How to Ferment Chicken Feed for Healthier Chickens.

Fermenting chicken feed is just as good for your chickens as fermented foods are for you. And there's nothing more to making it than adding water to chicken feed and letting it sit. If you can make Cup-a-Soup, I can teach you how to ferment chicken feed.

I love all of my chickens with all of my heart and unconditionally except for Baby, whom I hate. She bites, she chases, she terrorizes.  If you have a small flock chances are you love them all too so you want to do what's best for them. But you're busy. So no, you might not be willing to buy all the individual ingredients to make up the right nutrients of chicken feed and mix them yourself.

You MIGHT however be willing to just add a bit of water to your own feed in order to create a nutritious fermented concoction for them. You will even feed it to Baby.

If this is your first foray into raising chickens this post contains all the questions and answers you probably have about keeping chickens for the first time.

Fermenting your chickens’ feed can have huge health benefits for your flock, can lower your feed bill and can even make your chickens lay bigger eggs. Fermenting is also nowhere near as much of a pain as you might think!

So – Health Benefits:

Yes! Fermented chicken feed is actually quite a bit healthier for your chickens than regular ol’ dry feed for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that fermented feed has naturally occurring probiotics. Gone are the days you had to run to the store to grab sip-and-go yogurt drinks for your hens.  

Photo Leigh Edwards

Just like with humans, the gastro-intestinal tract is important for a bird’s immune system. Probiotics balance that system and create a barrier against disease and illness. So basically, feeding fermented feed with naturally occurring probiotics is like setting loose an army of microscopic disease fighters inside your chickens… every time you feed them.

The second big health benefit of fermentation is that the fermentation process breaks down the antinutrients that are naturally present in grains. These anitnutrients in grains and seeds act as a protective barrier that can prevent the grains from being fully digested.

Why?? This is a kind of whacked-out, mutant survival mechanism of the plant world. Having these antinutrients will boost the chances that, even if eaten, the grains can still grow once they have made their journey all the way through a critter and are planted in a ball of fertilizer when the animal poops them onto the grass. 

Fermenting these grains naturally strips them of antinutrients and helps break down the proteins so that your chickens can get the full nutritional benefits from them. 

Lowering your feed bill:

Because your chickens are getting more accessible nutrients from their feed, after a few weeks, they’ll start to eat less of it.

They'll also start to lay bigger eggs with thicker shells and larger yolks. Your hens will also be far less likely to be mortally hurt by diseases and pests carried by the local wild birds.

Fermenting!

Photo Leigh Edwards

OK – so now that you’re ten-kinds of excited about having healthier chickens and lowering your monthly feed costs, you want to know HOW to properly ferment feed because the last thing you need is a yard full of drunk chickens.

There are two kinds of fermentation – Lacto-Fermentation and Alcohol Fermentation. The first kind is the really healthy kind and teh sekund kiind ish jusht rewey… wheeeeeeeeee!
(So please… ferment responsibly)

There is a common misconception you’re likely to run across if you research fermented chicken feed online. Many people use unpasteurized apple cider vinegar (U-ACV) as a fermentation “starter.” U-ACV does have a lot of health benefits for your flock when you put it in their drinking water but for fermented feed… not so much!

Why? In short, the enzymes in U-ACV are PREbiotics and not PRObiotics. They can actually prevent the growth of good probiotics when put into the wet feed. I’m not going into a huge amount of detail (because this post is already going to be way long, but if you’re interested in more information you can see our ridiculously information-packed, long-winded article on the Natural Chicken Keeping blog). 

Using vinegar to start the fermentation process can also start an alcohol fermentation. (Not the goal.)

No – if you want to grow your own little army of immunity-boosting PRObiotics, you need to have lacto-fermentation. If you make dill pickles in a crock like I do, it's the same thing. 

The good news is for lacto-fermentation you just need water.

Photo Leigh Edwards

If you are the anxious type and really want to get the probiotics marching about the feed sooner, you can add one of these starter cultures:

• 1+ Tbsp. juice from raw lacto-fermented pickles or sauerkraut
• 1+ Tbsp. cultured buttermilk (the cultured stuff will have nice shoes and an expensive haircut)
• Whey from cheese made with a mesophillic culture
• A mesophillic starter culture for cheese-making
• *not whey from yogurt because that type of culture only works at a higher temperature than what you keep your house at.
   

Understand you don't NEED to add any of these things. You'll get lacto-fermentation from just using water - these starters just help to speed things up by a few days.

Photo Leigh Edwards

How to Make Fermented Chicken Feed

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How to Ferment Chicken Feed

Active Time: 2 minutes

Additional Time: 4 days

Total Time: 4 days 2 minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Estimated Cost: $0

How to ferment feed for your chickens to reduce feed costs and improve hen health.

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Materials

• 1 glass, ceramic or plastic crock (size depends on the amount of chickens you have but around 2 gallons should be good for a backyard flock of 4-6)
• Water
• Starter Culture (optional)

Instructions

1. Put 2-3 days worth of feed in a container.*
2. Cover the feed with water. You should have an inch of water above the level of the feed.
3. If you want to use a starter add it now.
4. Check on the feed in a few hours. It may have absorbed all of your extra water already. Add more water so that the feed is again covered by 1".
5. Cover your container with a dish cloth or something else that allows air to pass through because things are going to get bubbly. You don't want a tight fitting lid that might explode off.
6. Stir the mixture up a couple of times a day. This helps to incorporate oxygen and speeds up the fermentation process.
7. You can start feeding it to your chickens right away, but it won't become truly fermented until you start to see bubbles in several days.
8. Add more water and feed every few times you take some out to maintain your ferment. Doing this you can keep the fermented feed going forever.

Notes

*Chickens eat about ¼ cup of food per day per chicken.

The warmer the environment, the more quickly the feed will ferment.

This CAN be fed to chicks and is in fact very good for them.

Remember to always keep at least 1" of water covering the feed to help protect it from harmful bacteria growth.

Your fermented feed should smell sour. This is normal and in fact, the goal.

Both crumble and whole grain feeds can be fermented. Crumble feed will turn to a sludgy sort of mix. Just scoop it out with a strainer or slotted spoon and let the liquid it drain back into the fermentation container.

Starter Cultures

• 1+ Tbsp. juice from raw lacto-fermented pickles or sauerkraut
• 1+ Tbsp. cultured buttermilk (the cultured stuff will have nice shoes and an expensive haircut)
• Whey from cheese made with a mesophillic culture
• A mesophillic starter culture for cheese-making
• *not whey from yogurt because that type of culture only works at a higher temperature than what you keep your house at. 

Recommended Products

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• 
  Caldwell's Starter Culture for Fresh Vegetables (optional)
• 
  2 gallon glass crock with lid

I used to ferment my feed all the time, but I fell out of the habit of it. I'm BACK on the fermenting train now and if you watch my Instagram stories you might just see me slinging this hash to my chickens. 

Yep. Even Baby.

I've updated and rewritten this post which was originally published on my site by Leigh Edwards of Natural Chicken Keeping. 

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