Category Archives: Feeding your chicken

chicken health, Feeding your chicken, general chicken management

feeding fermented scratch

Why I feed my chickens scratch

They forage for scratch grain seeds when I grow the actual plants, which tells me it would be part of their diet if they lived here wild. They absolutely love it. They love it so much that I can use it as a bribe to get them to go where I want them if needed. This is a handy tool. Sometimes when they don’t feel well, they will still eat scratch and I add some KayTee powder to it.

For my flock I imagine that if they never saw scratch, never got sunflower seeds from the plants I grow, never had the chance to jump for seeds from the grasses/wheat or milo, they would not miss it and be happy with the pellet, but man, imagine all your food was presented to YOU in pellet form…….. you’d eat it too if there were nothing else, wouldn’t you?

Why do I ferment the scratch?

Soaking or fermenting grains is said to make the available the nutrients more available and digestible. The fermenting time is usually 3-4 days, I soak only 48 hours as that is what works here for my household and my schedule. I tried fermenting pellets, wasn’t working for me.

How do I ferment scratch:

The easy way

Fill a mason jar half to 2/3 with scratch, top off with water. The feed will swell, there will be bubbles and possibly a whitish, harmless fungi film. Not fermenting longer that 2 days means it does not smell up the house nor does it ever turn bad. (you can smell that). Every now and then I clean the jar. Don’t ferment in metal, but you can use those 5 gallon plastic buckets if you have a very big flock.

Where do I ferment?

Indoors on my office shelf above the little heater during the cold months because otherwise it would take days and days, outdoors in the run during the warmer months.

How much?

Because scratch grains are not complete nutrition for laying hens, especially commercial production breeds (missing calcium and protein) or molting birds who need a lot of protein, I limit how much they can have per day to 10 percent in the hottest months and 25-35 percent in the coldest, non-laying and non-molting times. I have read that chickens do better on 20% protein that the usual 17 in layer feed, so sufficient protein is important.

When do they get it?

They get it in the morning, and also in the evening when it is expected to freeze because I imagine it keeps them warmer internally. They always eat it all up. Layer pellets are available all day and they free range most afternoons.

Sometimes I throw some scratch into the run as a boredom buster when the weather is so bad they won’t be free ranging or the raccoon and bobcat have young to raise and come looking for a meal and the chickens will have to stay in the run or to use as a distraction during flock integration .

How can I tell the percentage of scratch in my total feed?

I count the feed bags I buy per month.

For example, four equal weight bags of layer pellets and one bag of scratch means 1/5th scratch or 20 % for that time. With bought feed there is some wastage with the pellets, never with the scratch, so it’ll probably be more like 20-25 percent of their bought feed nutrition. A little more for some and less for others, depending on pecking order.

How do I feed my flock

  • they get a mixed diet of
    • layer pellets
    • oyster shell
    • scratch
    • eggs
    • volunteer squashes, fallen apples, blackberries when available
    • free range, and what they find varies seasonally
    • KayTeeee exact baby bird powder with the scratch if I feel it is needed for some birds sunshine (they LOVE to sunbathe, do so winter or summer and I decided that it is a nutritional requirement for them)

My philosophy

It is important to me to provide living conditions for the chickens that are species appropriate. My chickens are a partly “free range in the garden” flock, 32 birds atm, 5 of them roosters. It is a delight to see them do their thing.

I am trying to breed for disease resistance, general good health, foraging, and some eggs.

They are protected from predators as much as possible.

Pushing the hens to the extreme of what is possible for my egg eating habit was never part of the plan.

There is no supplemental light in the coop to make them lay eggs through the winter, and none of them are over-bred to lay an egg a day, 3-4 per week seems to be common when they are younger. I hardly get eggs for about 3 months of the year.

So I don’t see the nutritional necessity to feed them exactly like commercial layer hens which are used as live egg production machines that are considered spent at 18 months to 2 years of age. My two oldest will turn 9 this year, and last year, they maybe laid a couple of eggs at best.

All original feed research was done to maximize egg production and feed conversion in hens in mass production. That formula just does not apply to my flock. Even a confined backyard condition does not apply. This gives me more freedom to feed them with other things than pellets, which they eat, but really just because there is nothing else. Yes, chickens have preferences, If I had more available land, they’d be foraging for much more of their feed, with supplemental grains.

There are other ways to be more self sufficient with feeds, for example using things like chicken tractors, huge compost piles, growing soldier fly larvae or having worm bins, but this is not doable here for me at this time.

Feeding your chicken, general chicken management

Toxic foods for chickens

got treats?

Generally, you’d think birds know what is good for them and what is not – except maybe not -> chickens have been known to eat styrofoam pellets and plastic. Most toxic foods also don’t leave the bird dead the next day but cause organ damage and illness. In any case, here are some foods to avoid feeding your chickens:

  • Raw green potato peels    -> Toxic substance called Solanine.
  • Anything real salty     -> Can cause salt poisoning in small bodies such as chickens.
  • Dried or undercooked Beans     -> Raw, or dry beans, contain a poison called hemaglutin which is toxic to birds.
  • Avocado Skin and Pit    -> Skin and pit toxic to birds.
  • Chocolate  –  chocolate can be poisonous to most pets.

