IMPORTANT VIDEO TO WATCH

[Foristers]

EVERY ONE OF YOU NEEDS TO WATCH THIS VIDEO - less than 8 minutes.
Has anyone else noticed a reduction in egg laying from their backyard chickens? Not sure how recent this would include, but we raise a heritage breed whose egg-laying always drops off after October, stays low through December but starts to pick up throughout the month of January so much that by the end of the month we used to get a dozen a day. Now we might get 1 egg in two days.
I turned over chicken duties to my 15 year old son two years ago (when he was 13 years) and have thought that the reduction in egg production was because he is not taking his responsibility seriously.
That is until I came across this video on Youtube. Please watch and comment.

 

[Acre4Me]

More drama…I didn’t watch, but assume it’s the feed drama.

So many reasons why chickens might not be laying…. But not worth watching yet another person talking about their experience as if it applies to everyone.

 

[Foristers]

More drama…I didn’t watch, but assume it’s the feed drama.

So many reasons why chickens might not be laying…. But not worth watching yet another person talking about their experience as if it applies to everyone.

It is the feed debate like you say. Just curious why no is even interested enough to try it out and why people are posting, "NO! don't feed your chickens goat feed it will kill them". (no goat feed will not kill your chickens) And not more curious to actually investigate the actual claim.....

 

[Aunt Angus]

It is the feed debate like you say. Just curious why no is even interested enough to try it out and why people are posting, "NO! don't feed your chickens goat feed it will kill them". (no goat feed will not kill your chickens) And not more curious to actually investigate the actual claim.....

You haven't been looking hard enough, then. I'm getting feed tested. Only problem is no one around here has any feed they aren't happy with. Do you have any of the feed in question? I will be more than happy to pay for the test (it's only, like, $150) if you'd send me 2-3 cups of the feed.

 

[Aunt Angus]

EVERY ONE OF YOU NEEDS TO WATCH THIS VIDEO - less than 8 minutes.
Has anyone else noticed a reduction in egg laying from their backyard chickens? Not sure how recent this would include, but we raise a heritage breed whose egg-laying always drops off after October, stays low through December but starts to pick up throughout the month of January so much that by the end of the month we used to get a dozen a day. Now we might get 1 egg in two days.
I turned over chicken duties to my 15 year old son two years ago (when he was 13 years) and have thought that the reduction in egg production was because he is not taking his responsibility seriously.
That is until I came across this video on Youtube. Please watch and comment.

And at no time we're eggs a dollar something here in Cali. Maybe wholesale prices? But nothing is cheap here.

 

[saysfaa]

I watched it. All of it.[my comments in brackets]

Essentially, he read a email someone sent him that said people were getting no eggs from their hens for a while. They switched to goat feed and other things and now they are getting eggs again.

[evidently not someone who has chickens themselves]

Then read an article [named source, I couldn't catch it], that said: "many people" have no eggs, some speculate it is the feed, prices of eggs way up, quotes one man on a tiktok video who had no eggs since July who thought it was because his chickens were getting older or maybe because it is a bad winter until he saw lots of people on tiktok talking about the same problem. They thought it was the feed so he switched his feed. Now one of his chickens is laying. The rest of his chickens haven't started laying yet but he believes they are ok and getting better.

Either in the article or a different source: A woman saw lots of people talking about it all over social media and asks is it the feed.

The rest is a self-styled economics/"economic 101" lesson - shortage doesn't mean none, it means prices go up [hm, not exactly], hyper inflation is an opportunity for those prepared [no explanation; it is probably in other videos but if he can push the frenzy on this kind of evidence, I don't have much interest in what else he has to say]

 

[Acre4Me]

Thanks @saysfaa for the summary.

So, individuals with anecdotes to share. Little bits of their experience do not translate to the general world with confidence. We do not know so many important points such as age of chickens, location, feed and style of feeding, extraneous factors (like howling coyotes that might be freaking the flock out), treats, weather (my chickens, I swear, cross their legs when it’s windy and we get no eggs…even in spring or full on summer), or other things I’m not thinking of.

Overall, I had the experience last winter (2021-2022) of having lots of chickens I was feeding of various ages, from 8 month pullets to 4yo hens and lots in between, same feed (20% all flock), same environment, no new stressors, no changes in environment like stressors in the form of predators or new noises. And we got hardly any eggs at all- I had to buy eggs for around 6 months. My thought was that the older chickens were molting and since they are barnyard breeds/heritage breeds, they aren’t high production types, so overall less eggs and longer break. Also, the pullets we had were “new” chickens, and maybe came from genetics that were not strong layers/or built in longer break. Maybe the weather had something to do with it, as overcast days do impact them, and we get plenty overcast days here.

So, what did I do? Well, I thought about all the factors, and decided to remove half of the flock, including most of the pullets, and got new chicks last Feb, March. We still have a varying age flock, we still feed same feed. We have not had to buy any eggs this winter, at all, as I stopped giving away eggs and stockpiled late summer/early fall in anticipation of a slow down. They molted and slowed down, even the pullets, but we still got some eggs everyday. We got low there for a couple of weeks, but our girls are picking back up - some breeds more than others, but daylength is still in the short side. We bought about 15 chicks in mid Aug, so those should start laying soon too as they are around 24 weeks old, I think.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

The "Poplar Report" video on youtube (I'm not going to drive view counts by linking it) is much the same. Anecdotes, unsourced "someones", very short on detail, long on speculation, no offered mechanism of doing this. Which video came first, I couldn't say.
and the offered remedies - feed more corn, feed more oats, feed more scratch, feed less soy, and now feed goat feed (among others) all demonstrate a woeful ignorance of poultry feed science and the nutritional values of the offered substitutes. At least when people say "feed cayenne pepper to warm them up in winter" it does no harm, and may keep the rats out of the feed.

 

[Lazy J Farms Feed & Hay]

There is nothing important in that video, nothing at all. Just more fear mongering and conspiracy fuel.

 

[DaisyNoelle]

I'm thinking that a normal "posting bias", if you will, makes it impossible to make any inference about what is happening at larger scales just from trends in social media postings. How many people post with "My Chickens are Laying Exactly as Usua!" or "Everything is Completely Within the Normal Variations for Chicken-Owning!!!!" (unless it's replying to an opposite problem posting)?

In general, I see social platform postings being extremely biased toward reporting problems and worries, because that's when people feel the need to check in with others. So that any increase in social reporting doesn't necessarily reflect any increase in what is actually happening across the population. I think this would be a normal phenomenon and would happen even if no one was trying to be fear-mongering or had any agenda (although some probably do).

The posters above are saying this too and the summary that "saysfaa" wrote is accurate, so if you don't want to contribute to the click count you don't need to

I know of lots of other known biases in data collection, I wonder if "posting bias" has a real name?