Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Are we ready, pawpaw?
Hello friends and welcome toChicken.
Every Day, a podcast for you,the backyard chicken enthusiast,
and mine.
Your host is my Pawpaw, gary,Gary Valerie of Senla Backyard
Chickens.
Here we have fun while sharingideas and learning how to care
for our foul-feathered friends.
Check out our videos at Senlathat's C-E-N-L-A Backyard
(00:24):
Chickens on YouTube, tiktok andFacebook.
So, without further ado, let'sstart today's show.
How was that?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Well, hello everyone and welcome to another episode
of Chickens.
Every Day and right now we arein full spring and there are so
many people out there that havegot some young chicks or young
chickens that they're gettingready to work with and looking
forward to those first eggs, andI know it's a great time.
So what we're going to talkabout some here today is one of
(00:54):
the best things that you canfeed your birds and not cost you
an extra cent whenever you doit, and what I'm talking about
is fermenting and fermentingyour chicken feed.
And fermentation itself hasbeen around for thousands of
years as a way to preserve food,enhance its flavors.
It's got some great intestinalhealth benefits.
(01:16):
Many, many, many, many years ago, people would ferment their
food and they noticed that whenthey ate this food they felt
better.
And so many times when they ateunfermented food they didn't
feel as good.
And back then, preserving foodwas not something that was well
known.
They didn't know the sciencebehind fermentation and what
this does.
(01:36):
They just know that it workedand they knew that they felt
better when they did ferment.
And there's a lot of cheesesand breads, wine, sauerkraut,
kimchi and more use fermentation.
You can ferment practically anyfood you can imagine.
You can ferment vegetables foryou and your family, whatever
you want to do.
Now, before I go much furtherwith this, I want to thank and
(01:57):
give absolute full credit to theNatural Chicken Keeping website
and blog for their greatarticles, including ones on
fermentation, that just some ofthe best information you can
find out there and much of whatI'm saying today comes directly
from those guys and I want tomake sure that that, uh, that's
understood, that you give creditwhere credit is due.
Here on chickens everydaypodcast, we're always learning
(02:20):
and we're always looking andsearching and doing doing more
and research, and this is justone of the places that I found
and I'm sure if you look them up, you will agree that they have
just tons of really greatinformation.
But basically, fermentationuses naturally occurring
bacteria that's already presenton our food and in the air to
partially break down the food,improving its enzyme content and
(02:44):
increasing vitamin levels.
I know that's a lot ofscience-y stuff in there, but it
also boosts the usable proteinlevel in the food, meaning that
more of the protein in the feedactually finds its way into the
bird's system and not excretedout the back, and we'll talk
about that more in a little bit.
Some of the other benefitsoverall generally healthier
(03:06):
birds, lower food consumption,which results in fewer trips to
the feed store, and we all likethat more solid droppings from
your chickens.
So there's a lot, a lot of goodstuff that can happen whenever
you ferment your food.
And if you ask yourself well,what is fermentation?
It's a metabolic process wherelittle bitty microorganisms like
(03:27):
bacteria and yeast break downsugars and other organic
molecules, and this is all donein the absence of free oxygen.
There's no free oxygen, meaningthis is not done in air, with
an air environment.
This is done underwater and itproduces various byproducts,
like alcohol is a byproductacids or byproducts and
(03:48):
different gases.
The process is essential forfood preservation and it creates
these really unique flavors andtextures.
If you've ever eaten kimchi orany other fermented food food,
you know what I'm talking about.
It leads to the growth ofprobiotics, which are beneficial
bacteria, and these are knownto be linked to various health
(04:09):
benefits, both in in you and Iand in your in your chickens and
your birds.
Uh now, different types offermentation bacteria that we're
talking about right now yeastbacterias convert sugars into
alcohol and while your chickensmight enjoy this, it's not
exactly what we're really tryingto accomplish.
You don't want to ferment usinga yeast or allow yeast to
(04:32):
become dominant in yourfermentation, because that
creates alcohol, and alcohol isnot what we want.
We want acids and lactobacillusstreptococcus and how do you
say this?
I'm looking at the word rightnow leuconostoc.
These are all dominant bacteriathat are found in fermented
foods, like yogurt and somecheeses, and sauerkraut and
(04:53):
kimchi and what have you.
These are the bacteria that wewant to proliferate, as they
convert the sugars and the carbsinto lactic acid, not alcohol,
and this is what helps preservethe food and has a tangier
flavor, and this is whatenhances the digestion, improves
the nutrient absorption andboosts your chicken's immune
(05:14):
system.
There's other forms of bacteriaand molds, some of which are
used in certain foods andcheeses, but some bacteria and
molds, as you guys are aware of,are harmful to both humans and
animals, such as salmonella, ecoli, listeria and others.
So when we ferment our chickenfeed, we want to create
conditions for an environmentthat promotes the growth of
(05:36):
lactic acid-producing bacteria.
This is what we want.
We do this by creating ananaerobic environment.
We do this by creating ananaerobic environment.
In other words, the feed is allsubmerged under the water
instead of an aerobicenvironment where they have the
free oxygen in the air that theycan work with.
This is where yeast reallylikes to take hold.
But simply put, we simply putwe fully immerse our feed in
(05:57):
water so that no free oxygenexists and the likelihood of
dangerous bacteria is minimized.
Now, once the lactic acidproducing bacteria are the
dominant species in yourfermentation, then they should
overwhelm the unwanted badbacteria.
