New to FF

[Tumbleweed Farm]

I started my new chick ff starter--I made it myself. I crushed up larger kernels. I have 2 questions as to ingredients I added:

1. Finely diced Kale
2. Sprouted wheat with their tails--chopped up

Are these ok to add?
Can I add chopped carrots, cooked fresh peas etc to the mix?
Can you add say, organic chopped chicken or beef liver? Any meats?

Your input would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

 

[Mtn Laurel]

I started my new chick ff starter--I made it myself. I crushed up larger kernels. I have 2 questions as to ingredients I added:

1. Finely diced Kale
2. Sprouted wheat with their tails--chopped up

Are these ok to add?
Can I add chopped carrots, cooked fresh peas etc to the mix?
Can you add say, organic chopped chicken or beef liver? Any meats?

Your input would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

If you're including anything other than really soft stuff like oatmeal or boiled egg in their diet, you need to have some grit source available. Especially with carrots and even kale.

 

[Tumbleweed Farm]

Yes, I have chick grit. Is it ok to add these foods?

 

[lazy gardener]

I would give them their FF, then add the other stuff separately as a treat: no more than 10% of their diet. You want the stuff chopped VERY fine. Once they get a taste for the goodies, you'll have a stampede on your hands. Now is a good time to start training them to treats, so you can use treats as a management tool later. ie: time to go in b/c I just saw a huge dog... hawk... I'm going to town and can't watch you... get out of my garden, roses, off my deck... etc. When you give a treat, use a particular call to them, so they associate your voice with the treat.

 

[Tumbleweed Farm]

Will do Lazy Gardener, thanks for your advice!

Get that dog and dang hawk!!!

 

[Mtn Laurel]

I would imagine the fresh veggies okay but I'm not sure about meat. I've not read of anyone doing FF with meat. I ferment for my grown hens but I ferment pellet feed, crimped oats, BOSS, and sometimes will add soaked split peas, other soaked dried bean, and/or moistened alfalfa pellets. The girls prefer their FF "straight up" without the addition of peas, beans, alfalfa. Fresh veggies I give as a treat. I've not considered adding meat to the FF as I'd be afraid of it spoiling in a bad non-FF kind of way.

Last spring I did FF consisting initially of only chick starter and the chicks didn't care for it. As they were getting ACV in their water, I scrapped the FF and went to just regular chick starter with addition of ground oatmeal and mashed boiled egg on the side. I waited until they were older before introducing them to FF and they love it now.

 

[Tumbleweed Farm]

Thank you Mtn Laurel. I too think it best to skip meat. They have sprouted grains in there with the little sprouts, I think thats ok. I wont add anymore kale etc. I get them today, hope they like it lol.

 

[pdirt]

Traditional kimchi (Korean fermented cabbage) uses fish and/or shrimp in the recipe. It does have a fair amount of salt and peppers, which both help keep the ferment safe. I ferment our formulated feed (which contains fish meal) but use a lactic-acid starter. Lots of folks here on BYC apparently ferment their fish-meal based feed using the popular recipe of submerged feed in water with or without vinegar, I haven't tried it. Just saying it can be done. If you were to add any liver or meat to their FF, I would keep the amounts pretty small, say less than 5% by volume and certainly use some sort of acid to start the pH out low (vinegar, buttermilk, kefir, fresh whey, etc). A few tablespoons of vinegar (any kind will do, though raw ACV does have some additional health benefits) or a cup or so of any of the dairy ferments per gallon of feed would do. And get some pH test paper, like this: http://www.butcher-packer.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=797 . You want pH to be 4.5 or less. After a while your nose will be able to tell you if the pH is correct or not, but I've found test paper like this very useful in learning that skill.