CCX

[CrealCritter]

Yippee chance of snow flurries 🌨️ might need to break out the long johns

 

[baymule]

McTastyNuggets

 

[baymule]

@farmerjan what do you feed your CCX in? I ferment the feed and I use a tub.

 

[CrealCritter]

@farmerjan what do you feed your CCX in? I ferment the feed and I use a tub.

Country Road Meatbird Crumbles Feed, 50 lb. Bag

Brand and Pricing Varies By Region. Please contact your local Rural King for pricing. Click here to find your local Rural King. *This information for this product is valid at time of publication. However, recipes may change after this time so always check ingredients lists and allergenic...

www.ruralking.com

 

[CrealCritter]

I have 1 quart of cow's milk straight from the cow and 50 lbs of meat bird crumbles. Now what @baymule ? I also have a tub of butter but that's besides the point 😂

 

[baymule]

I use 4-5 buckets about 2 gallon each. I feed twice a day. A cup of milk in each bucket, 2/3 full of feed, add water to 4 “ below the rim. Mine have a lid too, if you don’t have lids, put a board on top. You can use 5 gallon buckets, two of them. Always leave some feed in there to start the next batch. They won’t ferment in the cold. Maybe secure the buckets against marauding piranhas and put in the CCX coop where it is warm?
@Beekissed add your advice please. I know you don’t use the milk, but I like a starter. With both our experience, he can choose what works best for him.

 

[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 did just the right thing, CC! Pretty soon you'll not have to top it with the dry and they'll go crazy for the FF like they'd always had it. Now....you may want to zip tie a piece of welded wire over your dish so they can't walk in it because soon you may see feet with hardened feed dried on them, especially when using the finer ground feeds and feeding it that moist.

You and @farmerjan said the same and I know I need to do something, that's just the bottom to one of these feeders. I have the other part for it but honestly it leaves a ton of feed in the bottom and I want it cleaned out at the end of the night because it may attract mice. I may just put it back together and hang it a few inches off the top of the hay IDK yet.

The bottom on these type of feeders needs a cone shape in the center so all the feed runs out, not a little dimple which does nothing to help the movement of feed to the sides. I'll work on it tomorrow sometime and see what the space between my ears comes up with.

 

[baymule]

I like the trough idea. I use a tub and they lay in it and eat. I always have to sprinkle dry feed on the fermented feed to get the dummies to eat it. Like Bee says, it doesn't take long for them to catch on.

 

[baymule]

Fried catfish is pretty darned good! LOL LOL