Furthermore, we keep thesurface of the water free of
(06:18):
debris, which can give nondesirable bacterias an anchor
point to attach.
In other words, when youfermenting something, we keep a
lid on it, but we don't want thelid to be tight at all.
We won't, because the bacteriacreate gases.
We want these gases to vent out, but we also don't want flies
to get in or dust or dirt oranything that will float on the
surface, because this is ananchor point for other bacteria
(06:41):
that we don't want and startgrowing.
So we want to keep the top ofit clean.
So an important question thatyou always want to ask yourself
is why is it important toferment your feed?
And you need to start byunderstanding an important fact
about those wonderful seeds andgrains and legumes and other
ingredients that go into makingour chicken feed.
(07:02):
They have a naturally occurringenzyme inhibitors as a
protective measure which helpsthem survive conditions until
those conditions are good forgermination and sprouting into
plants.
We call these inhibitorsanti-nutrients.
You can look them up on theInternet all day long.
They tell you all about themand while they're great for the
seed survival, they're not sogreat for people and animals who
(07:24):
can sue them.
Unfortunately, the packagingprocess of commercial feeds can
do little to nothing aboutcontrolling the anti-nutrients.
This is one of the reasons theyneed to put additives into the
feed to make sure that yourbirds get all the good nutrition
that they can.
Fermentation or even justsoaking feed overnight reduces
(07:46):
their anti-nutrient propertiesand makes it much more available
for digestion and use in thebody.
Anti-nutrients what they do?
They block absorption For someanimals.
It hinders the taste.
It tastes bad and it helps theseed to germinate and grow and
it's a defensive measure forthem.
There's a book out there calledReal Food Fermentation written
(08:08):
by Alex Lewin L-E-W-I-N Find it.
I think I looked it up andfound it on Amazon, and the
author states beyond simplymaintaining the vitamin content
of raw foods, the process offermentation can actually create
new vitamins, specifically Bvitamins and vitamin K, as well
as some types of enzymes,unquote.
(08:30):
For the truly deep dive intofermentation, you can purchase
that book, and I think it's lessthan 20 bucks and, like I said,
I found it on amazon amazon andyou'll find it fascinating.
And, by the way, fermented feedis great for chickens and
chicks of any age.
You can start your two-day-oldchicks on fermented feed.
I don't ferment my chick feed.
(08:52):
Well, I'm sorry.
I do ferment my chick feed, butI don't buy medicated chick
feed and and I wouldn't suggestdoing that because I have no
idea how fermentation affectsthe medicine in medicated chick
feed, but I don't feed that tomy young chicks anyway.
So does fermenting feed reallysave money by reducing the
amount that chickens eat?
Well, the short answer is yes,and if you've listened to some
(09:14):
of my other podcasts, you'veheard me talk about Mr Jeff
Maddox more than once.
Jeff is, I think, the presidentmaybe the owner, but at least
the president of the FortrellCompany, and these guys provide
natural and innovative ways toachieve the best in animal
nutrition.
I've listened to hours,literally hours of his videos
and podcasts and he is amazingwith his wealth of knowledge
(09:36):
about chicken behavior and theirnutritional needs.
One of the things I learnedfrom him is that chickens will
eat to what he calls theirnutritional requirements and
then quit.
Then they'll go chill outsomewhere.
So if you feed them the highestquality and nutritionally packed
feed, then less of that feed byvolume is required for the
(09:56):
chicken to meet its daily needs.
It just kind of makes sense.
The opposite holds true forlesser or bargain brand feeds,
and I understand many of us buythose bargain brand feeds.
But you can look at some of myvideos and podcasts that I've
talked about and it's not thatit's wrong to give them that.
Please don't think I'm sayingthat because finances do come
into this.
(10:17):
But you do get less productionas far as your eggs, less growth
out of them, things like that,just the way it is.
But fermented feed releases andmakes available for digestion
more of the nutrition in yourchicken's feed, resulting in the
chicken needing and consumingless.
Again, fermenting knocks down,breaks apart those
(10:38):
anti-nutrients, that normal dryfeed, and there's nothing we can
do about that but the dry feed.
They're going to get nutrition,but these anti-nutrients are
going to block a lot of thatnutrition from actually entering
their system and thefermentation process releases
that and it just makes it moreavailable for their bodies to
naturally absorb this goodnutrition.
(10:58):
They have studies out therethat show that fermented feed
was observed to improve feedconversion as compared to dry
feed, increase egg weight,increase shell weight and
stiffness, increase intestinalhealth by the acidification of
the upper digestive tract howyou like that for some big words
.
And this forms a naturalbarrier towards infection with
(11:20):
acid-sensitive pathogens, inother words E coli, salmonella,
campylobacter, stuff like thatJust gives you a good barrier
against those.
And even simply wetting the foodincreases intake and growth
rate.
Wetting the food helps breakdown these anti-nutrients.
(11:41):
I know a lot of times as atreat for my chickens I will
take the regular chicken feedand if I don't feel like
fermenting this day or somethinglike that, I just take their
chicken feed, put a little milkin it, put some yogurt in it and
make kind of a really wet paste.
The yogurt is great for me.
This is just plain Greek yogurt, no additives, no flavors, no,
nothing like that, just regular,everyday plain Greek yogurt.
(12:03):
Mix that all up in there andthey go absolutely berserk
eating this stuff.
It's the cheapest treat you cangive them because of the feed
you're already feeding themalready.
