Fermented animal feed in storage

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) Preparation Forum : One Thread

Just thought I would share this:

About 1 month ago I bought an extra 75# of sweet cob for the goats (barley, corn, molasses), let it set in the sun for a few days to dry out (I thought!), poured it into a watertight drum to see how it would do. Today I opened it and just about got drunk off the fumes - it was fermenting alot. So now I have 75# of partially fermented grain - trying to figure out what to do with it - I guess I will bury it, wouldn't want the chickens to scratch it out of a compost pile! Just thought I would share the story to help someone else avoid it happening - the shed did not stay very cool in this heat - I am sure that was the other big problem. Sigh.......

-- Kristi (securxsys@cs.com), July 18, 1999

Answers

Molasses was the culprit. You are well along the way to producing a couple of jugs of "who shot John". Some water, a little more time and a home made still and you will have the job done.

-- Lumber Jack (johnsellis@webtv.net), July 18, 1999.

You could make moonshine!

Or just go ahead and feed it to the goats. If they don't like it they won't eat it. But if the brewers and distillers sell their used mash as animal feed, what you have shouldn't be unusable as feed.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), July 18, 1999.


You have made silage. The waterproof drum is a lot more sophisticated than most ways of doing it, but it's the other recognised way of storing greenstuff for animals (apart from hay, that is). Use a search engine to read up on it.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), July 18, 1999.

Moderation questions? read the FAQ