You have probably heard all the buzz going on about fermented feed. It’s the new hype… and for good reason! Fermenting chicken feed has so many benefits for both you and your chickens!
So, you got your first flock of chickens…. or maybe you are a veteran chicken owner and are looking for an easy way to keep your flock healthy. Fermenting your feed just may be what you have been looking for.
If you are new to owning your own chickens, check out my video on a beginning guide to raising chickens!
The health benefits of fermenting your feed
The main reason I started fermenting my chicken feed was for health purposes. Just like humans, when we consume fermented products, it is really good for our digestion. This is no difference for animals.
Fermenting is the process where you are grabbing wild cultures and yeasts from the air and mixing them with a substance, which in our case is the chicken feed, to create a metabolic process. This process causes the sugars and starches in the ingredients in the feed to be broken down into lactic acid bacteria. The good bacteria then multiplies, and many beneficial changes happen to the food.
Consuming fermented feed has many health benefits to your chickens. The first and most commonly known is that it is a natural form of a probiotic for your chickens. This improves their digestive system and will boost their immune system. Some other benefits of fermenting are: it naturally reduces the sugar content in your feed, protein contained in the feed ingredients is more readily available for digestion, and it enhances the overall nutrition of your feed because it helps break the ingredients down for digestion.
Not only does it benefit your flock, but it benefits you too.
If the health benefits to your flock weren’t enough, there is another reason that fermenting your feed is beneficial. Fermenting feed actually saves you money on feed costs!
Since your feed is absorbing water during this process, you are using less feed to feed your chickens. Your chickens still need the 1/4-1/2 cup of feed per day, but the feed is so packed with good lactic acid bacteria that is fills them better.
That’s a win for the chickens and a win for you!
Come check out how I do the fermenting process on the ranch.
Once you get in a system and get your buckets going, it is not much added work for you. Every morning after I have filled the troughs with fermented feed, I walk right to the water hose and fill my empty feed bucket up. I then go and make sure all my feed in my fermented buckets are covered in water. It’s one little step I do every morning to keep the process going and it hardly takes me any added time.
One thing I have learned with chickens is, it is so much easier to be proactive then reactive when it comes to their care. Fermenting their feed is the perfective offensive plan for their health!
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Hi Stephanie, our family lives outside of Mountain Grove and I was wondering which local feed store you go to? I am excited to start fermenting my chicken food!
Hi there! I buy it from Peterson Feed.