The milk that you have in yourrefrigerator and a 10-ounce jar
of yogurt can last you literallya few months if you want it to.
When it comes to chicks, earlyaccess to moist diets for
(12:25):
day-old chicks.
This is also that some of thestuff I've looked up online
stimulates the gastrointestinalor the GI development, prevents
dehydration during transport andhatchery.
Rapid GI tract developmentafter the hatch is essential for
optimization of the digestivefunction and underpins efficient
(12:45):
growth and development as wellas full expression of the
genetic potential for productiontraits.
Again, that's off the websitethat I was talking about earlier
.
Again, the great benefits offermenting your feed.
The moistening capacity of thecrop of a chick during the first
few weeks of his life is alsobelieved to be the limiting
(13:07):
factor for the optimalfunctioning of the gut when
standard solid diets are fed.
In other words, if you have amoist feed inside that crop,
it's a lot more efficient forthat chick to be able to digest
this, grind it in turn it intosomething useful, than it is for
that dry feed.
So what does all that mean?
Of course, it just naturallymeans more bang for your food
(13:30):
dollars you know that you spendand, overall, a healthier and
happier chicken.
So the big question how do Iferment feed?
And remember, what you're afteris lacto-fermentation, not
alcohol fermentation.
But I'll cover a little bitabout both and we'll start off
with the alcohol part, which isyeast, and they're single-celled
(13:52):
organisms and that's thedifference between the bacteria.
Yeast are single-celledorganisms that consume sugars,
in other words carbohydrates,and produce alcohol.
In high concentrations alcoholis toxic even to
alcohol-producing yeast, whichwill eventually die off when the
concentration of alcoholbecomes high enough in the
(14:12):
fermentation mixture.
An example of that almosteveryone has had a gallon of
apple cider go hard over time.
It happens as the variousyeasts that are in there and
present in that environment dotheir work and begin producing
alcohol, and while they'reenjoying and consuming the
carbohydrates in the cider.
But if you keep that hard ciderlong enough, it will eventually
(14:35):
turn into vinegar.
So what happened?
Over time, that bacteriaconvert alcohol to acidic acid,
which, by the way, is the mainingredient in vinegar.
This process is aerobic,a-e-r-o-b-i-c, meaning open to
the air, which is called themother in unpasteurized vinegar.
(14:56):
And you've seen apple cidervinegar with the mother on the
label and you'll see that realcloudy layer at the bottom of it
.
I will put a tablespoon of thatin water and drink it a few
times a week, probably once amonth, maybe once every six
weeks.
I mix a tablespoon per gallon,put it in my chicken's water.
Now, I never give them juststraight water with apple cider
(15:20):
vinegar.
I always have regular, fresh,clean water at their disposal as
well, but they really seem tolike the taste of it and will go
after it.
But I give them.
They have a choice of both andyou need to do that as well.
So then we get to the lacticacid bacteria, what we're
concerned with.
They consume sugars andcarbohydrates, starches or even
alcohol, and produce acids.
(15:43):
During this lacto-fermentation,various lactic acid bacteria,
or they're called LABs, are usedto digest the carbohydrates and
produce lactic acid.
This lactic acid is whatproduces that tangy or sour
flavor you may find in yogurt,raw lacto-fermented pickles they
(16:03):
have those out there and rawlacto-fermented sauerkraut.
This is what gives it thatlittle tangy or sour taste.
High concentration of lacticacid bacteria are beneficial to
the digestive tracts and immunesystem and even produce
additional nutritive values inthe form of B vitamins, vitamin
(16:23):
K2, and enzymes.
And what these do.
Once you get all of theseenzymes and all of these
bacteria in your gut that arebeneficial.
They just don't leave room forthe bad stuff to get in there.
And lactic acid preserves thefood and produces an environment
that is unfriendly to thoseharmful bacterias, and it's been
(16:44):
used for literally centuries.
As the acid level raises in thefood, ph lowers, acid goes up,
ph goes down and it preventsthis deadly bacteria from being
able to grow.
It also helps the fermentedproduce, fermented food to
resist spoilage Again anotherbenefit.
So how we want to do it?
(17:04):
First, you want to prepare yourwater, and that doesn't really
make sense to a lot of peoplebecause they say water is water.
But if you live in a city or ifyou live somewhere that has
community water and they addchlorine to this community water
, which bleach, you don't wantto just use that for your water
because the chlorine killsbacteria.
(17:24):
That's what it's made to do.
The good part about it if youtake your water and you set it
out for a few hours or evenovernight, chlorine will gas off
or evaporate and it's gone.
So whenever I know I'm going todo that, I'll take a couple of
gallons out and I'll just sit itout overnight, because we do
live in a place that putschlorine in our.
(17:45):
We have community water andthey put that in there.
So we start with clean water.
Then we start with a clean,non-metallic, because you don't
want a metal container becausethe acid will start breaking
down that metal.
You want a clean, non-metallicfood gray container jug or a
bucket uh, ceramic or food grayplastic, something like that
glass.
It's also a great one to use.
(18:07):
You want to fill this about athird full with the chicken feed
and again, I use non-medicatedfeed.
I have no idea what themedicine in there and how it
reacts to the fermentationprocess.
You want to add enough water toallow for expansion and this
feed and depending on the brandyou feed you get will expand a
(18:27):
lot.
You want it to be able toexpand and have an extra inch of
water on top.
You don't want to allow thefeed to swell up enough to get
into the air and, like I said,some of them will swell a lot.
