The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[sunflower4you]

My husband and his friends had a beer brewing get-together yesterday and ended up with a 5 gallon bucket of mash. My understanding is this is grains that were heated with water for some time and then the resulting liquid is drained off and further processed into beer. The leftover damp grain mixture is the mash, so there was nothing added to it, but something was extracted from it in the mashing process. The grains were flaked barley, flaked yellow corn, and malted barley.

1. Can I give this to the chickens?

2. Can I ferment it (put water over the grain level in the bucket, strain, and feed)?

 

[lalaland]

yes you can feed it to your chickens. You can freeze it, too, if there is so much that you can't feed it in a day. Long term, I would worry about the right nutritional content, but short term, treat it like scraps from your table - shouldn't be their entire diet for very long.

Not sure about fermenting it, as it has already been fermented, hasn't it? as part of the brewing process?

I get barley from someones beermaking and feed it to my hens, no more than one day's feed out of a week.

 

[Amberjem]

 

[sunflower4you]

yes you can feed it to your chickens. You can freeze it, too, if there is so much that you can't feed it in a day. Long term, I would worry about the right nutritional content, but short term, treat it like scraps from your table - shouldn't be their entire diet for very long.

Not sure about fermenting it, as it has already been fermented, hasn't it? as part of the brewing process?

I get barley from someones beermaking and feed it to my hens, no more than one day's feed out of a week.

It is extracted in the brewing process, but not fermented. But maybe malting is like fermenting - I believe malted barley has been sprouted. I was hoping to ferment it as a way of preserving it since freezer space is limited, but I think I can find a way to get it in the freezer.

 

[Lacy Blues]

I remember reading some comments on the fermented feed thread where people did just that.

However, with them having been boiled, I think all the natural yeasts from the environment have probably been removed in addition to whatever else it takes away. I would do it, maybe add in some organic unfiltered apple cider vinegar to get it going.

 

[jtn42248]

My husband and his friends had a beer brewing get-together yesterday and ended up with a 5 gallon bucket of mash. My understanding is this is grains that were heated with water for some time and then the resulting liquid is drained off and further processed into beer. The leftover damp grain mixture is the mash, so there was nothing added to it, but something was extracted from it in the mashing process. The grains were flaked barley, flaked yellow corn, and malted barley.

1. Can I give this to the chickens?

2. Can I ferment it (put water over the grain level in the bucket, strain, and feed)?

Short answer...Yes. And, if you raise your own grains you have a complete cycle. Fertilize the grain fields with composted chicken manure. Harvest the grains and make beer. Take leftover mash and feed to chickens. Chickens poop and make more composted manure. Cycle complete and you have great homemade brew and healthy hens.

 

[lazy gardener]

From my reading, it can supplement bagged feed at the rate of no more than 20%. I got 10 gal. Have frozen some, mixing some in with my FF, have an un-touched 5 gal bucket. It's been cold enough to keep it frozen on my front step, but that (hopefully) won't last much longer. Hope to be able to use it up before the weather makes it impossible to store.

 

[COChix]

Hope everyone back east is starting to defrost. We are expecting temps into the 50's today so our thaw has begun. Weather forecast predicting 60's by next week.

I am not sure I posted this but we are down to one roo. We culled and processed our second in command on Vaelntine's day. We made our decision to processed him after I found them bloody and fighting while during free range. After reviewing our security tapes of that area, I could tell the fight started off screen and not sure why, but from the point we could see them on the screen and when I went out and found them, they had been fighting for 40 minutes. This was their first fight and upon looking over the birds afterwards, Bruno (the second in command) got the worst of it. We separated them overnight and the next day they started as soon as they saw each other. We decided that we would process the beta. Rocco has always been the indisputed alpha roo from being the first to crow and mate with the hens.

Rocco had a rough winter he has gotten frostbite twice, the first time he recovered fine but then the fight. He lost some of his wattles in the fight and now has gotten frostbite on his comb again right after the fight and he has lost some of his points.

Here is a shot of him 4 days after the fight, he is skinny and his coat is dull.

02/19/15

Since that time, I have been holding him every couple of days and putting on a homemade salve to his comb and wattles. After the treatment he gets some BOSS by hand and he is starting to enjoy his snuggle time. I also have been putting feed out in the open feeders to assure he is eating. I have been dealing with frostbite again on his comb and figured sticking his comb into the bucket style feeder might be painful. Here is a shot of him yesterday, I am pleased with his progress.

03/07/15

As far as the frostbite on the comb goes, we will need to work on a few tweeks to our coop. Maybe another vent at the top and probably a gutter on the side where th pop door sits as that stays pretty damps during periods of melt and I have noticed the humidity increase in the coop some.

 

[Leahs Mom]

@sunflower4you
Wait a minute. Do you live in Northern IN? My Son In Law had a brewing day on Sat. with friends and asked me if I wanted the mash....

 

[topdycke]

Beast Guess is that the hatchery chicks are EEs bred to production reds or something similar. Maybe isa browns or golden comets.

I got two Wheaten Americauner EEers with other breeds last fall and they are excellent at laying around 4 large blue eggs each per week which was what I had gotten them for. These two are very different builds and one is muffed the other is clean (the breeds you mention are a good bet) but similar colored but not what I would call wheaten. I believe the inconsistent type is why the hatcheries get a bad rap with these birds.