Questions about fermented feed

[peepers93]

Hey there! So, I’m a long time chicken owner/breeder. I’m interested in learning ways to keep my chickens healthier, and ultimately try to cut down on feed costs. I have read that fermented feed is better for your chickens and can help reduce your feed costs. So, that being said, I have a few questions and would appreciate any and all feedback!

1. What feed is best to ferment? Right now my hens are eating a typical layer pellet free choice. I’m open to mixing my own feed if it’s a cost effective/healthier method.

2. Do you feed fermented free choice, or give them a measured amount each day? I would assume if I started my chicks on fermented they would need free choice access until grown..but what about the adults?

3. Can waterfowl eat fermented feed? I also raise geese and will be adding call ducks this spring.

 

[FrostRanger]

1. Homemade feed is almost never cheaper and it can be tough to get right. Making homemade feed is not recommend in most situations because of that and how expensive it is. You can ferment pretty much any feed though

2. Most people offer a certain amount of fermented feed once or twice a day and have dry feed available free choice. A few do feed entirely fermented in which case you would experiment and see what amount leaves you with almost no leftovers. I do reccomend having dry food available though as chickens naturally eat a little bit throughout the day

3. Yes

 

[nuthatched]

Side bar, it 'saves on feed costs' because it swells the feed so they eat less. They're getting less nutrients though, since they're eating less. Like soaking a loaf of bread in water, it's bigger, but there's not more bread
The health benefits are usually marginal.

 

[Perris]

1. Wholegrain, pseudo-cereals, legumes, seeds.

2. I adjust the quantity given to the amount they want on any given day. If there are leftovers from breakfast, less for tea. If the breakfast bowls are spotless and there is one or more at the backdoor, I offer more. Their needs fluctuate, so I supply to suit.

3. I don't know, I don't do waterfowl.

I think the previous posters are just guessing about costs. I keep records. Last year I earned £164 from the sale of surplus eggs more than the amount I spent on feed for the whole flock, which includes a lot of males, broodies, and chicks. In 2024 it was £83. In 2023 it was £171. I don't do it to save money, I do it to know what my flock are eating and to ensure they are eating real food and not by-products and waste products and mystery feedstuffs.

 

[saysfaa]

1. ...Right now my hens are eating a typical layer pellet free choice. I’m open to mixing my own feed if it’s a cost effective/healthier method

Trying to mixing our own complete feed is not cost effective or healthier for the vast majority of us.

If "mixing our own" also includes appropriate foraging then it very likely is healthier. So, enough time in enough space with enough biome diversity on fertile enough soil, and so on. It might even be cost effective too, if one doesn't count all the costs of that much land.

It might be fair to not count all the costs of the land; some of it fills other purposes in our lives as well as feeding our chickens. On the other hand, it is pretty easy to see how significant is if one doesn't happen to already have it for those other purposes or the other purposes aren't compatible with feeding chickens.

2. Do you feed fermented free choice, or give them a measured amount each day?

When I did it, it was free choice.

I would assume if I started my chicks on fermented they would need free choice access until grown..but what about the adults?

I switched to and from dry, fermented, and soaked in various orders and with various timing for the chicks and the adults. No issues doing so.

I soaked more often than fermented because my main goal was to get the fines of their ground feed into a form they could eat more easily. Soaking did that and was more enjoyable for me than fermenting.

Edit to fix grammar

 

[FrostRanger]

I think the previous posters are just guessing about costs

Nope, looked into how much it would theoretically cost for me and it would be far more expensive, even more so because there are no grain mills nearby. Based on the prices of some wholesalers I found online (and what I can get locally if I can get it cheaper)

Corn: 26¢ per pound
Hard red winter wheat: 92¢ per pound
Oats: 82¢ per pound
Lentils: $1.62 per pound
Split peas: $1.25 per pound
Mealworms: $8 per pound

Using recipe #1 in this post https://theultimatehomestead.com/homemade-chicken-feed-diy-recipes/ (didn't look at the quality of the recipe, simply looked for one that at a glance looks half decent) the recipe works out $27.03 or $1.17 per pound (the recipe only makes 23lbs) which for 50lbs is $58.76. My current feed is about 23 bucks for 50lbs. The cost of course don't include shipping (again, most of this stuff is NOT sold locally here as we don't have any grain mills nearby), storage and quite frankly the cost of my time. Not to mention much of the ingredients are being sold in quantities of 50lbs which means those ingredients will make a lot of food. Given I only have 7 hens and they go through 50lbs in a bit under a month and half, much of the ingredients will go bad before I use them up, therefore in my case it makes no economic sense to make my own feed. That is often the case even with people who do have local mills. Sure, their costs are lower than what mine would be but it's still more expensive than buying commercial feed. Commercial feed companies can buy huge quantities of ingredients in bulk which means lower cost per pound, whereas for the typical backyard keeper that's not practical