There is a question about apple seeds – and yes, there is cyanide in them but you don’t have to go as far as taking out all the apple cores in your orchards apples 😉

Feeding your chicken, general chicken management

Fermented chicken feeds

I first really heard about fermented feeds as something to seriously consider on a story-thread on backyardchickens.com where someone (Beekissed) within a few weeks brought back to thriving health chickens rescued from severe neglect, malnourished and infested with parasites – without resorting to medications. I am using some of her advice as well as other sources from the web in this post.

My main reason to start now is: one of my buff catalana pullets is a little runt about 1/2 the size of her sisters. She hesitates too long when at the food source to compete with the others. So I am looking to get her a little more advantage. Also, I heard one needs a LOT less feed if fermented food is used.

What is fermentation?

The fermentation process uses naturally occurring bacteria to partially break down food, improving its enzyme content and increasing the levels of some vitamins, as B, C and K. It  makes food more digestible and boosts the “usable” protein level by about 12 percent.

Kefir, yogurt &  sauerkraut are just some of the fermented food you may be familiar with. Peoepl all over the world have been using fermented food for hundreds of years.

In simple words: fermentation of the feed is as if it becomes somewhat predigested, making some nutrients in the feed more available and easier digestable  and absorbed by a monogastric animal such as a chicken. This makes the food more used, rather than just being passed through. Incidentally – the food does not seem to spoil.

It is said that it leads to better bowel health due to more villi being present in the bowel.  More villi means more blood supply, which results in better nutrient absorption from the available feeds passing through the small intestine.

So what changes can you expect to see if you feed fermented foods?

  • The chickens need less food

Easier to absorb, food more available and more villi -> Depending what portion of feed you give as fermented – up to 1/2 or 3/4 less – that would be significant.

  • Their poops are more solid and reportedly less smelly – a side effect.

My chicken’s poop does not smell very bad, but if this means it won’t smell at all – GREAT. will see.

  • Your chickens will have better health overall.
The introduction of good live cultures also helps inhibit the overgrowth of more harmful pathogens such as coccidia, salmonella, e.coli, etc.
From Beekissed: ” Yet another good side effect of having this healthier bowel structure, blood supply, and good bacteria is a decrease in parasite infestation.  The more digestive enzymes there are, the better the digestive action is. This creates a “hostile environment” for parasites, and thus they can not thrive inside your chickens.  Parasites thrive better in an unhealthy bird with an unhealthy bowel.
This is important to know when you are thinking of de-worming your chickens:   One has to ask, “How did my chickens’ health get to such a state that it has an infestation?”  Take care of your chickens’ health and the other problems ~ visible worms being shed in the feces, etc. ~ will right themselves.  All mammals have a parasite present in their bodies/bowels, but you will rarely see evidence of it in the fecal matter unless there is an overgrowth.  When is the last time you looked in your toilet and saw long, white worms in your poop?  This does not mean you have no worms, it merely means you have them but you are not infested with a large population of them.
Same with chickens.  It’s expected that chickens will have some level of intestinal parasites, but never enough to affect their health or production.  All animals have them and they thrive anyway.  The key is not to try to get all the worms out of your chickens ~ if the conditions are that lovely for their infestation, they’ll just be back.  Rather, the goal should be to create such a healthy chicken that the worms can not get a foothold inside them and colonize enough to cause problems.”
  • Reportedly the egg yolks are larger and the egg shells harder

i can’t complain of small egg yolks or soft shells in my chickens, but ok.

  • gives extra fluid to the chickens

if they learn to like it, that would be great, especially for the summer -and yes, it is great for the summer.

So HOW do you make it?

you will need

  • a container – for my first try, I am using a Mason jar
  • chicken feed – for my first try, I am using starter crumbles – later i found out that grains are better for fermenting as I like to throw them onto the garden beds they are working for me. Soaked mash crumbles are not as good for that.
  • apply cider vinegar with “the mother” Bragg organic apple cider vinegar is easily available. Later you just reuse part of the water each time. Works for me.
  • temperature around 68-70 is good, freezing temp outside would not work.
  • a towel might be needed unless you use a 2 bucket method to drain water. I ended up just hand-scooping the fermented grains out add some water and fresh grains.

There are various ways to go about it. This is my first try and I used just over a cup of started crumbles, water and 1/4 cup of Bragg apple cider vinegar. Probably too much vinegar?? Will stir a couple of times, take out feed the next day and squeeze the liquid out.

how long: 8-48 hours, depending what you use, you can use crumbles, layer feed, scratch – since this is already all soft – I will feed it at the latest in the morning. A minimum of about 8 hours seems to be the consensus.

There is a 2 bucket method for feed allotments for 15 or 20 chickens for 1-2 days – later 🙂

You’ll learn to recognize the ferment smell and look for the telltale bubbles real quick.