If you still need to get rid of, or cycle out, your old grains, you could ferment them for your girls. They really like them. There is a thread on BYC about fermenting feed for meat birds but it has expanded to include all kinds of livestock. Great info!Called IFA today, to make sure they had it in stock....red wheat $12.99/50#, white wheat $14.99/50#, (I think I have it in the right order) barley 13.79/50#. So I am thinking I will get a bag of the cheaper wheat, then a bag of the barley, and sprinkle a little of the soaked barley seeds on top of the wheat seed base when I start it.....a sprinkle of BOSS too....will see how it goes. Oh look at the mad scientist that I am! (not) haha! This batch will be newer stuff though, should grow faster for sure. The old stuff works fine, just took about 10 days to get to the normal 6 day growth, and not as thick....not as many seeds germinated. I lucked out when I cleaned the shed out this morning, and found 6 more jiffy seed starter trays with clear tops, so using the clear tops under the black bottoms, with holes poked in the black bottoms. A little better plan than the foil. Woo hoo, here goes batch #2!![]()
Yes, it is the same thing.Would the BOSS we buy as bird seed work?
Thanks for that recipe. I was wondering too.Sure, no problem. Please note that it's not a precise recipe. I'm on auto-pilot early in the morning so I just kinda toss it together in my bread machine. Here's my winter recipe.
Per loaf: (my best guess at the quantities)
2 cups white flour
1 cup wheat flour
1 oz ground flax
1 oz BOSS
2 eggs with the shells
1/4 cup of calf manna
1 tbsp red pepper flakes (any spicy dried pepper type thing will work)
1 cup of water
1 tsp of Fertrell poultry nutri-balancer
1 tsp of yeast
Plus...and this part varies, approx half a cup of some kind of cooked vegetable (usually a dinner leftover or cooked pumpkin I've put in the freezer from my fall pumpkin freebies) or some fresh chopped up greens like kale.
(Note, no sugar is added like a lot of bread recipes call for. It's not necessary and isn't really good for them anyway)
Everything gets tossed in, I hit the "dough" setting, and wait until it's mixed into a ball. If I have too much liquid from the veggies, sometimes I have to add a bit more flour. The mixing takes a few minutes. It's then ready for me to roll out into a loaf the length of my cooking tray. I typically make 3 or 4 loaves to feed everyone including my turkeys. I let it rise a bit and then cook at 350F for 25 minutes and let cool. Hey, I get up at 5:30 during the week so this gives me something to do while I wait for the sun to come up.![]()
I just started reading this thread tonight. Finally finished it! Whew! Great info!
I plan to start sprouting too. I have to do something for green feed. I live in the desert and there is nothing for my birds to free range on except tumbleweeds which are all dried out now.
Hope I can start this soon.
Sorry to make so many posts on my first visit here, but I like to be helpful if I can.