Good grief, an awfull lot of lets just throw it all together and see what happens going on here.
One problem I think I'm seeing currently is not only is the nutritional profile for a given weight changing through the fermenting, so is the volume. The stuff I've been fermenting grows in volume by about 35%. That 35% is water basically.
Depending on the breed, the commercial concerns dealing with high production breeds recommend 100g to 150g of feed per bird per day. A chickens crop has volume limitations; they're all different but as I've mentioned before, I've estimated the volumes of a number of bulging crops and none that I've felt could hold even 100 grams of the mash/pellets and let alone the feremented feed.
With dry feed the chicken gets more nutrition per gram or per volume than with fermented feed. Does anyone think the advantages claimed of fermented feeds gives a 35% boost to the nutritional value?
The allotment lot if I'm there for three hours get two shots at eating whatever feed I take; one as soon as I get there and one just before roosting. What I need in this case is maximum nutrition and minimum volume.
My Light Sussex keeping friend limits his chickens morning feed which he says keeps them hungry enough to forage during the day. He finds his birds a bit lazy in this respect. They're a big breed and need the excercise.
However, a person who doesn't free range and feeds by a shedule rather than leaving feed out all day might find that the birds don't/cant eat enough in nutrients in the time and at the volume of the fermented feed.
For those who range their birds all day on larege areas with diverse vegitation this is unlikely to be a problem.
I'm trying out drying the fermented feed. The fermentation should have reduced the bioavailabilty problems and the drying will reduce the water content and I hope, the volume by a significant amount.
I'm hoping to produce a wholegrain feed with a similar profile to the low calcium commercial feeds.
I'm still waiting for a delivery of teff and spelt. I think teff may be too small a grain to be useful but a good quality wholegrain spelt can reach 18g of protein per 100g; 18% for those of you who don't do metric. What I have coming is advertized as 17%. I now can look at other grains or pulses that only need to have the right amino acid profile that gives the same protein per 100g or one percent more rather than looking for stuff 6% to 8%. This increase the possiblities a lot.
Yup, it's expensive. But, in theory, I can then add one other componant with a better lysine profile and have a complete balanced protein similar to a commercial feed. The best price I've found so far is forty one uk pounds for 20kg. Would one save the extra cost of the spelt by being able to spend less on the other componants needed to bring the protein content up and balanced?
Why does Shadrach keep banging on about commercial feeds when we're all on the feremented whole grains and pulses? Well, while the overall quality of what goes into commercial feed may leave a lot to be desired, the industry has done the math and the reasearch and has billions of chickens as evidence that chicken can survive and thrive on their feeds.
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