So you want to make sure thatyou keep the feed under about an
inch of water and it takes thebetter part of a day to swell up
enough where you know it's notgoing to swell anymore.
(18:48):
Stir it every day, okay, and ifyou have a small container that
you're stirring, you know, justbecause it's small doesn't mean
that you can grab thatcontainer, pick it up and shake
it.
And the reason you can't shakeit is now you're going to put
little bits and pieces offermented feed all over the top
and they're going to eventuallystart dripping down and that wet
(19:08):
feed glue to the top and that'sno longer underwater is going
to be a place that bad bacteria,yeast and different things can
grow.
So we want to shake, we want tostir this feed up once a day.
In two or three days you'regoing to notice the water
starting to bubble or maybegetting a little foamy as the
lactic acid bacteria beginputting off carbon dioxide.
(19:29):
That's what creates the foamingand the bubbling and they start
getting that wonderful littlefermentation smell and I think
it's just a pleasantly sour odor.
You know, I kind of like it Ifit smells rotten or alcoholic.
Something went wrong, throw itaway.
You don't want a chance givingthat to your chickens.
It something went wrong, throwit away.
(19:50):
You don't want a chance givingthat to your chickens.
But as we do this you'll.
You'll take about three to fourdays, depending.
Now you want to keep this roomtemperature somewhere around
there.
If it's winter time, you don'twant to set it on your back
porch because the cold will willslow down and inhibit the
growth.
It's going to take longer forit to happen.
You don't want to put this inthe barn where it's terribly hot
, because that is not good forit either.
So room temperature is usuallya good place if your family can
(20:12):
put up with the smell that's inthere, but mine doesn't seem to
bother it very much.
And once they start doing thisit's going to boost their immune
system and the beneficialbacteria actually increase by
something like 80% in their guts.
And now you're going to bespending less money on food.
And some people feed fermentedfood 100% to their chickens.
(20:37):
They just keep fermentationgrowing.
And you could take a largercontainer like a five gallon
bucket, have fermented feed inthere.
Dip you a colander in it everyday, pull their feed out, slap
that in a bucket immediately.
Throw more feed in there.
Dip you a colander in it everyday, pull their feed out.
Slap that in a bucketimmediately, throw more feed in
there and keep the process going.
This can go on for months andmonths, and months at a time and
(20:59):
you don't ever have to dump itout.
You can have a constantlyrotating fermentation process
going.
I can't do that because we stillleave the house and I don't
have anyone that I can trust tokeep my fermented feed going.
So I'll ferment their feed inbatches about once a week.
I like to give it to them.
I know it's got to do them somegood.
I can't do it every day forthem, so most of the time they
do get their dry feed and theirfeed is done in one of the coop
(21:22):
work silos and I put 50 poundsin there at a time and I know
that that is going to last longenough between that and the
waters that I have to give thesechickens plenty of feed while
we're on vacation.
Something else that you can doand you can look up how to do
that, and I've got a video aboutthat is called sprouts.
I take pea sprouts or lentilswhich are split peas, and I'll
(21:45):
sprout those, and the chickensreally love doing that and
that's basically just soakingthem in water, but not keeping
them soaked in water.
You want to like soak themovernight, then the next night
drain the water out and justkeep them wet for days at a time
.
Just get them wet, rinse it out.
Get them wet, rinse it out, andover time they'll just start
sprouting, and these sprouts aresomething that the chickens are
going to really like.
So, guys, I really hope youlike this episode.
(22:07):
Fermenting your feed is easy todo.
Once you start doing it, you'regoing to go wow, this is really
easy.
And, yeah, I can definitelysmell that yogurt-y, sour smell.
This has got to be what Garywas talking about.
This is my fermented feed.
Remember, if it smells likealcohol, don't give it to them.
Like I said, the chickens maydig it, but you're not going to
like it.
It's definitely not good forthem and, especially if it
(22:29):
smells rotten, definitely don'tgive it to them.
But most of the time it's goingto come out perfect, not hard
to do at all.
Guys, get out there and fermentthe feed.
Leave me some feedback.
Let me know how you do on itUntil the next time.
This is Gary with Send LaBackyard Chickens.
Talk to you soon.
Bye-bye, hello, friends, and Ihope you guys are enjoying the
episodes that I put together,and I'd love to hear from you to
(22:50):
be able to get more ideas.
But, as you can imagine, doingthis is not free.
So if you could find it in yourheart at some point to maybe
think about wanting to supportthe show a buck or two, I mean,
that's not a big deal, but ifthat's something you would
consider doing, you can go toany of the episodes from your
podcast app.
I personally use Apple Podcastapp.
(23:11):
Scroll down, click on supportthe show and if you do, I'll
give you a shout out on the showand again, I will answer and
read and answer your questionson the show as well.
Or you could just simply go tochickenseverydaybuzzsproutcom
that's chickens plural, everyday, all one word.
Uzzsproutcom that's Chickensplural every day, all one word
(23:31):
BuzzSproutcom.
And it would be very helpful.
Believe it or not, I haveequipment that I need to upgrade
.
I pay a monthly fee for thepodcast service.
I pay a monthly fee for theediting software that I use.
So, anyway, I thought I wouldbring this to your attention and
if it's something that youwould consider doing, I would be
eternally grateful.
Thank you, bye-bye.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
That's all we have time for today.
I really hope you enjoyedlistening to the podcast.
Be sure to watch our videos.
So, on behalf of my Papa, gary,and me, sylvie, thanks for
listening.
