Fermenting Pellet Feed

[Clousic Chicks]

I've been wanting to give my chickens/ducks fermented feed, especially during these winter months. My question is this: Can I mix my grains and pellets together and ferment (like for 24-48 hours), and feed this mixture to my little flock? OR, is this just a waste of pellet feed? Thank you for your help with this!!!

 

[DobieLover]

I feed my chickens whole grains and seeds as part of my complete homemade feed. I ferment for 3 days, strain off the excess water and feed. I keep the strained water to start the next batch and add back as much water as it takes to just barely cover the feed. Stir once per day.

What is your pellet feed? A complete layer feed?

 

[Clousic Chicks]

It is a complete layer feed in pellet form.

 

[Timothy Menezes]

I don't ferment, at least not chicken food lol. But I suspect crumbles or pellets will ferment much more quickly than whole seeds. So fermenting them together may not work well.

 

[Mosey2003]

Sure, that's how you ferment chicken feed. Doesn't matter if it's pellets or crumble, as long as you add enough water (pellets will expand more). If you're asking if adding the grain is a problem, I can't imagine it would be unless there's something special you want happening with the grain ferment. I don't know how fermenting whole grains works.

 

[Equiem]

I'm very curious about fermenting and thinking on doing so! My girls don't seem to be eating their normal pellets at all at the moment so I'm trying to figure out ways to get them to eat!

 

[Shadrach]

Yes you can ferment both and as a mix.
I smash the pellets I get here because they are hard.
I stopped fully fermenting and just make a mash with warm water the day before.
What you might need to watch is the percentages of calcium and protein in particular of the combined ingredients.
What I found with free range chickens is they eat more of the commercial feed when fed as a mash. However, less got wasted by being scratched out.

 

[Clousic Chicks]

Thank you for all the suggestions and comments! I have decided to try an experiment tonight. I've been soaking grains in a gallon jar since early this morning. Tonight, I added pellet feed to go over night. I will strain some out tomorrow morning and feed to my ducks and chickens...mostly the ducks since it seems to help the odor of their poo. I will add more feed to the grains that are still "fermenting" and fed that to them the following day. I'll let you know how this works!

 

[MerryMeridional]

Thank you for all the suggestions and comments! I have decided to try an experiment tonight. I've been soaking grains in a gallon jar since early this morning. Tonight, I added pellet feed to go over night. I will strain some out tomorrow morning and feed to my ducks and chickens...mostly the ducks since it seems to help the odor of their poo. I will add more feed to the grains that are still "fermenting" and fed that to them the following day. I'll let you know how this works!

How did your experiment with FF go? Update please!