Using Whey?

[U_Stormcrow]

YES!

(sorry, I've been traveling since Thursday, just got home. Next couple days are pretty packed, but I'll prioritize this @3KillerBs ) @saysfaa shared info in another thread, book from last century included some passages on using whey instead of water, reduced the total protein needs for the flock, and the milk proteins they can't really digest are largely gone from the whey - those are the ones which become the cheese, etc.

But I wan't to do more reading before I comment with any greater specificity.

ALso, I haven't had caffeine in threee days, and need sleep.

 

[saysfaa]

... I hate pouring it down the drain, so ...

Can I use it up in any useful quantity making mash for my chickens? Mixing it with feed and/or scratch?

Especially, if I mix it with scratch will it help improve the nutritional quality?

Squawk - don't do that!! Spread it out in the garden or future garden spot at least. Hm, maybe dig it in a little.

I am not sure about feeding it to chickens. I think so because of the old books on nutrition but would do more research before being very comfortable with it.

 

[3KillerBs]

YES!

(sorry, I've been traveling since Thursday, just got home. Next couple days are pretty packed, but I'll prioritize this @3KillerBs ) @saysfaa shared info in another thread, book from last century included some passages on using whey instead of water, reduced the total protein needs for the flock, and the milk proteins they can't really digest are largely gone from the whey - those are the ones which become the cheese, etc.

But I wan't to do more reading before I comment with any greater specificity.

ALso, I haven't had caffeine in threee days, and need sleep.

No great urgency. The whey in the fridge will keep for a while.

 

[saysfaa]

https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/IND43966778/PDF#:~:text= chicken is milk, or any other substance,of lactose by the fowl is very meager.

It says...
"The value of milk, in its various forms, as a poultry feed has been clearly established, the high quality of its proteins and minerals being its chief assets. The present investigation was undertaken primarily for the purpose of determining whether or not lactose, the carbohydrate of milk, was utilized by the chicken....

Lactose, up to 8 gm. per hen per day, was utilized fairly completely, thus making it evident that the lactose present in the quantity of whole milk, skim milk, whey, ör buttermilk normally consumed (100 to 200 cc.) by chickens would be completely absorbed. ... Lactose when fed mixed with a moist mash acts as an irritant to the gastrointestinal mucosa. Chickens will not voluntarily consume more than about 8 gm. of lactose daily when fed in the form of pure lactose mixed with the feed."

They also say, "The difficulties experienced in these experiments in inducing the chickens to consume large quantities of pure lactose when mixed with the feed, and the severe diarrhea always obtained when even 8 gm. a day were consumed, are in striking contrast to the experience of Flimmer and Rosedale (5). These investigators fed a diet containing secwa (a dried whey preparation containing 74.5 per cent lactose) to chickens from birth for a period exceeding four months. The amount of secwa in the diet was usually 25 per cent but in some cases was even higher. The quantity of lactose consumed in this form by each bird was as high as 22 gm. daily. Good gains were obtained and the health of the birds was excellent throughout the experiment. No reasonable explanation of these differences occurs to us."

 

[saysfaa]

A reasonable explanation occurs to me.

Many things about nutrition are interrelated and/or enhanced or buffered by other things. A very few examples are the relationship between calcium and vitamin D, the relationships between the different B vitamins, the balancing between omega 3 and omega 6. Phytochemicals are more than the sum of their parts. The sugar in orange juice is the same sugar as is in an orange but the drinking juice will spike blood sugar levels far more than eating the orange (where the sugars are "buffered" by fiber, maybe).

I don't know what else is in whey that makes it more digestible that lactose as an isolated substance but can easily believe something is.

 

[saysfaa]

One other thing comes to mind from my dairy background... raw milk is digested differently than pasteurized milk. The research above was published in 1924. That is about when pasteurization was becoming widespread in American cities. Possibly, the earlier research was done with raw dried whey.

Certainly, any milk or milk products fed on the average farm in the first half of the century was raw.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Wouldn't the drying process be similar to pastuerization???? I would assume they took they liquid from processing (most likely already brought to the edge of boil for cheese making, etc), then boiled the whey further to remove the water, leaving only the solids - like making maple syrup.

I might be wrong however, I 've not yet read up.

 

[saysfaa]

Wouldn't the drying process be similar to pastuerization???? I would assume they took they liquid from processing (most likely already brought to the edge of boil for cheese making, etc), then boiled the whey further to remove the water, leaving only the solids - like making maple syrup.

I might be wrong however, I 've not yet read up.

I don't think so, unless it has changed a lot. I went on a tour of a plant that dried milk. They sprayed it in a fine layer on the outside of a drum with many small holes in it. The drum rotated with warm (not too hot) air blowing from the inside of the drum. The milk was blown off the drum toward a (I forgot what it was blown toward). By the time it got to what it was blown toward, it was dry.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I don't think so, unless it has changed a lot. I went on a tour of a plant that dried milk. They sprayed it in a fine layer on the outside of a drum with many small holes in it. The drum rotated with warm (not too hot) air blowing from the inside of the drum. The milk was blown off the drum toward a (I forgot what it was blown toward). By the time it got to what it was blown toward, it was dry.

sure, that's how they do it now. how did they do it at the turn of last century? (rhetorical - I'll look)

 

[saysfaa]

sure, that's how they do it now. how did they do it at the turn of last century? (rhetorical - I'll look)

When you find it, I would like to know.