Is this diet OK for Chickens?

[DorothyH]

Could you please share your chicken cracker recipe? I'd love to make my own healthy treats for them. Also when you mention whey are you talking about whey powder (like health food stores sell) or liquid whey the byproduct of making cheese?

Hey Circe - I thought today that I should share with you something I figured out with whey. If you have fermented whey it's obviously better to give the chickens that whey in liquid form so that the chickens get that good bacteria. Dehydrating (even at low temps) will kill the bacteria - but at least they still add to the protein levels. If you have too much whey what I used to do is take the whey and poor a layer of it in a non-stick pizza pan and put that onto the sheets in my excalibur dehydrator (set at 105). I got 3 pizza trays and dehydrated lots of the whey in this manner. The dehydrated whey lasts forever in the fridge and probably lots and lots of years outside it without continuing to ferment and sour or deteriorate. You'd be surprised at how little dehydrated whey you get from all that liquid as it's mostly water so this is a great way to keep the most "important" part of that whey you produce, store it and use it.

I'm glad that your whey will no longer be going to waste. It's a powerhouse food sourse!

 

[chiknhurder]

I know you're not the original poster. I was responding to the comment made by the original poster about "throwing out a handful of turkey".

 

[DorothyH]

I know you're not the original poster. I was responding to the comment made by the original poster about "throwing out a handful of turkey".

Oh - ok. Nothing to do with me. Whew! That's good. I did get it right that you were responding to me the last time didn't I? You did quote me on that one so I was pretty sure - but that would have made more sense too. Sorry if I got that confused too.

 

[chiknhurder]

No problem DorothyH.

 

[canSttent]

I know you're not the original poster. I was responding to the comment made by the original poster about "throwing out a handful of turkey".

Real turkey, never anything deli. Thank you for your concern.

 

[circesfire]

Hey Circe - I thought today that I should share with you something I figured out with whey. If you have fermented whey it's obviously better to give the chickens that whey in liquid form so that the chickens get that good bacteria. Dehydrating (even at low temps) will kill the bacteria - but at least they still add to the protein levels. If you have too much whey what I used to do is take the whey and poor a layer of it in a non-stick pizza pan and put that onto the sheets in my excalibur dehydrator (set at 105). I got 3 pizza trays and dehydrated lots of the whey in this manner. The dehydrated whey lasts forever in the fridge and probably lots and lots of years outside it without continuing to ferment and sour or deteriorate. You'd be surprised at how little dehydrated whey you get from all that liquid as it's mostly water so this is a great way to keep the most "important" part of that whey you produce, store it and use it. 

I'm glad that your whey will no longer be going to waste. It's a powerhouse food sourse! 

This may seem like a dumb question but how do you ferment whey? Also I saw you talking about sprouted seeds. What kinds of seeds so you use? This is a completely new concept to me but I want my chickens to live as long and healthy lives as possible.

 

[pdirt]

This may seem like a dumb question but how do you ferment whey? Also I saw you talking about sprouted seeds. What kinds of seeds so you use? This is a completely new concept to me but I want my chickens to live as long and healthy lives as possible.

Whey is the product of fermented milk. Raw milk left out at room temp will do this by itself, because the lactic acid bacteria have not been destroyed (pasteurized). If you do this with raw milk, you'll get "clabbered milk" aka "curds and whey". Whey is the liquid. Or you can add a starter like yogurt, kefir, etc, to milk that has been pasteurized. If kefir goes too long, it will separate and you will have something more like curds and whey.

 

[DorothyH]

What Pdirt said.

Add to that......
I used to make quark and yogurt with raw grass-fed whole milk. Quark is a German traditional food that is somewhat like cottage cheese. To make that you actually make your own starter using just raw milk concentrating the clabbering process until you get whole buttermilk which you use as a starter. Yogurt, you can buy a starter or use some yogurt as your starter. Quark is the one fermented milk I made from raw milk without getting any starter because you use the bacteria that are already present in the milk. I think it's really cool to be able to make such a wonderful food without having to buy starter - especially good if you have your own cows.

Quark uses the bacteria in raw milk to ferment it and then you have your cheese making process that produces whey. When I made yogurt I liked it thick so I would get some whey from that.

