What Are The Pros And Cons Of My Experiment?

[TallChickMagnet]

First I made sure that their trough was filled with lay mash, and their water was nice and fresh. Then I put a good amount of scratch on the ground. Then I put half lay mash and half scratch in a bowl and poured bottle of beer into it.

They loved it. Now I have a very happy flock. 17 of my 21 partook of it. I got the idea when I read about people making fermented feed.

Have any of you had any experience with this? And what are the pros and cons?

 

[TallChickMagnet]

Sooooo????

 

[TallChickMagnet]

Still no one?

 

[MemesChicks]

What is the benefit to the flock of adding beer to the mix?

 

[TheSpiceGirls]

I had read that you shouldn't feed certain things to chickens, alcohol was one of them. But I'll bet those were some happy hens.
I take some of their feed and wet it with warm water and let them eat that and they do love it.

 

[MemesChicks]

That's a good way to warm them up!

 

[centrarchid]

aricisom,

When I look at how fermenting feed works, it may actually cut down on waste associated with using laying mash which is then less inclined to be wasted through spillage. The fermenting of intact grains can improve the availability of some nutrient as seeds germinate. The fermentation of a complete feed like a mash to my understanding would not improve nutritive value of food consumed.

What you are doing is not a controlled experiment. Your methods need a little tweaking and your question needs to be defined better. Otherwise, it is an idea worth investigating further, especially if you have access to good amounts of skunk beer.

 

[TallChickMagnet]

What is the benefit to the flock of adding beer to the mix?

That is why the experiment and the question...

I've also heard of people putting beer in pig feed in order to fatten them up...

 

[centrarchid]

That is why the experiment and the question...

I've also heard of people putting beer in pig feed in order to fatten them up...

As you conduct your experiment, how do you know if it is working?

 

[Kikiriki]

What is the point of your experiment?

When you design an experiment you start by asking one question, then research to see if someone else has worked on it: is adding beer to chicken food the same as fementing? This is actually a chemistry question...beer is fermented, but adding it to your chicken food does make the food fermented, so it does not provide the same benefit of fermenting grains. And as someone else said, the alcohol might be a problem. You could heat the beer to boil off the alcohol, though.

So now what is your question? Are you measuring if adding the (alcohol free!) beer provides better nutrition? (this one is answered by researching nutrients in all the foods they now consume and in the quantity of beer you give them, converting all to similar quantity: probably you will need to convert liquid measure of beer to weight by actually weighing a given amount of it).

Are you wanting to see if your chickens have better weight gain? But then you need to define if weight gain is fat or better muscle development.

Are you asking if adding beer reduces the quantity of food they eat? Don't forget there is a seasonal difference in food consumption: more in winter, so you need very good records of what the chickens have eaten over a timespan, or you need to keep the flock divided in two as closely as possible in makeup, then feed one group normally and the other group the beer mash.

Does beer increase egg laying? Same setup as the one above.

Extend egg laying life? Very hard to measure since lay life varies from bird to bird, even within a breed, and is also affected by so many other factors, like disease or injury. There is good information on averages and typical laying quantity, but unless you have a huge flock, your sample is too small to get meaningful results.

Extends chickens life? Same as above...

Hope this helped!