The way I ferment feed, and this is all my chickens get, is to fill a plastic bucket with enough feed for your chickens for a couple of days and just barely cover it with lukewarm water. The dry feed quickly absorbs ll the water and will appear only slightly damp and has an unpleasant wet feed odor. This is normal. There are natural good yeasts in the air that will colonize the feed, but I jump start the first batch with a splash of ACV. This is a bit different than making beer. You let air born yeasts do the work.
The first batch takes around 48 hours to ferment, but by using a spoonful of fermented feed from the first batch to start the second batch, it takes only 24 hours. Using filtered water also speeds up the process because the yeasts aren't battling chlorine in the water. You will know when it's ready to feed when it turns a lighter color due to the ferment gas and it is fluffy and has a pleasant odor, not at all like plain wet feed.
Rule of thumb is half a cup of feed per day per chicken, more or less. Also, you can adjust the wetness of the feed by adding more feed and less water. I've found that my chickens don't enjoy a wet soupy mixture, but rather a dryer consistency more closely resembling thick oatmeal. (It does not require feed to be completely submerged under water to ferment.)
I keep two buckets going. I start a new one when I begin to feed out of the first. This way the ferment is always ready to feed. Fermented feed is at its highest nutritional value within the first three days of ferment. Longer than that, you will see the mixture lose its loft and pleasant sourdough odor, and the nutrients also degrade.
The first batch takes around 48 hours to ferment, but by using a spoonful of fermented feed from the first batch to start the second batch, it takes only 24 hours. Using filtered water also speeds up the process because the yeasts aren't battling chlorine in the water. You will know when it's ready to feed when it turns a lighter color due to the ferment gas and it is fluffy and has a pleasant odor, not at all like plain wet feed.
Rule of thumb is half a cup of feed per day per chicken, more or less. Also, you can adjust the wetness of the feed by adding more feed and less water. I've found that my chickens don't enjoy a wet soupy mixture, but rather a dryer consistency more closely resembling thick oatmeal. (It does not require feed to be completely submerged under water to ferment.)
I keep two buckets going. I start a new one when I begin to feed out of the first. This way the ferment is always ready to feed. Fermented feed is at its highest nutritional value within the first three days of ferment. Longer than that, you will see the mixture lose its loft and pleasant sourdough odor, and the nutrients also degrade.
