I ordered some new signage for the chicken coops and one of them had that saying on it, which I thought was hilariously appropriate to put over the door of the coop Fred and his girls are making babies in.

Speaking of the cluckers, my experiment in fermenting their feed seems to be a success! It was super easy, just a few scoops of grain, add some water and a lid and stir every so often. It took a little over two days for it to get all bubbly and smelling a bit like sourdough and that’s when you know it’s ready.

Yumm!

I grabbed the strainer and another bucket and voila! They fit together perfectly.

I am using one gallon ice cream tub sized buckets for this and they work great. I drained off the liquid to start a new batch with and dumped the rest back into the first bucket and we headed out to see if the flock would take to it.

I decided to give it to Freddy and his girls first, since they aren’t allowed out into the pasture until the others are done and have been put back up. We keep them separate from our regular egg layers now and I figured they’d appreciate a special treat.

It seems like it took forever for them to decide that no, I wasn’t poisoning them and yes, it was actually something edible. 😆

They are so suspicious of me! It’s like they know we eat chicken around here or something lol.

They just kept looking at it and then looking at me and then walking away only to come back and do it again.

And again.

I was about to give up and head in when one brave hen decided she’d be the sacrificial lamb so to speak and gave it a peck.

It didn’t take long after that before they all ran over and started gobbling it down, much to my relief because I kinda put a little effort into this whole fermenting their food thing and they owed me at least a taste test!

They were scarfing it down when I came back in so I’ll go back out in awhile to see how much of it they ate and then judge how much of it to make based on that.

Hopefully it will help curb the cost of feeding them. I figure along with being able to get back out into the pasture again and also all the mice and bugs that will be making their way into their coops, my costs should go back down again now.

I just placed an order for our yearly meat birds, which are ravenous eaters (and so very delicious to eat!), so I’ll definitely be feeding them this fermented feed when they arrive in June.

They should be in the freezer about 8 to 10 weeks later. 🙂