Why is fermented feed getting moldy?

[Chris09]

But yeah, if that math is right, that doesn't seem like enough water. I definitely cover my feed by an inch or two and just keep adding water as it soaks up.

That 1:1 ratio sounds like a "soaking" ratio, where you would let the feed soak overnight (or 24 hours) then fed.

 

[Dragonfly216]

That sounds about right. I just love the idea of them being able to absorb more nutrients from it being wet, and then all the added benefits of it being fermented. Plus they love it! I switched back to dry feed for a bit while I was on vacation and someone else tended to them, and they were thrilled when I brought it back out, lol!

 

[chicknmania]

Wow, what have I started?! OK, first of all, I originally read to use an airtight lid, and to stir it everyday. That's what I did this time, I added the organic ACV, I had an airtight lid, i stirred everyday, the stuff came out perfect, i gave it to the flock and they loved it.

Secondly, yeah, to each his own. I've read a lot of good stuff about FF. If you don't want to use it, you certainly don't have to. There are lots of people who do use it. There are lots of people who don't. I don't think that makes anyone nuts, or not.

Thirdly, I just filled up my jar about halfway with feed. Plopped the water on top, and a splash of ACV. Stirred. Closed the lid. Put it on the floor in our cool basement. Used it as a sort of dessert for the flock there wasn't enough for them to make a full meal of it, but everyone got a few bites. I supplemented it on top of their regular food.

There's no wildly scientific formula. Just go with it. Those who have done it have answered my questions, and I think it's great if you want to try it.

 

[pdirt]

Wow, what have I started?! OK, first of all, I originally read to use an airtight lid, and to stir it everyday. That's what I did this time, I added the organic ACV, I had an airtight lid, i stirred everyday, the stuff came out perfect, i gave it to the flock and they loved it.

Secondly, yeah, to each his own. I've read a lot of good stuff about FF. If you don't want to use it, you certainly don't have to. There are lots of people who do use it. There are lots of people who don't. I don't think that makes anyone nuts, or not.

Thirdly, I just filled up my jar about halfway with feed. Plopped the water on top, and a splash of ACV. Stirred. Closed the lid. Put it on the floor in our cool basement. Used it as a sort of dessert for the flock there wasn't enough for them to make a full meal of it, but everyone got a few bites. I supplemented it on top of their regular food.

There's no wildly scientific formula. Just go with it. Those who have done it have answered my questions, and I think it's great if you want to try it.

The FF issue seems to often draw controversy!

For those of you who want studies, trust me, they are out there. PM me if you're REALLY interested and I'll see if I can dig some up. Personally, I'm not very scientific...I tend to rely upon studies when they seem to confirm what I already know on a gut-level, intuitively. But science doesn't like intuition, so I don't bother looking to science for "the truth". Time and time again, when I have made a decision (sometimes tough ones) based upon what I "felt in my gut or heart", the decision has always turned out well. But I've made other decisions by rationalizing, thinking, mentally processing, trying to figure out the "right answer" and it's been a crap-shoot. Sometimes it was a good choice but many times I was disappointed. And in retrospect I then felt/heard what my gut/heart had been trying to tell me all along and it was a completely different route than what my mind had been thinking up. I do think the rational mind is a very important and necessary part of human decision making and I realize in the time I am going to give to the issue on a chicken forum that I cannot do it justice. But when my rational mind tries to make ALL decisions without consulting the mind of my heart and gut (there is more combined nerve tissue in the heart and guts than in the cranium), my experience of the results is typically disappointing. When all 3 brains are working (mind, heart, gut) then my decisions tend to turn out much more satisfying. Can I do this all the time? Heck no! But I get better at it all the time.

Thus it goes with fermented foods, both for me and my chickens. I feel healthier and more robust than I did before I started including lacto-ferments into my diet and my "gut tells me", that those foods have a significant role to play in my improved health. I don't know how one would "study" that, but I don't care because I really like the results. Perhaps my reasons I tell myself that are the cause of the improved health are "factual" and perhaps they are "superstition"...but in the end, I really don't care! I feel great! Well, the truth is I DO care, because I am interested in efficiency, but I don't get overly concerned about it.

My wife is working on a book around this issue...for those folks who are tired of "diets" and "dietary philosophies" and who long to connect with their own body's wisdom as to which foods are healthy for them...aka how to listen to your gut and not need an "expert" to tell you what to eat/not eat. I can't tell you how much more relaxed I feel around food since I stopped looking to "experts" for how I should eat. Oh, I still read their stuff and use their experience to help form my own...but my primary "gatekeeper" of my dietary choices comes from what I feel in my gut. It took a while to learn that skill, but I believe we are hard-wired for it...and have fallen out of practice of how to listen to it, especially in the last 60-100 years or so.