Are we ready, pawpaw?
Hello friends and welcome toChicken.
Every Day, a podcast for you,the backyard chicken enthusiast,
and mine.
Your host is my Pawpaw, gary,Gary Valerie of Senla Backyard
Chickens.
Here we have fun while sharingideas and learning how to care
for our foul-feathered friends.
Check out our videos at Senlathat's C-E-N-L-A Backyard
(00:24):
Chickens on YouTube, tiktok andFacebook.
So, without further ado, let'sstart today's show.
How was that?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Well, hello everyone and welcome to another episode
of Chickens.
Every Day and right now we arein full spring and there are so
many people out there that havegot some young chicks or young
chickens that they're gettingready to work with and looking
forward to those first eggs, andI know it's a great time.
So what we're going to talkabout some here today is one of
(00:54):
the best things that you canfeed your birds and not cost you
an extra cent whenever you doit, and what I'm talking about
is fermenting and fermentingyour chicken feed.
And fermentation itself hasbeen around for thousands of
years as a way to preserve food,enhance its flavors.
It's got some great intestinalhealth benefits.
(01:16):
Many, many, many, many years ago, people would ferment their
food and they noticed that whenthey ate this food they felt
better.
And so many times when they ateunfermented food they didn't
feel as good.
And back then, preserving foodwas not something that was well
known.
They didn't know the sciencebehind fermentation and what
this does.
(01:36):
They just know that it workedand they knew that they felt
better when they did ferment.
And there's a lot of cheesesand breads, wine, sauerkraut,
kimchi and more use fermentation.
You can ferment practically anyfood you can imagine.
You can ferment vegetables foryou and your family, whatever
you want to do.
Now, before I go much furtherwith this, I want to thank and
(01:57):
give absolute full credit to theNatural Chicken Keeping website
and blog for their greatarticles, including ones on
fermentation, that just some ofthe best information you can
find out there and much of whatI'm saying today comes directly
from those guys and I want tomake sure that that, uh, that's
understood, that you give creditwhere credit is due.
Here on chickens everydaypodcast, we're always learning
(02:20):
and we're always looking andsearching and doing doing more
and research, and this is justone of the places that I found
and I'm sure if you look them up, you will agree that they have
just tons of really greatinformation.
But basically, fermentationuses naturally occurring
bacteria that's already presenton our food and in the air to
partially break down the food,improving its enzyme content and
(02:44):
increasing vitamin levels.
I know that's a lot ofscience-y stuff in there, but it
also boosts the usable proteinlevel in the food, meaning that
more of the protein in the feedactually finds its way into the
bird's system and not excretedout the back, and we'll talk
about that more in a little bit.
Some of the other benefitsoverall generally healthier
(03:06):
birds, lower food consumption,which results in fewer trips to
the feed store, and we all likethat more solid droppings from
your chickens.
So there's a lot, a lot of goodstuff that can happen whenever
you ferment your food.
And if you ask yourself well,what is fermentation?
It's a metabolic process wherelittle bitty microorganisms like
(03:27):
bacteria and yeast break downsugars and other organic
molecules, and this is all donein the absence of free oxygen.
There's no free oxygen, meaningthis is not done in air, with
an air environment.
This is done underwater and itproduces various byproducts,
like alcohol is a byproductacids or byproducts and
(03:48):
different gases.
The process is essential forfood preservation and it creates
these really unique flavors andtextures.
If you've ever eaten kimchi orany other fermented food food,
you know what I'm talking about.
It leads to the growth ofprobiotics, which are beneficial
bacteria, and these are knownto be linked to various health
(04:09):
benefits, both in in you and Iand in your in your chickens and
your birds.
Uh now, different types offermentation bacteria that we're
talking about right now yeastbacterias convert sugars into
alcohol and while your chickensmight enjoy this, it's not
exactly what we're really tryingto accomplish.
You don't want to ferment usinga yeast or allow yeast to
(04:32):
become dominant in yourfermentation, because that
creates alcohol, and alcohol isnot what we want.
We want acids and lactobacillusstreptococcus and how do you
say this?
I'm looking at the word rightnow leuconostoc.
These are all dominant bacteriathat are found in fermented
foods, like yogurt and somecheeses, and sauerkraut and
(04:53):
kimchi and what have you.
These are the bacteria that wewant to proliferate, as they
convert the sugars and the carbsinto lactic acid, not alcohol,
and this is what helps preservethe food and has a tangier
flavor, and this is whatenhances the digestion, improves
the nutrient absorption andboosts your chicken's immune
(05:14):
system.
There's other forms of bacteriaand molds, some of which are
used in certain foods andcheeses, but some bacteria and
molds, as you guys are aware of,are harmful to both humans and
animals, such as salmonella, ecoli, listeria and others.
So when we ferment our chickenfeed, we want to create
conditions for an environmentthat promotes the growth of
(05:36):
lactic acid-producing bacteria.
This is what we want.
We do this by creating ananaerobic environment.
We do this by creating ananaerobic environment.
In other words, the feed is allsubmerged under the water
instead of an aerobicenvironment where they have the
free oxygen in the air that theycan work with.
This is where yeast reallylikes to take hold.
But simply put, we simply putwe fully immerse our feed in
(05:57):
water so that no free oxygenexists and the likelihood of
dangerous bacteria is minimized.
Now, once the lactic acidproducing bacteria are the
dominant species in yourfermentation, then they should
overwhelm the unwanted badbacteria.
