Need help, ducks and guineas rejecting FF. What to do?

[deedles]

hey everyone, my ducks and guineas have been raised on FF since day one and somewhere this summer due I think to an over fermented maybe overly sour batch, they started to refuse it. We started to give them dry feed and I had some dry, soy free organic feed that they HATED. Tried another couple kinds and now we are using an organic pellet albeit with soy: that they'll eat. We started over with fermenting a whole new fresh batch of BOSS (which they previously couldn't get enough of), corn which they like even dry, oats and lentils which they typically pick around and spit out. At first it seemed they were accepting the fresh FF but now it's back to their bowls being full of FF and the dry food bowl being empty. They seem to come up to the house and beg and we throw out green peas which they all love. We tried fermenting the pellets and they wouldn't touch it, esp. the guineas look at overly wet stuff with a hairy eyeball.

So, I'm worried that my birds are starving one, and two why the rejection of the FF after having had it all their life? I'm so at a loss over this.

Another thing I noticed is that the POOP. Oh man the duck poop turned into these huge cow pie things compared to the little FF duck poops. I never saw anything like it totally gross. Since we've put out the FF again it seems their poop has gotten back to 'normal' so maybe they are eating some of it?

Any thoughts or advice or has anyone gone through such a thing?

 

[deedles]

also, they are digging at the frozen grass and it looks like they are eating some, but I threw out some shredded kale and no takers.

 

[deedles]

still hoping for some ideas or input

 

[azygous]

My flock has been eating FF for a number of years. When I offer some dry crumbles for whatever reason they all act as if they had been starving and they greedily polish off the dry crumbles in nothing flat. It's the novelty, and I'm not at all fooled.

First of all, if you're trying to ferment a lot of other "fillers" along with the balanced commercial feed, that may be one reason for your problem. If the fillers displace the nutritious feed, your chickens may not be getting enough of what they really require as far as balanced nutrition.

Try fermenting only the feed for a period, and withhold all other fillers, including dry feed on the side. Also, if you've been mixing it on the wet side, try using less water so the consistency is more like a stiff batch of cooked oatmeal. (No, you don't need to see the FF bubble to know it's fermenting.)