[farmers wife]

With the price of poultry feed and for us organic and this year will see any big hike in feeds I need to see how I can cut costs.


Ive read a few articles on fermenting grains with a bit of fruit etc.  Stating its a better fuel.


Does anyone do this and know % of savings I can make?

[Perris]

I converted to fermented feed about a year ago, and I have not kept precise figures, but know that the same amount of feed goes a lot further because more of the nutrients are made available by fermenting and others are produced by the process; the birds also need a lot less water and the coop bedding stays sweeter for significantly longer, so saving there too. The birds also really like fermented feed. It's win-win-win in my view! 

[roddycm]

Any good links to info on this? Recipes etc? Sounds like a great idea! Sorry hope I'm not hijacking the post!

[Dan]

Any good links to info on this? Recipes etc? Sounds like a great idea! Sorry hope I'm not hijacking the post!

We had a session at the Scottish Smallholder Conference last year from Dr. Oluyinka Olukosi of SRUC in which he covered ways of making nutrients in grains more readily available to poultry. It's not quite the same as hearing it first hand, but you can see his presentation here:

https://conference.smallholding.scot/2017-presentations/

Basically soaking, fermentation or pre-germination of grains provided significant benefits. We've soaked the mixed grains we feed our poultry ever since - haven't don't any measurement so can't say what difference it's made, but the presentation was so persuasive we take it on faith that it's better for the poultry.

[Perris]

there are a number of websites, of variable quality of course, with discussion of fermentation for chickens, which can be found by googling relevant terms. This seems to me to be a good place to start, https://permaculturenews.org/2016/06/20/cut-your-chickens-feed-bill-by-fermenting/