Furthermore, we keep thesurface of the water free of
(06:18):
debris, which can give nondesirable bacterias an anchor
point to attach.
In other words, when youfermenting something, we keep a
lid on it, but we don't want thelid to be tight at all.
We won't, because the bacteriacreate gases.
We want these gases to vent out, but we also don't want flies
to get in or dust or dirt oranything that will float on the
surface, because this is ananchor point for other bacteria
(06:41):
that we don't want and startgrowing.
So we want to keep the top ofit clean.
So an important question thatyou always want to ask yourself
is why is it important toferment your feed?
And you need to start byunderstanding an important fact
about those wonderful seeds andgrains and legumes and other
ingredients that go into makingour chicken feed.
(07:02):
They have a naturally occurringenzyme inhibitors as a
protective measure which helpsthem survive conditions until
those conditions are good forgermination and sprouting into
plants.
We call these inhibitorsanti-nutrients.
You can look them up on theInternet all day long.
They tell you all about themand while they're great for the
seed survival, they're not sogreat for people and animals who
(07:24):
can sue them.
Unfortunately, the packagingprocess of commercial feeds can
do little to nothing aboutcontrolling the anti-nutrients.
This is one of the reasons theyneed to put additives into the
feed to make sure that yourbirds get all the good nutrition
that they can.
Fermentation or even justsoaking feed overnight reduces
(07:46):
their anti-nutrient propertiesand makes it much more available
for digestion and use in thebody.
Anti-nutrients what they do?
They block absorption For someanimals.
It hinders the taste.
It tastes bad and it helps theseed to germinate and grow and
it's a defensive measure forthem.
There's a book out there calledReal Food Fermentation written
(08:08):
by Alex Lewin L-E-W-I-N Find it.
I think I looked it up andfound it on Amazon, and the
author states beyond simplymaintaining the vitamin content
of raw foods, the process offermentation can actually create
new vitamins, specifically Bvitamins and vitamin K, as well
as some types of enzymes,unquote.
(08:30):
For the truly deep dive intofermentation, you can purchase
that book, and I think it's lessthan 20 bucks and, like I said,
I found it on amazon amazon andyou'll find it fascinating.
And, by the way, fermented feedis great for chickens and
chicks of any age.
You can start your two-day-oldchicks on fermented feed.
I don't ferment my chick feed.
(08:52):
Well, I'm sorry.
I do ferment my chick feed, butI don't buy medicated chick
feed and and I wouldn't suggestdoing that because I have no
idea how fermentation affectsthe medicine in medicated chick
feed, but I don't feed that tomy young chicks anyway.
So does fermenting feed reallysave money by reducing the
amount that chickens eat?
Well, the short answer is yes,and if you've listened to some
(09:14):
of my other podcasts, you'veheard me talk about Mr Jeff
Maddox more than once.
Jeff is, I think, the presidentmaybe the owner, but at least
the president of the FortrellCompany, and these guys provide
natural and innovative ways toachieve the best in animal
nutrition.
I've listened to hours,literally hours of his videos
and podcasts and he is amazingwith his wealth of knowledge
(09:36):
about chicken behavior and theirnutritional needs.
One of the things I learnedfrom him is that chickens will
eat to what he calls theirnutritional requirements and
then quit.
Then they'll go chill outsomewhere.
So if you feed them the highestquality and nutritionally packed
feed, then less of that feed byvolume is required for the
(09:56):
chicken to meet its daily needs.
It just kind of makes sense.
The opposite holds true forlesser or bargain brand feeds,
and I understand many of us buythose bargain brand feeds.
But you can look at some of myvideos and podcasts that I've
talked about and it's not thatit's wrong to give them that.
Please don't think I'm sayingthat because finances do come
into this.
(10:17):
But you do get less productionas far as your eggs, less growth
out of them, things like that,just the way it is.
But fermented feed releases andmakes available for digestion
more of the nutrition in yourchicken's feed, resulting in the
chicken needing and consumingless.
Again, fermenting knocks down,breaks apart those
(10:38):
anti-nutrients, that normal dryfeed, and there's nothing we can
do about that but the dry feed.
They're going to get nutrition,but these anti-nutrients are
going to block a lot of thatnutrition from actually entering
their system and thefermentation process releases
that and it just makes it moreavailable for their bodies to
naturally absorb this goodnutrition.
(10:58):
They have studies out therethat show that fermented feed
was observed to improve feedconversion as compared to dry
feed, increase egg weight,increase shell weight and
stiffness, increase intestinalhealth by the acidification of
the upper digestive tract howyou like that for some big words
.
And this forms a naturalbarrier towards infection with
(11:20):
acid-sensitive pathogens, inother words E coli, salmonella,
campylobacter, stuff like thatJust gives you a good barrier
against those.
And even simply wetting the foodincreases intake and growth
rate.
Wetting the food helps breakdown these anti-nutrients.
(11:41):
I know a lot of times as atreat for my chickens I will
take the regular chicken feedand if I don't feel like
fermenting this day or somethinglike that, I just take their
chicken feed, put a little milkin it, put some yogurt in it and
make kind of a really wet paste.
The yogurt is great for me.
This is just plain Greek yogurt, no additives, no flavors, no,
nothing like that, just regular,everyday plain Greek yogurt.
(12:03):
Mix that all up in there andthey go absolutely berserk
eating this stuff.
It's the cheapest treat you cangive them because of the feed
you're already feeding themalready.
