A couple days ago I noticed my chickens were uninterested in their crumble feed, which was weird. Later the same day I was scooping up the last of a 50lb bag that was getting down to just dust and then saw that some of the dust in the bottom had suddenly turned a weird dark brown - it was never that color before. There's been no moisture or anything getting into that bag and its been indoors the whole time. Something was obviously wrong with that bag so I've already dumped what was left in from feeder and washed it, and I will be dumping the remainder of the bag soon (will try to get a pic of it first). The chickens are much more enthusiastic about feed from a new bag.
The brown stuff doesn't look like mold to me; it's not fluffy or anything, just the feed changing color while dry. The stuff I dumped from the feeder looked normal but had a weird, faint sweet smell that I don't detect from fresh feed. I'm wondering if this happened because I went through the bag too slowly and if it just started decaying on its own; it takes at least 2 months to use one up and I'd been storing it in the house with the top of the bag rolled down and clipped. I only have 6 chickens; they don't go through big feed bags very fast since they eat a lot of other stuff these days in addition to pellet/crumbles. The smaller 10lb bags are more expensive per volume but I don't want to poison my birds by accident if the feed is spoiling. Should I just buy smaller bags more frequently, or would getting a big feed bin with an airtight seal store the larger bags' contents safely for a 2-3 months?
The brown stuff doesn't look like mold to me; it's not fluffy or anything, just the feed changing color while dry. The stuff I dumped from the feeder looked normal but had a weird, faint sweet smell that I don't detect from fresh feed. I'm wondering if this happened because I went through the bag too slowly and if it just started decaying on its own; it takes at least 2 months to use one up and I'd been storing it in the house with the top of the bag rolled down and clipped. I only have 6 chickens; they don't go through big feed bags very fast since they eat a lot of other stuff these days in addition to pellet/crumbles. The smaller 10lb bags are more expensive per volume but I don't want to poison my birds by accident if the feed is spoiling. Should I just buy smaller bags more frequently, or would getting a big feed bin with an airtight seal store the larger bags' contents safely for a 2-3 months?