I realize that's a bit of a diversion from chickens, but I'll finish with this: Given a bowl of dry feed and fermented feed, our chickens ALWAYS gobble down ALL of the fermented feed before touching the dry. I still feed them dry feed, along with free ranging but first thing in the morning is they get a large serving of fermented feed. They never waste a drop of it. This "proves" nothing, but I am coming from the idea that our chickens also have a gut-knowing about what foods they need. When I was feeding them LOTS of fermented feed, they eventually grew tired of it and I would then find it wasted. But after a few weeks without it, and giving them smaller portions, no more wasting, and it was gone fast.

 

[Chris09]

@ pdirt
But if a animal (example chickens, goats, sheep cattle) already ferments it feed why ferment it for them? It makes no scene and that is why I need to see studies that has a feed to liquid ratio and a fermentation time along with results of the study posted. I am interested in seeing the studies and would like to read them.

 

[pdirt]

@ pdirt
But if a animal (example chickens, goats, sheep cattle) already ferments it feed why ferment it for them? It makes no scene and that is why I need to see studies that has a feed to liquid ratio and a fermentation time along with results of the study posted. I am interested in seeing the studies and would like to read them.

I'm new to animal husbandry and we're starting with chickens. Perhaps next year I can convince my wife to get a couple sheep. That said, my limited understanding is that chickens' digestive tract is too short to provide for much fermentation, compared to a cow. Again, my limited understanding is that all animals have some lactobacillus bacteria (amongst other microorganisms) in their intestines to ferment/pre-digest some of the food. But chickens' tract is pretty short and if you can pre-digest some of that food BEFORE they eat it, then their extraction of nutrients from the food will be more complete...how much more complete I don't know...not sure if that has been studied yet or not.

I know cows have I think 4 stomachs. Not sure about goats and sheep. My very limited understanding about a cow's digestion is they eat the food, it goes in their first stomach and something happens there. Then they regurgitate it back into their mouths where they chew it some more (known as "chewing their cud") before swallowing it again, this time into their second stomach. I'm not sure what happens after that. But I have read that the reason why cows can eat such tough/fibrous pasture foods and convert it so well into energy has to do with the fermentation that goes on in their stomachs. I suspect this is fermentation that is above and beyond what happens in their intestines. If you or I went on a diet of alfalfa hay, we'd likely die of malnutrition, presumably due to our inability to extract enough nutrition from such a fibrous food.

My point is that is really is apples and oranges in terms of digestion processes between cows and chickens. Perhaps someone else here could shed more light on the issue.

 

[Chris09]

I'm new to animal husbandry and we're starting with chickens. Perhaps next year I can convince my wife to get a couple sheep. That said, my limited understanding is that chickens' digestive tract is too short to provide for much fermentation, compared to a cow. Again, my limited understanding is that all animals have some lactobacillus bacteria (amongst other microorganisms) in their intestines to ferment/pre-digest some of the food. But chickens' tract is pretty short and if you can pre-digest some of that food BEFORE they eat it, then their extraction of nutrients from the food will be more complete...how much more complete I don't know...not sure if that has been studied yet or not.

I know cows have I think 4 stomachs. Not sure about goats and sheep. My very limited understanding about a cow's digestion is they eat the food, it goes in their first stomach and something happens there. Then they regurgitate it back into their mouths where they chew it some more (known as "chewing their cud") before swallowing it again, this time into their second stomach. I'm not sure what happens after that. But I have read that the reason why cows can eat such tough/fibrous pasture foods and convert it so well into energy has to do with the fermentation that goes on in their stomachs. I suspect this is fermentation that is above and beyond what happens in their intestines. If you or I went on a diet of alfalfa hay, we'd likely die of malnutrition, presumably due to our inability to extract enough nutrition from such a fibrous food.

My point is that is really is apples and oranges in terms of digestion processes between cows and chickens. Perhaps someone else here could shed more light on the issue.

Please forgive me if I jump around to much, and I'll try to keep as simple as possible.

First Ruminants (Cattle, Goats, Sheep, Buffalo, Deer, Elk, Giraffes, Camels etc) have only one stomach but that one stomach has four chambers. There the Rumen, the Reticululum, the Omasum and the Abomasum. The Rumen is where food is softened and "fermented" then the food moves to the Reticuiuium where the food is softened even more and then it forms the food into small lumps called cud. The cud is returned to the mouth chewed the swallowed yet again and gos back into the Rumen then into the Recticiuium. Food that is small enough will then pass through the Reticuiuium and then into the Omasum where the cud is further processed by pressing and breaking it up and filtered after the Omasum cud then gos to the Abomasum which works similar to the human stomach. The food is finally digested by the stomach juices and the useful nutrients are absorbed by the blood.