The milk that you have in yourrefrigerator and a 10-ounce jar
of yogurt can last you literallya few months if you want it to.
When it comes to chicks, earlyaccess to moist diets for
(12:25):
day-old chicks.
This is also that some of thestuff I've looked up online
stimulates the gastrointestinalor the GI development, prevents
dehydration during transport andhatchery.
Rapid GI tract developmentafter the hatch is essential for
optimization of the digestivefunction and underpins efficient
(12:45):
growth and development as wellas full expression of the
genetic potential for productiontraits.
Again, that's off the websitethat I was talking about earlier
.
Again, the great benefits offermenting your feed.
The moistening capacity of thecrop of a chick during the first
few weeks of his life is alsobelieved to be the limiting
(13:07):
factor for the optimalfunctioning of the gut when
standard solid diets are fed.
In other words, if you have amoist feed inside that crop,
it's a lot more efficient forthat chick to be able to digest
this, grind it in turn it intosomething useful, than it is for
that dry feed.
So what does all that mean?
Of course, it just naturallymeans more bang for your food
(13:30):
dollars you know that you spendand, overall, a healthier and
happier chicken.
So the big question how do Iferment feed?
And remember, what you're afteris lacto-fermentation, not
alcohol fermentation.
But I'll cover a little bitabout both and we'll start off
with the alcohol part, which isyeast, and they're single-celled
(13:52):
organisms and that's thedifference between the bacteria.
Yeast are single-celledorganisms that consume sugars,
in other words carbohydrates,and produce alcohol.
In high concentrations alcoholis toxic even to
alcohol-producing yeast, whichwill eventually die off when the
concentration of alcoholbecomes high enough in the
(14:12):
fermentation mixture.
An example of that almosteveryone has had a gallon of
apple cider go hard over time.
It happens as the variousyeasts that are in there and
present in that environment dotheir work and begin producing
alcohol, and while they'reenjoying and consuming the
carbohydrates in the cider.
But if you keep that hard ciderlong enough, it will eventually
(14:35):
turn into vinegar.
So what happened?
Over time, that bacteriaconvert alcohol to acidic acid,
which, by the way, is the mainingredient in vinegar.
This process is aerobic,a-e-r-o-b-i-c, meaning open to
the air, which is called themother in unpasteurized vinegar.
(14:56):
And you've seen apple cidervinegar with the mother on the
label and you'll see that realcloudy layer at the bottom of it
.
I will put a tablespoon of thatin water and drink it a few
times a week, probably once amonth, maybe once every six
weeks.
I mix a tablespoon per gallon,put it in my chicken's water.
Now, I never give them juststraight water with apple cider
(15:20):
vinegar.
I always have regular, fresh,clean water at their disposal as
well, but they really seem tolike the taste of it and will go
after it.
But I give them.
They have a choice of both andyou need to do that as well.
So then we get to the lacticacid bacteria, what we're
concerned with.
They consume sugars andcarbohydrates, starches or even
alcohol, and produce acids.
(15:43):
During this lacto-fermentation,various lactic acid bacteria,
or they're called LABs, are usedto digest the carbohydrates and
produce lactic acid.
This lactic acid is whatproduces that tangy or sour
flavor you may find in yogurt,raw lacto-fermented pickles they
(16:03):
have those out there and rawlacto-fermented sauerkraut.
This is what gives it thatlittle tangy or sour taste.
High concentration of lacticacid bacteria are beneficial to
the digestive tracts and immunesystem and even produce
additional nutritive values inthe form of B vitamins, vitamin
(16:23):
K2, and enzymes.
And what these do.
Once you get all of theseenzymes and all of these
bacteria in your gut that arebeneficial.
They just don't leave room forthe bad stuff to get in there.
And lactic acid preserves thefood and produces an environment
that is unfriendly to thoseharmful bacterias, and it's been
(16:44):
used for literally centuries.
As the acid level raises in thefood, ph lowers, acid goes up,
ph goes down and it preventsthis deadly bacteria from being
able to grow.
It also helps the fermentedproduce, fermented food to
resist spoilage Again anotherbenefit.
So how we want to do it?
(17:04):
First, you want to prepare yourwater, and that doesn't really
make sense to a lot of peoplebecause they say water is water.
But if you live in a city or ifyou live somewhere that has
community water and they addchlorine to this community water
, which bleach, you don't wantto just use that for your water
because the chlorine killsbacteria.
(17:24):
That's what it's made to do.
The good part about it if youtake your water and you set it
out for a few hours or evenovernight, chlorine will gas off
or evaporate and it's gone.
So whenever I know I'm going todo that, I'll take a couple of
gallons out and I'll just sit itout overnight, because we do
live in a place that putschlorine in our.
(17:45):
We have community water andthey put that in there.
So we start with clean water.
Then we start with a clean,non-metallic, because you don't
want a metal container becausethe acid will start breaking
down that metal.
You want a clean, non-metallicfood gray container jug or a
bucket uh, ceramic or food grayplastic, something like that
glass.
It's also a great one to use.
(18:07):
You want to fill this about athird full with the chicken feed
and again, I use non-medicatedfeed.
I have no idea what themedicine in there and how it
reacts to the fermentationprocess.
You want to add enough water toallow for expansion and this
feed and depending on the brandyou feed you get will expand a
(18:27):
lot.
You want it to be able toexpand and have an extra inch of
water on top.
You don't want to allow thefeed to swell up enough to get
into the air and, like I said,some of them will swell a lot.
