them outside and when I went in to feed them later, I smelled the most putrid, rank smell coming from the crumble chicks. The ff chicks smelled, but it wasn't a rotten/dead smell, it was almost sweet but not revolting. I was surprised to say the least because there are 10 more chicks in the same sized brooder as the crumble chicks.

Day 22 6/19/12 Wed End of Week 3 Weights

Fermented Feed Chicks
Fed bucket #15
Total feed consumed to date : 108C
Total feed during week 3 : 60C, approx 18.75lbs
Weights in oz. : 14.125, 11.625, 15.0, 15.5, 15.75, 16.375, 17.375, 17.625, 17.75, 18.375, 18.625, 18.625, 19.0, 19.125, 20.125, 20.125, 20.875, 21.125
Average weight : 17.6181 oz.
Average gain in week 3 : 8.4101 oz.
3.3333 C eaten per chick, avg. week 3
2.5231 oz. gained per C feed

Crumble Chicks
Fed 4C toCC which were consumed before weigh in and 4 more after weigh in for a total of 66C on day 22
Total feed consumed to date : 62C
Total feed during week 3 : 29C, approx 9.0625 lbs
Weights in oz. : 20.875, 21.5, 22.375, 22.375, 22.75, 23.625, 24.75, 27.625
Average weight : 23.2345 oz
Average gain in week 3 : 10.5154
3.625 C eaten per chick, avg. week 3
2.9008 oz. gained per C feed

Conclusion:
This week, the CC have a better feed/weight gain conversion by 0.377 oz./C
Last week the FFC were better by 0.5017 oz./C
I did not get starting weights on the chicks at day 1 because I was too concerned with getting the chicks off to a good start and not stressing them out too much so for overall calculations I will use 0 oz. for day one to make things simple. Overall, after 3 weeks, the CC have a gain of 2.9980 oz. / C and the FFC have a gain of 2.93635 oz. / C. So, at this point both methods are virtually equal as far as cost. But, overall, the FFC have eaten 6C per chick and CC have eaten 7.75C/chick giving them a faster growth.

Starting at week 5, I plan on sepatating the FFC into two groups. Group one will consist of 9 chicks which will continue on the fermented crumbles and group two will consist of 9 chicks eating fermented crumbles and grains split 50/50.

 

[galanie]

I feel sure you've answered this but I must have missed it. On the FF measurements, are you saying 1 Cup of feed before the soaking and swelling up of it? Or after? Because it nearly doubles in volume and more than doubles in weight with the moisture. I feel sure you are accounting for that in looking at the numbers but it's unclear to me.

 

[Beekissed]

Wow! What good record keeping and a wonderful breakdown of the information! This thread has sort of taken on a life of it's own, hasn't it?

Kinda nice that so many people are willing to think outside the box...or the feed bag...for different ways to solve feed problems such as expense, nutritional content, etc.

I'm very pleased with the outcome of using the FF myself, though I have no good data such as JRSCKN....kudos for that accomplishment! I just know that I used less feed, the chickens thrived and filled out well, they loved the FF and the coop smelled so much sweeter. It required a little more work but not enough to merit it being called a con to the method.

 

[jrsckn]

I feel sure you've answered this but I must have missed it. On the FF measurements, are you saying 1 Cup of feed before the soaking and swelling up of it? Or after? Because it nearly doubles in volume and more than doubles in weight with the moisture. I feel sure you are accounting for that in looking at the numbers but it's unclear to me.

Yes, I've accounted for the weight of the water, I measure everything dry. I have 4 ice cream buckets ( with 8C dry feed in each ) going for the ff because I want to be able to track the daily intake accurately though one big 5 gal bucket would be soooo much easier lol.


Thanks for the positive comments Bee, it is nice to have it all broken down even if it is a lot of work lol. But, 4 weeks from Wednesday, we'll all know the benefits and drawbacks of crumbles, ff, and ff with grains so I'll never have to do this again

.. Starting Wednesday, I'll separate the FFC into two groups and start weighing all the feed because the grains will have a different weight per cup; yeaaaa more work lol.

Overall, ff in general isn't much more work than dry and the benefits far outweigh the extra 5 minutes a day.

 

[anthonyjames]

So I have tried to read through all of this. But I have my mill grind all of my feed really find for my layers and broilers.

So more like a powder. I would like to try this with my birds that are in the brooder.

My recipe for my broilers is as follows below. Can I just take this by the scoop and add to one of my beer brewing mash bags and soak with water and ACV? Let drain for a day and then feed? Is it that simple?


Broiler Full
Corn 800
Oats 200
Wheat 100
soybeans /
meal 750
mineral 50
salt 10
kelp 50
fine grit 50
oyster shell -
calcium 50
Broiler Full
Corn 800
Oats 200
Wheat 100
soybeans /
meal 750
mineral 50
salt 10
kelp 50
fine grit 50
oyster shell -
calcium 50

 

[Beekissed]

You really can do this with fine ground feeds, folks. It makes a paste that is easy to dish up and doesn't even require the two bucket sieve style containers....just a bucket of feed, add water, scoop out what you feed, replace that with dry feed and more water to keep the whole thing cooking. You can also do it in the two bucket system and this keeps a nice little well of fermentation cooking in the bottom that rises up past the feed as you add water and sending all those little yeast spores throughout your feed.

 

[JoyfulPromise]

Ok, Beekissed, I love how the FF is working out so far, and I really want to try it for our next meat chicken batch, but I have one more question... What do you recommend for feeders for when they are tiny chicks? With our dry feed we just used the red 20 inch flip top chick feeders - 2 for every 50 chicks. This worked great until their heads got too big and then we graduated to troughs on the side of the brooder boxes, and then in the tractor coops. The troughs would work great for the FF, but I am not sure about the chick feeders... Any suggestions?