CCX

[CrealCritter]

Looks like sometime the week January 18th will be processing. That'll make the chickens 10 weeks old according to my estimates. Winner winner chicken dinner most of them are to big for cornish game hens right now but to small for fryers. I should get a scale and weigh the biggest and the smallest.

 

[Beekissed]

The room is inside the barn, it was a tack room. It ain't wet at all, the hay is dry. I had access to lots of leaves before the windstorm came from the south and blow them all into my neighbors place north of me I love it went my yard gets cleaned up for me. My wife was all about the raking and on the night before she was going to rake the windstorm came.

I have the window cracked and the bottom of the plywood door ajar. It don't stink so much in there now. As a matter of fact I didn't even change out any hay today because it don't stink so bad anymore.

I don't care what anyone says... CCX are nothing but stinky couch potato chickens.

Mine never were but then I free range mine after 2 wks of age, so all the poop is not concentrated in one place. That's one reason I don't get CX in the late fall/winter.

 

[CrealCritter]

I'm all about fermentation, so why not try what BK and BM suggested?

Here's the ingredients...
1) 50lb bag of Meat Bird 21% protein
4) 5 gallon food safe buckets, screw on lids with gaskets
1/2 gallon fresh from the cow milk
5 gallons of pond water (had to fill the bucket twice)

I poured the 50 lbs of feed into the 5 gallon buckets they were all approximately the same. Then I did the same with the milk and water. Here's what it looked like.

Then I screwed the lids on and left cracked so they can burp. And placed them in the coop with the chickens it was about 68 in there.

I used my sauerkraut buckets and pond water. My pond water doesn't have any chlorine or chloramine to prohibit bacteria growth. But if I hatch frogs by doing this it's all yins fault.

Should I add more pond water you think, should it look like soup instead or stew?

 

[Beekissed]

You'll find you'll want to put your water in first and that what you have right now is not enough water, so, yeah...it needs to look more like soup than stew. It generally works out to be the same amount of water to the same amount of feed to get a consistency that you can actually feed out. The feed swells, as you will find and you'll likely have lids off by morning and feed spilling over the lip, too dry on top and hard to scoop out and feed throughout.

So, when you do it next time, it's not likely you'll be able to see much feed after you've stirred up your buckets...just murky looking water with a little grain floating on the surface. For a better overall fermentation, you'll want that grain to be really saturated, so the water to grain ratio is important...otherwise you just have damp grain, with fermentation maybe going on in the bottom, but the top, more dry portions will not get fully fermented...but it will form a layer of yeast, then mold if left unstirred into the more moist areas.

 

[CrealCritter]

You'll find you'll want to put your water in first and that what you have right now is not enough water, so, yeah...it needs to look more like soup than stew. It generally works out to be the same amount of water to the same amount of feed to get a consistency that you can actually feed out. The feed swells, as you will find and you'll likely have lids off by morning and feed spilling over the lip, too dry on top and hard to scoop out and feed throughout.

So, when you do it next time, it's not likely you'll be able to see much feed after you've stirred up your buckets...just murky looking water with a little grain floating on the surface. For a better overall fermentation, you'll want that grain to be really saturated, so the water to grain ratio is important...otherwise you just have damp grain, with fermentation maybe going on in the bottom, but the top, more dry portions will not get fully fermented...but it will form a layer of yeast, then mold if left unstirred into the more moist areas.

Ok I can add more water and also have 4 buckets instead of 3. Shouldn't be to hard to do

 

[CrealCritter]

Alrighty then it's now soup, in 4 5 gallon buckets. The stuff is already lit up and bubbling. There's baby flathead catfish swimming around in two of them about an inch long. I kind of had a feeling I would scoop up something live out of the pond, but I thought it would be frogs, not catfish, Protein Boost I also moved the buckets into the center of the room in case they overflow. Thanks @Beekissed

 

[Beekissed]

Catfish in the mix.....can't beat that!

 

[baymule]

You are on your way! Bee is the Fermented Feed Queen! The dirty birdies drink less water on fermented feed. You are going to like this. It’s a little more work but so worth it.

 

[CrealCritter]

Catfish in the mix.....can't beat that!

I just stirred the buckets again. The feed is fermenting alright. I seen 2 catfish in one bucket but I didn't see any more catfish in any of the other buckets. They are really tiny catfish like no more than a inch long.

 

[CrealCritter]

You are on your way! Bee is the Fermented Feed Queen! The dirty birdies drink less water on fermented feed. You are going to like this. It’s a little more work but so worth it.

Just remember you ladies put me up to this being a guy who is into fermentation, I can already see how this will be beneficial. It's gotta be good for their digestive tract at the very least. But I can also see the nuterient benefits. Fermentation makes nuterients more easily available. Besides I won't need to add any milk to the batter when I fry them