Fermented Chicken Food

To someone who is not in love with fermentation and all the awesome benefits of the good bacteria, fermented chicken feed may sound a little wrong. But let me tell you (as a huge fan of fermentation), I am quite certain it is not wrong at all. It's also super easy, which you will notice I am a huge fan of that too. All you have to do is add water to your chicken feed (I would recommend a small batch to start with). I started with a quart jar and filled it a little less than half way with chick/grower feed and then added water and stirred. Put the lid on but not sealed tight and left it outside overnight.

    The next morning I took it over to the girls and plopped the porridge onto a plate for them and they went crazy! Loved, loved, loved it!  Now I just started this a week or so ago, and so far I am still only getting the food soaked, its not actually fermented, I have been increasing my jar size thinking that I will have enough left so that I can get some fermenting started, but the girls are eating as much as I will give them. Right now the chicken porridge smells sweet when I feed them, and fermentation generally takes at least 24 hrs to do it's thing. So, after telling you how awesome fermented chicken feed is, I'm telling you that I am still working on making that happen, but the soaked chicken feed is indeed fulfilling to the girls as well.
 One HUGE bonus to giving the girls soaked or fermented food is that when the temperature reaches a scorching 100 (like it did yesterday) I can add ice to their food just like I do for their water! It is a winner in my opinion, just for that simple fact. So I will either put ice cubes on their plate and put the porridge on top of that, or put their porridge in a bowl made of ice, or add ice to the mix of porridge just before I serve them. I have been doing a mix of these things plus putting ice in their water about 3 times a day, sometimes more depending on how hot it is. I think this is really helping them through the heat. Plus it keeps me from feeling like I should invite them into the air conditioning... well it helps.
 
Now I am going to start a separate jar of feed that they will not get until it has fermented, I will give an update on how that goes for me and for them as soon as it has fermented. Yeahhhh! Oh the joys!!!!