Two years ago I decided to change up my feeding. I had always fed layer, but have seen some problems with my birds as far as poor production, slow molting and rough looking feathers, as well as occasional egg eating and feather plucking, plus my roosters always died by 4 years old. I had originally wanted to switch to a pelleted feed to stop feeding the sparrows so much. In my brand all they had was an all flock, so that's what I have choose.
I also keep a flock of bantams in a separate coop. They have always eaten a non medicated grower for at least half the year due to them having chicks to raise. I noticed that they seem to live longer, especially the roosters, I chalked it up to them being bantam.
After switching my large flock to the higher protein all flock, them all molted quickly and I even had hens resume laying in December, where before they hadn't started up again until about February or March.
Mid summer of this past year an amazing thing happened, an 8 year old EE that had quit laying 2 years ago began to lay again. She gave me about 15 eggs before quitting. I was a bit surprised.
It has been a few years since I owned any sex links. The ones I had were egg eaters and feather eaters and quit laying quite young. I now think due to their high production they need more protein than other breeds to sustain laying. I like feeding extras and scratch which dilutes the total daily protein. Minimum requirements per day is 16%, which layer is. So if you feed layer and anything else than your birds will become deficient and production will suffer. A feed with 18-20% protein seems to be better for backyard flocks where treats are fed.
So I would switch things up and see what happens. Provide a separate bowl of oyster shells for any calcium needs. You just never know.