So you want to make sure thatyou keep the feed under about an
inch of water and it takes thebetter part of a day to swell up
enough where you know it's notgoing to swell anymore.
(18:48):
Stir it every day, okay, and ifyou have a small container that
you're stirring, you know, justbecause it's small doesn't mean
that you can grab thatcontainer, pick it up and shake
it.
And the reason you can't shakeit is now you're going to put
little bits and pieces offermented feed all over the top
and they're going to eventuallystart dripping down and that wet
(19:08):
feed glue to the top and that'sno longer underwater is going
to be a place that bad bacteria,yeast and different things can
grow.
So we want to shake, we want tostir this feed up once a day.
In two or three days you'regoing to notice the water
starting to bubble or maybegetting a little foamy as the
lactic acid bacteria beginputting off carbon dioxide.
(19:29):
That's what creates the foamingand the bubbling and they start
getting that wonderful littlefermentation smell and I think
it's just a pleasantly sour odor.
You know, I kind of like it Ifit smells rotten or alcoholic.
Something went wrong, throw itaway.
You don't want a chance givingthat to your chickens.
It something went wrong, throwit away.
(19:50):
You don't want a chance givingthat to your chickens.
But as we do this you'll.
You'll take about three to fourdays, depending.
Now you want to keep this roomtemperature somewhere around
there.
If it's winter time, you don'twant to set it on your back
porch because the cold will willslow down and inhibit the
growth.
It's going to take longer forit to happen.
You don't want to put this inthe barn where it's terribly hot
, because that is not good forit either.
So room temperature is usuallya good place if your family can
(20:12):
put up with the smell that's inthere, but mine doesn't seem to
bother it very much.
And once they start doing thisit's going to boost their immune
system and the beneficialbacteria actually increase by
something like 80% in their guts.
And now you're going to bespending less money on food.
And some people feed fermentedfood 100% to their chickens.
(20:37):
They just keep fermentationgrowing.
And you could take a largercontainer like a five gallon
bucket, have fermented feed inthere.
Dip you a colander in it everyday, pull their feed out, slap
that in a bucket immediately.
Throw more feed in there.
Dip you a colander in it everyday, pull their feed out.
Slap that in a bucketimmediately, throw more feed in
there and keep the process going.
This can go on for months andmonths, and months at a time and
(20:59):
you don't ever have to dump itout.
You can have a constantlyrotating fermentation process
going.
I can't do that because we stillleave the house and I don't
have anyone that I can trust tokeep my fermented feed going.
So I'll ferment their feed inbatches about once a week.
I like to give it to them.
I know it's got to do them somegood.
I can't do it every day forthem, so most of the time they
do get their dry feed and theirfeed is done in one of the coop
(21:22):
work silos and I put 50 poundsin there at a time and I know
that that is going to last longenough between that and the
waters that I have to give thesechickens plenty of feed while
we're on vacation.
Something else that you can doand you can look up how to do
that, and I've got a video aboutthat is called sprouts.
I take pea sprouts or lentilswhich are split peas, and I'll
(21:45):
sprout those, and the chickensreally love doing that and
that's basically just soakingthem in water, but not keeping
them soaked in water.
You want to like soak themovernight, then the next night
drain the water out and justkeep them wet for days at a time
.
Just get them wet, rinse it out.
Get them wet, rinse it out, andover time they'll just start
sprouting, and these sprouts aresomething that the chickens are
going to really like.
So, guys, I really hope youlike this episode.
(22:07):
Fermenting your feed is easy todo.
Once you start doing it, you'regoing to go wow, this is really
easy.
And, yeah, I can definitelysmell that yogurt-y, sour smell.
This has got to be what Garywas talking about.
This is my fermented feed.
Remember, if it smells likealcohol, don't give it to them.
Like I said, the chickens maydig it, but you're not going to
like it.
It's definitely not good forthem and, especially if it
(22:29):
smells rotten, definitely don'tgive it to them.
But most of the time it's goingto come out perfect, not hard
to do at all.
Guys, get out there and fermentthe feed.
Leave me some feedback.
Let me know how you do on itUntil the next time.
This is Gary with Send LaBackyard Chickens.
Talk to you soon.
Bye-bye, hello, friends, and Ihope you guys are enjoying the
episodes that I put together,and I'd love to hear from you to
(22:50):
be able to get more ideas.
But, as you can imagine, doingthis is not free.
So if you could find it in yourheart at some point to maybe
think about wanting to supportthe show a buck or two, I mean,
that's not a big deal, but ifthat's something you would
consider doing, you can go toany of the episodes from your
podcast app.
I personally use Apple Podcastapp.
(23:11):
Scroll down, click on supportthe show and if you do, I'll
give you a shout out on the showand again, I will answer and
read and answer your questionson the show as well.
Or you could just simply go tochickenseverydaybuzzsproutcom
that's chickens plural, everyday, all one word.
Uzzsproutcom that's Chickensplural every day, all one word
(23:31):
BuzzSproutcom.
And it would be very helpful.
Believe it or not, I haveequipment that I need to upgrade
.
I pay a monthly fee for thepodcast service.
I pay a monthly fee for theediting software that I use.
So, anyway, I thought I wouldbring this to your attention and
if it's something that youwould consider doing, I would be
eternally grateful.
Thank you, bye-bye.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
That's all we have time for today.
I really hope you enjoyedlistening to the podcast.
Be sure to watch our videos.
So, on behalf of my Papa, gary,and me, sylvie, thanks for
listening.
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