I read a few threads regarding whether or not fermented feed can be frozen. I've got more than I can feed my birds before it'll go sour, so looked into this.
This flock is new, as my others were killed by a fox, so I'm starting over. Dusting myself off and all that...
They are "free range" which now will be a much smaller area, with chainlink, razor wire, sniper tower, trip wires, alligator mote and sirens.
Nonetheless, they have a lot to eat in addition to their feed, which has been and always will be organic. About half-ish is fermented. Before I tossed the excess it into the compost pile for the bsf to munch on, which I in turn feed to the chickens, so it's not totally lost money, (but still!) I searched the forum and I found alot of conflicting information, so I thought I'd pass along my own conclusion.
I make my own keifer, and the grains can be frozen. For a long time. There's a "system" for bringing them back to life, and they're fine. But it's to ferment milk, so not totally the same thing. I also took a run at baking sourdough bread (just don't do it unless you're insane), which is quite a process to build the starter. It's made from rye berries. You can freeze it. Like, almost forever. Almost.
Chicken feed is similar, so I'm freezing it. If the bacteria can be frozen, and it can, there's no reason why fresh fermented feed is any different than bread starter.
As a side note, organic feed has no "preservatives" and goes bad fairly quickly. I literally spend the time putting it in ziplocs and store it in the fridge and freezer - the bag is too big to shove in there. I contacted MannaPro a year ago because the bag I got was nothing but powder, and the rep said it goes bad FAST. There's a date on the bag, and the feed was 8 months old. I don't shop there anymore, and always check the date on the bag.
This flock is new, as my others were killed by a fox, so I'm starting over. Dusting myself off and all that...
They are "free range" which now will be a much smaller area, with chainlink, razor wire, sniper tower, trip wires, alligator mote and sirens.
Nonetheless, they have a lot to eat in addition to their feed, which has been and always will be organic. About half-ish is fermented. Before I tossed the excess it into the compost pile for the bsf to munch on, which I in turn feed to the chickens, so it's not totally lost money, (but still!) I searched the forum and I found alot of conflicting information, so I thought I'd pass along my own conclusion.
I make my own keifer, and the grains can be frozen. For a long time. There's a "system" for bringing them back to life, and they're fine. But it's to ferment milk, so not totally the same thing. I also took a run at baking sourdough bread (just don't do it unless you're insane), which is quite a process to build the starter. It's made from rye berries. You can freeze it. Like, almost forever. Almost.
Chicken feed is similar, so I'm freezing it. If the bacteria can be frozen, and it can, there's no reason why fresh fermented feed is any different than bread starter.
As a side note, organic feed has no "preservatives" and goes bad fairly quickly. I literally spend the time putting it in ziplocs and store it in the fridge and freezer - the bag is too big to shove in there. I contacted MannaPro a year ago because the bag I got was nothing but powder, and the rep said it goes bad FAST. There's a date on the bag, and the feed was 8 months old. I don't shop there anymore, and always check the date on the bag.
