Give flock milk to drink

[mulia24]

i've make a search to find out, but i really can't find 1 that really give me a powerful *base* to give them milk.

milk i'm going to give them is not fresh milk but *i can't describe it!* em, not *thin* like water but more *thick* like *concentrated* milk, did you know frisian flag or carnation? the milk is always mixed with warm water before drink. exactly like that. since i think US consume more fresh milk than milk like that, i'm afraid many don't know it.

why i want to give them milk?

1) they have thin egg shell
2) they're not free ranged
3) they don't have good supply of calcium and protein
4) they don't want to eat egg shell
5) i don't have access to worm, even no 1 worm i could found on my backyard.
6) they produce very little amount of egg

so, please kindly help me to know if you give your chicken milk?

is that safe? i heard about diarrhea problem.

can i give them milk like i've described above? that's most common milk that i can found at my country.

thanks before, i do appreciate any suggestion and sharing.

 

[Buff Hooligans]

Mulia, I am under the impression that milk would cause trouble. Yogurt is "okay" because it has a bacteria culture in it. I'm not sure of any more details. Perhaps someone else on BYC knows for sure?

 

[muell112]

I know people give their chickens plain yogurt. Other sources might include some high-in-calcium greens like kale. I haven't heard anyone mention milk so I'll be interested to follow this thread. Here's a website with some information about non-milk sources of calcium. http://www.ellenskitchen.com/faqs/calcium.html

 

[possumqueen]

yogurt or cottage cheese. Yes, fresh milk is hard on their systems.

or if you have plain milk you can set it out for a while and let it turn sour and curdle. It will be the same as the yogurt or cottage cheese, and okay to feed to the chickens.

Cheese is VERY good, but VERY expensive! I grate the cheese to make "cheese worms." The chickens scarf them up!

Broccolli is full of calcium, and kale and cabbage.

Don't know what you have there, Mulia, but doesn't Indonesia have lots of fish? You can stew the fish until the bones are soft, and feed that. But be careful you don't give them a lot at once. I think it MIGHT make the eggs taste funny!

 

[bargain]

Mulia, I give buttermilk, yogurt, curdled milk.....

You can mix lemons or limes with milk and let it curdle.....or vinegar with it.

Regular milk is not good for the birds.

Good luck and have a blessed day!

 

[mulia24]

thanks everyone,

ups, i don't know how to make yogurt, honestly i even haven't ever eat yogurt, it's expensive to buy here, i heard to make it need to have bacteria to help fermentation.

yes, indeed, this country is full of fish, i give it to the flock only sometimes and i realize it's very hard to fed them fish anymore, very rare, but, it's difficult to get them, i can only buy them once a week since the market is *timed market* only open once a week, and often they don't have supply of fish anymore. ps: many foreign country fisherman steal our fish.

just pity to here fisherman. don't think to fridge many fish at once, too small fridge even for only 1 kg fish.

yes, cheese is Really expensive, i even only eat it sometimes. greens, right, but same as fish, hard to gain, honestly, even i can only eat instant noodle (just like refugee) many times since i'm lack of other food source seller.

sour and curdle? i just find out dictionary

sour is means more acidic, is that safe to give them sour milk? and curdle, again just find it on dics, it means freeze? how do they manage to *eat* freeze milk?

buttermilk? i just read it means leftover milk from making butter, but i never make butter and don't know where to get it.

mixing milk with vinegar/lemon/lime and let it for hours then fed it to them? is that what you mean? is that safe and good?

i'm sorry to ask too much

, it's hard to keep my chicken's welfare (also mine) well in this country, since my country condition and location different from yours it make me hard to find the same thing you can fed your flock to be fed to mine, that's why i asked much for *substitution* that still can ensure their health (and of course egg production

) nice. thank you for keep helping me to solve this problem.

 

[elmo]

Chickens, like other birds, lack the enzymes necessary to digest lactose.

http://www.exoticpetvet.net/avian/dairy.html

For that reason, milk isn't the best way to get more calcium into a chicken's diet. Here's an article suggesting other options:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1055673/back_yard_chicken_farming_how_to_have.html

 

[Tala]

Quote:
Is your milk pasturized?
If you can get raw milk you don't have to add anything to it to make yogurt.
If you can buy a small amount of yogurt you can probably use it as a starter to grow more yogurt from it, but I haven't personally done it.

If you can buy cultured buttermilk you can add some (like 1/4 to 1/2 cup) to a half gal of milk and let it sit at room temp for a couple of days. The cultures in the buttermilk grow and eat the fresher milk, turning the whole thing into buttermilk. That's cultures/bacteria that are easy to get and grow. When you don't want the bacteria to grow anymore (or the milk to get any more sour) refrigeration will slow the process down and allow you to keep the buttermilk for a while (like months). Buttermilk isn't really spoiled until it starts growing green gunky moldy stuff.
I think that adding vinegar or lemon juice is just a cheap cooking trick to make the "buttermilk" react with the baking soda and make whatever you are cooking rise properly. It doesn't produce the good-bacteria like a true culture does.

 

[mulia24]

i don't know what cultured or buttermilk.

i just have *skimmed / canned milk* here, that must be mix with warm water before served. it brand is carnation, frisian flag, dancow,milo, like that.

frustated now

 

[Tala]

Quote:
Ok that is what we call "evaporated milk" or maybe "condensed milk" it's basically skim milk that has some of the water taken out of it. That's why you have to add water back into it when you want to use it.

It's just regular skim milk, and it's canned/processed so no bacteria.


Sometimes I have seen buttermilk in a powder form that you can add water to make buttermilk. It was sold near the canned milk here, but I'm not sure if you have it there.