Btw - you can make cultured butter when you take the cream off the top before making these cultured yummies and then you would get butter and traditional buttermilk rather than whole cultured buttermilk. I know, the wordage is confusing and all this took me half a year to figure out.

As far as seeds go I use every organic seed except beans and lentils and pumpkin seeds in the bins at my Whole Foods store including sproutable brown rice so it's a large variety. I don't use pumpkin or lentils because my chickens always leave those for last so I know they don't like them as much but even so I will once in a while add some just for nutritional variety - but never beans.

I put all the bigger seeds in one glass jar (it's a BIG glass container) and use a big colander with big wholes for rinsing and use a small glass jar and rinse in a tight strainer the tiny seeds.

Let me know if you have any questions. No one tells you that you don't have to either cull, give away or have a yard filled with birds that no longer lay. I went to a lecture on chicken nutrition and the gentleman said that in recent history chicken went from being a delicacy to a cheap food just because of the changes in diet that were developed (most of which is subsidized soy and corn likely). He was very proud of that. oy. These changes in diet are great for cheap eggs and chicken, but not so good for human nutrition and definitely not so good for the chickens. We now get fast fat birds and chickens that will lay ridiculous amount of eggs just for a year or two at the most and they have to be culled so it's now generally accepted that you have to cull birds. This is very different than the way it used to be on farms with heritage breeds and different feeding and feeding leftovers like whey to the chickens. No one ever studied what you need to feed chickens to keep them healthy and keep them laying - especially with a natural bent to it. I might be the first person that every has done that?

It's possible - just really weird, more time consuming and not cheap. Weird, time consuming and not cheap most people won't be interested in but us few odd "ducks".

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Below find a link about the protein content of soaked or sprouted seeds. I used sprouted barley in my search because it is by far the most soaked or sprouted grain and there is more information about the protein content of sprouted barley, however other grains will show a similar protein profile when sprouted and repeatedly washed. As the link mentions the reason for a 20% increase in barley protein is not a result of the sprouting process but a result of the washing or spangling process to which sprouted barley is subjected. This is the same process used in the manufacture of wort in preparation for brewing beer. In other words the soaking, sprouting, and repeated washings that sprouted barley is subjected, leaches out enough food energy in the form of starch and sugars that the remaining protein represents a much larger percentage of the remaining food energy, but it in no way represents an increase in total food energy or protein content.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprouting

Crude Protein and Crude Fibre changes in Barley Sprouted over a 7-day period

​

Crude Protein (% of DM)​

Crude Fibre (% of DM)​

Original seed 12.7% 5.4%
Day 1 12.7% 5.6%
Day 2 13.0% 5.9%
Day 3 13.6% 5.8%
Day 4 13.4% 7.4%
Day 5 13.9% 9.7%
Day 6 14.0% 10.8%
Day 7 15.5% 14.1%
Source: Cuddeford (1989), based on data obtained by Peer and Leeson (1985).
Increase of protein is not due to new protein being manufactured by the germination process but by the washing out of starch and conversion to fiber -- increasing the relative proportion of protein.
Increases in Essential Fatty Acids

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Thank you. There is nothing confusing in your description of the butter making process, so there is no reason for you to needlessly apologize. I am well versed in the first person singular on the process of making butter or yogurt from raw milk, milk that I extracted or helped extract with my own hands and then set aside for the cream to rise to the top and sour. After churning the liquid left behind is known as butter milk, or more precisely butter-less milk. Sour cream butter or real butter is impossible to buy in American Grocery stores today. The only thing available is sweet creamery butter. If you want to enjoy the good life you must go to Canada to get a taste of real butter.

In a 1922 issue of the magazine Leghorn World there are adds advertising the benefits of powdered buttermilk sold in 50# sacks for baby chick feed. I can not recommend buttermilk enough for feeding and watering baby chickens. Google these adds, you will find them at the University of Wisconsin at Madison poultry science web sight. I know that the dehydrated milk had been churned because if it had not been churned the butter fat in the chick food would go rancid.

In the Roaring 1920s Calvin Coolidge won election to the presidentcy on the slogan, "A car in every garage, and two chickens in every pot." I guess what we as a nation must decide now is do we wish to continue to feed Americans, and make everyone's life better by feeding them, or do we want to create a society like the one that exists say in Somalia, a society based on want, violence, death, and Persecution?