What Are The Pros And Cons Of My Experiment?

[TallChickMagnet]

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!

This was helpful, it seems that you had to remind me of all the schooling that went out of my head with age and none use...Thanks.

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

I was going by the weight of the birds that eat it vs the weight of the birds that don't eat it... but base on the answers so far I think that I will rework the whole thing.

 

[centrarchid]

You will need to keep bird in separate groups for weight measures to be of benefit.


How will you be measuring the feed and beer intake? The beer itself has nutritive value that might make for a slop that is more nutrient dense than a typical fermented feed. Remember that beer is often regarded as a form of bread that can otherwise be used to make a water drinkable that otherwise could not be owing to bacterial contamination.

 

[TamTurkey]

Its been a month. Any results?

 

[TallChickMagnet]

Its been a month. Any results?

Sorry about not getting back with this, but I let it go because so many people kept telling me how bad it was for the hens.

 

[TamTurkey]

Alcohol isn't exactly "good" for anyone. I was thinking of boiling off the alcohol. Odouls doesn't have the calories I am looking for but I am,afraid boiling off the alcohol may lose some calories. The hops isn't supposed to be good for them but many are feeding spent grains with great results

 

[TallChickMagnet]

The one thing I did learn was that they love it. Alcohol and all...

 

[TamTurkey]

Lol we love it too but its not good for us either