(Side note -- A cow refers to a fully grown female Bovine that has had at least one pregnancy)

Now a chickens digestive system is a little different.
A chicken has a Crop, a Stomach, a Gizzard and a Caeca. The Crop is a storage chamber for food and water, wile food is stored it is soaking in water and softening until it is passed to the rest of the digestive track. Food is then passed from the crop to the Proventriculus (or true stomach) here food begins to get digested by acids and enzymes, from here food is then passed to the Ventriculus (or gizzard). The Ventriculus is the mechanical stomach and made up of two muscles that grind the food up with the help of grit and digestive juices. Once food passes from the Ventriclum it inters the small intestine where the food is further broke down and sent to the Caeca. The Caeca are pouches where food is fermented and further digested.


The length of a digestive plays no role in how well a animal extracts nutrients. Goats can digest it food just as good as a Cattle.
The reason that Ruminants can eat tough fibrous food has some to do with the ability to ferment there food "up front" but more so there digestive system is designed to do so. Chicken digestive system isn't designed to precess fibrous food and we can see this by where the vast amount of fermentation takes place. The digestive system of a chicken is designed to process Meats, Seeds, Grains and every now and then fruits and vegetables.

Now if a chicken can affectively process "whole" Meats, Grains, and Seeds then a Mash, Crumble, or Pelleted feed should be a cake walk.

 

[pdirt]

@Chris09 - Thanks for the tutorial...you obviously know more about animal digestion than I do!

Re your questions of "why ferment the feed, if the animal ferments it already?" While I don't have a definitive answer to this, I would suspect it has to do with the type of fermentation as well as the time involved. When you say an animal, chicken or ruminant, ferments it's own food in it's digestive tract, how long is that fermentation process? I believe for humans, the time from mouth to anus is around 2-3 days max. And it wouldn't be fermenting the entire time. Whereas one could externally ferment the food for 3 days or 3 weeks...or longer. I understand that the longer the fermentation time and depending upon the food source for the microorganisms as well as the kind of microorganisms, one could be "creating" various nutrients. Creating is probably not the right word, maybe "assimilate" or "construct" would be more accurate. Nutrients that are present and ready to assimilate that the animal otherwise would have to produce on it's own. If they have digestive energy freed up from fermenting/producing/extracting those particular nutrients, perhaps that energy could be used to produce/extract other more difficult to achieve nutrients? Or energy that could be used for other biological functions?

For example, if I eat a walnut with the shell on, I am not going to get much nutrition out of it and it could perhaps cause intestinal blockage problems. But if that walnut were processed before digestion, such as smashed with a hammer, I would likely get more. Now if the shell was removed completely and then the nut meat smashed, I would probably get even more. It's a mechanical extraction vs. a fermentation one, but perhaps you get the point.

But I'm out of my league here...I am no expert on the biological functionings of any animal's digestion. Back to my original message about it...in my gut, I "sense" it's wise to eat some fermented foods (for my body) and I physically feel better when I do so. Our chickens go absolutely gonzo nuts over the fermented feed, more nuts than any other food we have ever fed them. We feed about 25% of their diet with it.

 

[CrazyTalk]

@ pdirt
But if a animal (example chickens, goats, sheep cattle) already ferments it feed why ferment it for them? It makes no scene and that is why I need to see studies that has a feed to liquid ratio and a fermentation time along with results of the study posted. I am interested in seeing the studies and would like to read them.

On a broad enough level, everything ferments it's food - we have gut bacteria that help us digest things. Anytime anyone talks about probiotics, they're talking about supplementing their gut fauna.


Even the most effective digestive tracts do a pretty poor job of digesting food - ruminants poo a ton. Fermenting the food (using different bacteria/yeast) helps to break down some things that the animal can't break down themselves. If you could find the right fungus/bacteria, and enough time, you could feed animals almost anything (there are fungii that break down motor oil into simple sugars, fungii that break down plastics, etc)

 

[Chris09]

@pdirt
For chickens, the time it takes food to go from mouth to anus will vary depending of the food.
If a chicken is fed solely a mash, crumble, or pelleted feed it can digests its feed in 6 to 12 hours and fully absorb the nutrients with in the feed in another 4 to 10 hours.
Now hard to digest "stuff" like grit and some fibers like the hulls on oats can take longer, some time up to 7 days to just leave the gizzard.
A chickens digestive system is very effective, and doesn't wast much.

Now even though a chickens digestive system is effective for processing meats, seeds, grains and even some fruits and vegetables they have a hard time fully extract nutrition from processing tough fibers like the hulls on oats, sunflower seeds, flax and fibrous vegetables and grass's.

With that said I do soak/sour Whole Oats and some other fibrous grains but as for there regular pelleted feed I really don't see the point.