Fermenting Feed for Meat Birds

[Beekissed]

And what victory would they be in honor of?

 

[normanack]

Hmmm. How about victory over recession and the lack of good home-grown food? Over excessively packaged, overly processed food with little nutritional value or resemblance to its origins. Over eggs that come from factories, not hens; over meat that apparently grew in its little plastic tray, not a real, live animal.

 

[Nomibear]

Or victory over the good intentions of the uninformed, under prepared backyard chicken owner. Like the ones you recovered your birds from. The type of BYChicken owner you are helping us to Not be! Thank you!

 

[Taniamax]

If you use the ACV or just about any fermented fluid it has enough acid in it to leach the metals out of your metal containers....the resulting corrosion and leaching can make your animals sick of metal toxicity.

I keep meaning to ask this: What about stainless steel? Does it leach also? I'm curious because I have some dog and cat bowls (not very helpful for a large operation of course) made of stainless steel which I used before trying ff. I thought they might work for this purpose, but maybe not???

 

[Taniamax]

I use ACV in my water buckets, so when I need to freshen water and refill feed and water in the FF bucket, I'd just use the old water in my water bucket into the FF bucket first. This makes it so that I don't waste any water~particularly my ACV water~and the mix got a fresh shot of ACV each time. Then, if needed, I'd top off the FF bucket with fresh water.

Bee, with your set up, how often do you freshen up your acv water?

 

[Beekissed]

Do you mean the ferment or the drinking water?

 

[griffinkid02]

LoL. My Nankin bantams are coming into lay. I think I have 3 out of 8 girls laying reliably and 2 that are still getting the kinks out of the system. I am not sure how bantam eggs normally measure up to standard sized for shell strength, but I'm here to tell you, my girls have had FF from almost the start, and I have a hard time cracking those eggs! haven't had any shell-less eggs at all. Or at least if there were, the evidence got destroyed before I got there

. BTW, I put my eggshells back into the FF batch. I also microwave them first, but only because it seems to make them more brittle (and less sticky) for easy crumbling. That in addition to liberally sprinkling crushed oyster shell around their run once a month for them to scratch at. I tried keeping it in a nice pretty bowl for them and got tired of it being ignored, dumped it onto the ground and then they want it, free choice. Go figure.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Bee...and others that keep their ferment outside... I'm guessing you bring it inside during the winter?


Subject 2
Since I'm the one that doesn't like using plastic, I have been doing my experimental batches in a very large pyrex bowl with a stainless steel strainer sitting inside it. I'm thinking of getting an old fashioned pickling crock - but new with non-lead glaze - to use for fermenting the feed. We still have hardware stores in our area, due to the high Amish population, that carry crocks in all sizes so I'm thinking of getting a 3 gal. one.


Subject 3
So far haven't been able to find Nu Stock in any local store but I'm thinking some may be hiding in one of the stores in the Amish community. Their website listed no distributors in Indiana. May have to get one on line. (Amazon seems to have a decent price.)

 

[Beekissed]

I will be bringing mine inside for the winter if I cannot keep it from freezing....it will remain to be seen if it freezes. Might set the bucket down inside a tire or two filled with hay and see if I can't keep it insulated in that way.

I'm not too bugged about the plastic and the thoughts of it leaching. There are only so many things that can be helped when it comes to feeding...GMO seeds cannot be fully eliminated, plastic containers are cheap and lightweight, so they will remain on the menu, soy in the milled feed is also something that I deal with. I try, within my budget and within reason, to provide safe foods and then I just got to let it go at some point.

In today's world, when they are spraying the sky with chemtrails all day, poisoning our soils and waters, animals dying by the thousands, honey bees dying by the millions....the plastic leaching into the FF is the very least of my worries. Seems like a drop in the proverbial bucket to all the other horrible things going on that taint our food supply.

 

[pigeonguy]

After adding them mother ACV to it, it was percolating and bubbling by the next day. I'd say it will vary according to temps, air flow, the type of grains used, etc. I would say you could just play with it and experiment before your birds come...that's what I did.

Same with the feed amount...just have to play with it and see how much they can and will clean up within a few hours time. If still plenty left over, cut back next time. If it's picked clean in short order, then up it a little at a time until they leave a little but not too much behind.

ACV amount? I shake my jug to get the mother broken and distributed, then a pour a glug or two in the bucket~you should only have to do this the one time if you save your water for the next batch. Just add fresh water to keep the mix above your feed line and the old ferment will mix with the water and you'll soon have it full of cultures as well.

Same with the waterer, but just one glug, as they are not full of water yet while the chicks are too little to drink it up in a few days.

How's that for specific measurements?

I don't buy this as a premixed scratch but I don't see why you couldn't use scratch grains for this. It's just cheaper for me to buy 100 lbs of each kind of grain and mix it myself. I have a huge garbage can full of mixed grains and some wouldn't even fit into the can and I paid $56~that's for 250 lbs of grain. How many lbs of scratch can you get for that amount? I've never bought scratch, so I'm curious....

Dad said he would take me to an orchard this week so I can see if they have UP/ACV. Then I can get the fermenting started it will be with my chicken mash . That is 100 Lb corn, 100 Lb oats and 100 LB poultry base this = 19.5% protein. If fermented 24 hrs (is that long enough) how much do you think the protein will come up? That's after I get a good start. Not exact just a guess. (kind of like I know what a glug is) Also does it add other vitamins by letting the yeast (mother)culture grow. I'll be a while getting to the end of thread I'm only on post 66 but I will jump ahead and look for answer. If this works I can lower the protein of my feed also lowering cost and raise the protein in it by fermenting. I paid $63.15 for 300 Lbs that is $10.53 for 50 Lbs.. That was today before reading this thread. Don't know how I missed it before wish I hadn't . Sorry for rambling on.
7 easter eggers and 26 Black Copper Marans