thanks folks. I am three days in to experimenting with feeding them fermented whole grains. I'll let you know how it goes. im just amazed that there is not more info out there and confused as to why. a farmer friend said that he doesn't feed his broilers whole grain (when he does his layers) "because the breed is more fragile". he thinks the heritage breed layers can handle more than these comercially bred meet birds and he doesn't want to get whole grain ratios wrong and have them get less than enough protein and die.
it might just be that most people raising meet birds aren't permaculturalists and there is a lot of pressure to have them grow to size in 8 weeks.
I'm trying to raise mine to size in 12 weeks(because that's the earliest date the slaughter place could give me) by restricting feed at night.
I just hope I'm not compromising the birds' health by not giving them the right stuff and asking them the live longer than they are meant to.... but then, I have heard of meat birds living a few years when fed less.
