Heritage Large Fowl - Phase II

[3riverschick]

Kudos to my Hubby Bob who got up early this morning. He moved all the birds
to their winter quarters plus fed and watered them. I was going to get up at
10 this morning and do it. By the time I got up it was all done. So I made him
a special sausage and egg scramble for breakfast as a thank you.
Best,
Karen

 

[Lacy Blues]

Wow, good husband!

Are you not feeling well Karen? Or were you up most of the night?

 

[LindaB220]

I'd love to have my own dairy available. The Feeding Poultry book says adding dairy to vegetarian poultry feed can be super helpful for the birds. On the other hand, I've also read dried whey protein can make the birds gassy. Not sure how true that is ... dried whey protein concentrate might be a convenient protein boost for my birds since I'm going soy/canola-free and have about maxed out the fish meal ...

We do Fermented Feed here. We raised this year's heritage dual purpose birds on FF, and it is what the breeders got. The birds seem to be growing well on it. We have a corner of the kitchen devoted to the FF bins and buckets -- not everyone can do that ... or would want to. It really isn't too much work once we got the system worked out. There are about 50 birds in the breeder area -- they only get FF and forage. We give a bucket of FF to the laying flock every day (100+ birds), but they also have good forage and pellets and they sometimes don't clean up the FF in one day. Fermenting the pellets means we don't have to get crumbles for the babies, which is convenient.

I've done a ton of research on how/why FF is beneficial to the birds as it kinda seemed like a hairbrained idea when I first heard it. From what I've read in actual science research, FF seems to increase gut health and helps reduce parasites and bad bacteria in poultry flocks, which is great. General fermentation research indicates fermenting cereal grains reduces anti-nutrients and increases protein. It is also one way to introduce good pre- and pro-biotics and certain vitamins.

I tried growing fodder and failed. We are now trying to improve our pastures instead. Fresh green stuff seems very important for healthy birds. I consider it a priority.

Yes, I like to ferment the feed. They are insanely in love with it.

Also, since I can't free range yet, I have been doing a short 3 day wheat and oats sprout and they do well with it also. It's not too hard for me and I like it.

 

[LindaB220]

Anyone looking to add yeast to their feed needs to remember that this is not bread yeast. There is a product called Nutritional Yeast and it has something like 36% protein (if I am remembering correctly).

I ferment my feed. It is not difficult and only takes a few minutes to add water to the bucket every day. Right now I'm feeding around 100 birds. Fermenting does not increase protein, it makes the protein in the feed more available to the bird.

I expose my chicks to my adult flock by putting them into a coop where the adults have been. I don't sterilize pens. I clean them out most of the way and add shavings.

It's spent brewers yeast. I remember at least 15 years ago, when they first started going big. They fed their cows on the brewers yeast and the smell in the barn was so intense that people started getting better on problems that were wrong with them. One of the owners had a daughter that had bad skin lessions or something and he started her on the yeast and it got cured. I paid $125 to have a 50# bag shipped to me and used it forever. I didn't have animals at the time and a lot went to waste but they were building a $12 million factory to develop it. I guess it is going great for them. (Not one of my best decisions, ha) You can buy it by the capsule today.

 

[Lacy Blues]

LindaB220 are you the one who told me about a slightly different method of sprouting oats? I was trying to remember what you said. Of course this morning I forgot to resoak my oats while I was caring for the birds.

I have no pasture for my birds but I have lots of plans in my head on how to get some stuff growing for them. I do raise sprouts for them year round if I have it together... some days or weeks I don't.

 

[LindaB220]

There are a couple different types of yeast used as nutritional supplements ... Brewer's Yeast, Nutritional Yeast, and then there are livestock feed-grade yeasts.

Here are links to the two "human grade" yeast supplements ...

Brewer's Yeast is often recommended as a supplement for ducks for the niacin ... http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/custom/1323569/2 You can see it is 55% protein. There are even some companies selling Brewer's Yeast with garlic (I think) for poultry.

Nutritional Yeast is often recommended to vegetarians for the B12 they add to it. It has more niacin than Brewer's Yeast, yet I have never received an answer when I question why it isn't recommended for ducks instead of Brewer's Yeast. http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/custom/1323565/2 You can see it is 71% protein. Before I started using the custom feed, I mixed Nutritional Yeast into our Fermented Feed just before it went into the troughs. I had the local big discount grocery store order it for me in bulk. I also use it pretty often as popcorn or pasta topper. It's kinda cheesy. Yum.

And here is a link to the Diamond V page that talks about the application of their feed grade yeast products for poultry. The have different strengths of yeast, with different protein concentrations, and some with selenium, which is supposed to be good for male fertility in breeding birds ... http://www.diamondv.com/species/poultry-nutrition-and-health/ (We use either the Green or the Organic version for our custom feed, depending on which the mill has on hand/ordered.)

Wow, I checked out the site and it has grown so incredibly since they were on their farm. It's amazing.

Worldwide, good for them. They were nice people.

 

[LindaB220]

LindaB220 are you the one who told me about a slightly different method of sprouting oats? I was trying to remember what you said. Of course this morning I forgot to resoak my oats while I was caring for the birds.

I have no pasture for my birds but I have lots of plans in my head on how to get some stuff growing for them. I do raise sprouts for them year round if I have it together... some days or weeks I don't.

Oats take a LOT longer to soak than wheat. I start the oats a couple of days before the wheat. Then I continue soaking the oats and add the wheat for 24 hrs. Then layer 1/2" deep in a tray and water 2x day for 3-4 days. They go nuts over it. Kassaundra has a video on how she does it.

She uses regular oats but I like the triple washed oats for racehorses. I have a track locally. I do it much better with the pillowcases or sacks. But they both work.

 

[chickadoodles]

Kudos to my Hubby Bob who got up early this morning. He moved all the birds
to their winter quarters plus fed and watered them. I was going to get up at
10 this morning and do it. By the time I got up it was all done. So I made him
a special sausage and egg scramble for breakfast as a thank you.
Best,
Karen

Wonderful hubby! Sounds like he got a very nice thank you.

 

[3riverschick]

Wow, good husband!

Are you not feeling well Karen? Or were you up most of the night?

Just tired. I had worked till 10pm. the night before and had another shift at 1 pm that afternoon. So Bob let me sleep in, smile.
Best,
Karen

 

[3riverschick]

Hi,
Well I finally got to look at the "keeper" chicks all in one pen yesterday. The strain-cross are about 4 1/2
months old (6/6). The inbred are about 3 1/2 months old ( 7/14). Was I surprised! I had liked what
I kept but now that I see them all together, it's really surprising. Both the inbred and strain-cross pullets
look like peas in a pod. The pullets that I kept have no cushions. I suspect a Darwinian Law of Variation at
work here. The cockerel as usual is lovely. Soon as I get time, I am going to run all these pedigrees in paper.
I did them mostly in my head this season. A dicey affair. However, the results are so pleasing. I will run the
pedigrees and take some pics of the chicks so ya'll can see why I'm excited. May take a week or so because
of my work schedule.
Best,
Karen