 

[Perris]

Nope, looked into how much it would theoretically cost for me and it would be far more expensive, even more so because there are no grain mills nearby. Based on the prices of some wholesalers I found online (and what I can get locally if I can get it cheaper)

Corn: 26¢ per pound
Hard red winter wheat: 92¢ per pound
Oats: 82¢ per pound
Lentils: $1.62 per pound
Split peas: $1.25 per pound
Mealworms: $8 per pound

Using recipe #1 in this post https://theultimatehomestead.com/homemade-chicken-feed-diy-recipes/ (didn't look at the quality of the recipe, simply looked for one that at a glance looks half decent) the recipe works out $27.03 or $1.17 per pound (the recipe only makes 23lbs) which for 50lbs is $58.76. My current feed is about 23 bucks for 50lbs. The cost of course don't include shipping (again, most of this stuff is NOT sold locally here as we don't have any grain mills nearby), storage and quite frankly the cost of my time. Not to mention much of the ingredients are being sold in quantities of 50lbs which means those ingredients will make a lot of food. Given I only have 7 hens and they go through 50lbs in a bit under a month and half, much of the ingredients will go bad before I use them up, therefore in my case it makes no economic sense to make my own feed. That is often the case even with people who do have local mills. Sure, their costs are lower than what mine would be but it's still more expensive than buying commercial feed. Commercial feed companies can buy huge quantities of ingredients in bulk which means lower cost per pound, whereas for the typical backyard keeper that's not practical

the mealworms are vastly more per pound than anything else and are inflating / distorting your figures. Take them out and then what does it look like? Or follow a different recipe that reflects what IS available locally to you, and correspondingly cheaper, and / or sold in smaller units. And you are still dealing with just numbers. If you actually tried it, you might find that your birds eat less fermented whole foods than they do commercial feed, so the numbers are incomparable in that way too.

 

[FrostRanger]

the mealworms are vastly more per pound than anything else and are inflating / distorting your figures. Take them out and then what does it look like? Or follow a different recipe that reflects what IS available locally to you, and correspondingly cheaper, and / or sold in smaller units. And you are still dealing with just numbers. If you actually tried it, you might find that your birds eat less fermented whole foods than they do commercial feed, so the numbers are incomparable in that way too.

Only stuff available locally (in that recipe) are mealworms, corn, legumes and oats (and the oats are more expensive locally 'cause they are just the standard oats sold in supermarkets). Buying smaller quantities would up the costs. Most of crops grown here is produce, not grains and legumes. Taking out the mealworms would reduce the cost per 50lbs by a bit over 16 bucks but it would still need to be replaced with something else and would still be more than I pay for food now (and the food I buy is several bucks more expensive than the cheapest feed available here) and would cost quite a bit of my time and effort (not to mention trying to find much of the ingredients just to get some numbers took quite a bit of my time as it is)

It may work for you and what you have available but for many keepers it's expensive and impractical

 

[Perris]

It may work for you and what you have available but for many keepers it's expensive and impractical

I am not aware of any statistics that bear on the subject. You have assumed from your first post that what applies to you applies to most other chicken keepers; you've come down from 'almost never' and 'most' to 'many', but you're still making that assumption. It would be interesting to see any relevant figures, even just for the USA, if you have them.

Old poultry manuals, including those written by Americans, emphasize using locally sourced materials for chicken feed, and cite a large variety of possible feedstuffs. You do not have to stick with what the commercial producers use, which is nothing but what they can source most cheaply from the area where they produce it.

 

[NatJ]

Side bar, it 'saves on feed costs' because it swells the feed so they eat less. They're getting less nutrients though, since they're eating less. Like soaking a loaf of bread in water, it's bigger, but there's not more bread

That is not the only mechanism for reducing feed costs when using fermented feed.

For most backyard situations, the savings on feed costs are because wet feed sticks together and doesn't spill as much. The chickens can eat the same total amount of feed as before, but the feed cost goes down because they are not wasting as much. You can get the same effect with wet mash, without allowing time for it ferment. Improved feeders can sometimes give the same kind of benefit, even when using just dry feed.

When people do studies, some studies show improved growth or egg laying paired with a reduction in feed, when the feed is fermented. That shows the chickens are getting the nutrients they need somehow. Either they are eating just as much feed but wasting less, or they are eating less feed but using it more efficiently (absorbing more nutrients, pooping out less of the nutrients.) The improvements in growth or laying tend to be small, and the feed savings also tend to be small, so avoiding wastage is still the main way that backyard keepers see cost savings from using fermented feed.