Raising Meat birds on alternative feeds (ie CHEEP-ly)

[carolb5]

Hey Carol, my babies love their ff. For sure. Until I put anything else with meat or eggs, leftovers in. Then they just nibble a little until they realize I'm not bringing the good stuff. Then they will eat it. So funny.

Well, I no more than posted about them not going hard for the ff and look out. The clean plate club. I feed the meat and eggs as their protein portion. They do eat more in the pm when its warmer. They are in a water tank in the new chicken house. Lots of air, no drafts. NO SMELL.

 

[stilllearning]

Hello! I'm new to BYC and meat birds so forgive me if I'm asking dumb questions. I've read through a lot of this thread and there is a lot of very good, yet somewhat overwhelming information. Thanks to all of you for sharing your knowledge! I live in MN and we just received 12 cornish cross birds this week (we also got 23 layers). I'm REALLY struggling with feeding them conventional feed. So, I looked into feeding them a non-GMO feed and even though it's cheaper than organic - it's really expensive! My husband and I simply can't afford that. I just want to find a way a to feed them as healthy as possible for the least amount of money. I've researched fodder/sprouting but can't seem to find much information on feeding it to meat birds. It looks like a lot of you are doing a combination of 3 things: fermenting feed, sprouting grains (is barley the best?) and feeding them proteins like leftover meat. Am I understanding that correctly? It was really late last night when I was reading so I probably missed some information. Any help is greatly appreciated, I just want to feed my family as healthy as I can.

 

[Whoopsie daisy]

Hello! I'm new to BYC and meat birds so forgive me if I'm asking dumb questions. I've read through a lot of this thread and there is a lot of very good, yet somewhat overwhelming information. Thanks to all of you for sharing your knowledge! I live in MN and we just received 12 cornish cross birds this week (we also got 23 layers). I'm REALLY struggling with feeding them conventional feed. So, I looked into feeding them a non-GMO feed and even though it's cheaper than organic - it's really expensive! My husband and I simply can't afford that. I just want to find a way a to feed them as healthy as possible for the least amount of money. I've researched fodder/sprouting but can't seem to find much information on feeding it to meat birds. It looks like a lot of you are doing a combination of 3 things: fermenting feed, sprouting grains (is barley the best?) and feeding them proteins like leftover meat. Am I understanding that correctly? It was really late last night when I was reading so I probably missed some information. Any help is greatly appreciated, I just want to feed my family as healthy as I can.

Hi, and welcome

Yes we are trying to figure out the same thing (at least I am still trying to figure it out)! You pretty much have the thread summed up well. My aim is to feed a good protein source, like leftover meat, and filling the rest with sprouted/fermented grains. I just haven't been able to secure even bone/meat meal at a better price than feed, so I'm still only feeding fermented broiler feed. The fermentation helps with nutrient absorption, and also because it's wet feed they don't waste any by kicking it out of the feeder. Both these factors make the feed go further. It also ensures your meaties are getting a good amount of pro-biotics, which helps prevent disease.

I'm busy reading this thread: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/644300/fermenting-feed-for-meat-birds in which Beekissed shares a lot of great information on fermenting feed. I'm only on page 10 now and the page count on that thread is over 1500!!!!

However, from what I've read so far, it seems Beekissed only ferments whole grains for her meat birds without adding any additional protein. (What I've read so far was posted back in 2012, I haven't gotten to the recent stuff so I don't know if that's changed in the meantime). Seems fermentation is the way to go! Adding protein won't hurt of course.

Anyway, I suspect I'm rambling. About Barley being the best; I'm not sure. I have a lot to learn still! What I have discovered is that raising meat birds is not nearly as daunting or overwhelming as I thought it would be. I'm even considering raising 100 next time!

 

[Whoopsie daisy]

Daisy, they look so cute. And your set up is stellar.

Thanks. They still have plenty of space to run in that cage, so will stay there until they're a bit bigger. I'm still scared to let them out. I've lost much bigger chickens to mongoose and they are so fast. They run, grab and hide before you can even see them

 

[LindaB220]

Hi, and welcome

Yes we are trying to figure out the same thing (at least I am still trying to figure it out)! You pretty much have the thread summed up well. My aim is to feed a good protein source, like leftover meat, and filling the rest with sprouted/fermented grains. I just haven't been able to secure even bone/meat meal at a better price than feed, so I'm still only feeding fermented broiler feed. The fermentation helps with nutrient absorption, and also because it's wet feed they don't waste any by kicking it out of the feeder. Both these factors make the feed go further. It also ensures your meaties are getting a good amount of pro-biotics, which helps prevent disease.

I'm busy reading this thread: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/644300/fermenting-feed-for-meat-birds in which Beekissed shares a lot of great information on fermenting feed. I'm only on page 10 now and the page count on that thread is over 1500!!!!

However, from what I've read so far, it seems Beekissed only ferments whole grains for her meat birds without adding any additional protein. (What I've read so far was posted back in 2012, I haven't gotten to the recent stuff so I don't know if that's changed in the meantime). Seems fermentation is the way to go! Adding protein won't hurt of course.

Anyway, I suspect I'm rambling. About Barley being the best; I'm not sure. I have a lot to learn still! What I have discovered is that raising meat birds is not nearly as daunting or overwhelming as I thought it would be. I'm even considering raising 100 next time!

Daisy, I think that you are doing great. You've learned a lot and will continue learning. Beekissed has the best thread out there. She also has one on fermenting for layers. I found her meatbird thread on my first day and never looked back. I consider fermenting this best thing I've learned on all BYC. It's almost impossible to read it all. I'd suggest reading the first 100 pages and the last 100 pages. Bee was gone from the thread from about 500-1000 so I didn't go back and read those. But I did all the others. But I've been reading daily for over 8 mo. You only have so much time. From what I understand Bee ferments layer feed along with some BOSS or something. When I ask about non-GMO she said it isn't going to change much to feed non-GMO when you have it in everything else. Milk, beef, sugar veggies. So I quit worrying about it. I know that right now wheat is non-GMO, and oats and barley. If y'all want to go grains make a mixture of those three and BOSS. 2 parts wheat, 1 part ea of crimped oats and crimped or hulled barley. and 1 part BOSS (Black oiled Sunflower Seeds) Along with a little meat (a can of mackeral) or hamburger meat and you've got a pretty good mix. Greenery, sprouts, alfalfa pellets (just a few) if they can't roam. I totally respect you on the decision of 100 birds the next time. You have the set up for it. A LOT of work processing though.

 

[LindaB220]

Here's a website that is so good about fermenting feeds. She mainly took all the facts of Bee thread and came up with a short cut sheet. As far as I can tell, she has it exactly right. Write it down so you can refer to it later. I bookmarked it in my computer.

http://tikktok.wordpress.com/2014/04/13/fermented-feed-faq/

 

[stilllearning]

Hi, and welcome

Yes we are trying to figure out the same thing (at least I am still trying to figure it out)! You pretty much have the thread summed up well. My aim is to feed a good protein source, like leftover meat, and filling the rest with sprouted/fermented grains. I just haven't been able to secure even bone/meat meal at a better price than feed, so I'm still only feeding fermented broiler feed. The fermentation helps with nutrient absorption, and also because it's wet feed they don't waste any by kicking it out of the feeder. Both these factors make the feed go further. It also ensures your meaties are getting a good amount of pro-biotics, which helps prevent disease.

I'm busy reading this thread: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/644300/fermenting-feed-for-meat-birds in which Beekissed shares a lot of great information on fermenting feed. I'm only on page 10 now and the page count on that thread is over 1500!!!!

However, from what I've read so far, it seems Beekissed only ferments whole grains for her meat birds without adding any additional protein. (What I've read so far was posted back in 2012, I haven't gotten to the recent stuff so I don't know if that's changed in the meantime). Seems fermentation is the way to go! Adding protein won't hurt of course.

Anyway, I suspect I'm rambling. About Barley being the best; I'm not sure. I have a lot to learn still! What I have discovered is that raising meat birds is not nearly as daunting or overwhelming as I thought it would be. I'm even considering raising 100 next time!

Thank you so much! I'm going to check out that thread you posted. I have so much to learn but it sounds like at least fermenting is the way to go. I think I'll get started on it

 

[calliescluckers]

how do i sped dup the fermentation process? My birds are eating like crazy and I can't keep up with fermenting.

 

[RachelJG]

how do i sped dup the fermentation process? My birds are eating like crazy and I can't keep up with fermenting.

It's my understanding that keeping the ferment warm (but not hot) helps. I used bubbies pickle juice to jump start mine too, but really, to keep up, what I did was use a bigger vessel. I've got a five gallon bucket for eight broilers, five weeks old and I think it's staying sufficiently fermented. I would be curious though if there's a rule of thumb about what fraction of a ferment you can use/replace every 24hrs and still have it keep up.
For the rest of you out there... I tried to weigh one of my birds in a kitchen scale again this week... VERY roughly 3lbs at 5 weeks. Anybody got a point of comparison for that? The one I was able to weigh at 4 weeks was 2.25lbs. Also... What happens if my chickens don't get "enough" protein?

 

[Whoopsie daisy]

how do i sped dup the fermentation process? My birds are eating like crazy and I can't keep up with fermenting.

I had the same problem. Started with one 10 liter (3 gallon?) bucket and it soon became too small. Added a 15 liter bucket (5ish gallon?) so now have two buckets. That is also going to be insufficient soon so I am busy sterilizing a big garbage bin... What I do is leave about one sixth of the FF in the bucket then add some more feed and water to that and leave overnight. It's bubbling like crazy within a few hours... It's fall here as well so temps are low during the night but that doesn't seem like it's affecting it. When I started the first bucket, I added two tablespoons of potato sourdough starter juice to the mix and that has worked like a charm. I only used the starter once for bread and didn't like the sour taste of the bread so I'm happy that it was put to another good use lol. So to make a long story short, I just upgrade to a bigger container, but I've read keeping the mixture at I think 72 deg, but never in direct sunlight helps speed up the process.