Are good food?

[GC-Raptor]

My point is if they need professional chicken food

I don't know where you live, but if you can get a fortified chicken feed, do so.
Your chickens will be healthier and lay more eggs.

Modern egg laying breeds can lay lots of eggs, but they need the proper nutrition to do so.
Here is a label from a Starter-Grower feed.

Notice the ingredients on the right side of the label.
The first 3 ingredients are the grains and soybean meal that make up the feed. The following ingredients are added in to make this a complete feed. Calcium, minerals, amino acids, vitamins and in this feed Probiotics and Prebiotics.

I am currently feeding this Starter-Grower, but I will buy a All-Flock/Flock Raiser crumble for my Hens if a Starter-Grower feed isn't available.
I have a separate container of Oyster Shells for the extra Calcium egg laying chickens need.

A layer feed will have additional Calcium, about 3.5 to 4.5% and most have 16% Protein. Hope this helps.

My Hens.

GC

 

[Dwarf rooster]

I don't know where you live, but if you can get a fortified chicken feed, do so.
Your chickens will be healthier and lay more eggs.

Modern egg laying breeds can lay lots of eggs, but they need the proper nutrition to do so.
Here is a label from a Starter-Grower feed.View attachment 2074784
Notice the ingredients on the right side of the label.
The first 3 ingredients are the grains and soybean meal that make up the feed. The following ingredients are added in to make this a complete feed. Calcium, minerals, amino acids, vitamins and in this feed Probiotics and Prebiotics.

I am currently feeding this Starter-Grower, but I will buy a All-Flock/Flock Raiser crumble for my Hens if a Starter-Grower feed isn't available.
I have a separate container of Oyster Shells for the extra Calcium egg laying chickens need.

A layer feed will have additional Calcium, about 3.5 to 4.5% and most have 16% Protein. Hope this helps.

My Hens.View attachment 2074799View attachment 2074800 GC

I live in Greece

 

[Folly's place]

It helps to know where you live!
Ask poultry experts there; do you have a university that has a poultry department or veterinary school available? Any poultry feed manufacturers?
Here, home made diets include a vitamin/ mineral balancer that is sold by national companies.
Mary

 

[Rainwing]

We used to give our hens cracked corn and seeds as scratch in the winter. Cracked corn was like candy to them. One time we bought whole kernels by accident, like the kind you feed to goats and cows. They still ate it but not as vigorously, so I wouldn't buy the whole kernel, only cracked corn.

I had to cut the rations for my broiler hen (she was bought by accident) because she would get obese off of the cracked corn added to the feed. The other hens did fine, skinny leghorns and dual-purpose breeds alike, but she would get very fat. Like you could barely feel her keelbone. Just be careful if you have birds that get fat easily with eating problems...

Otherwise no impact on eggs if you supplement their diet with other things. Most of the time the eggs had calcium deposits on them, I think because we added some source of calcium alongside the corn and seeds and whatnot. I've only had one shell-less egg from my older hen, out of the 40 or so chickens that I've ever owned over 5 years. Sometimes we had no bags of pellets and only bags of cracked corn to get rid of, so their diet in the winter was mostly cracked corn supplemented with leftovers. There would be 3 feet of snow so absolutely no way that they could free range, but they still laid decent eggs. I have never had an eggbound hen.

What you want to do for calcium if you can't access layer pellets is feed them back their eggshells crushed up (crushed up very finely, so they don't become egg eaters) along with stinging nettle to supplement their feed. That's what I do. And stinging nettle is a weed around here, it grows everywhere, probably in Greece as well. You can dry the stinging nettle and save it for the winter when it isn't growing.
https://www.researchgate.net/public...PRODUCTIVITY_AND_IMMUNE_STATUS_IN_LAYING_HENSIt has been proven in this study to improve egg quality and immune function of chickens.
Also this is how to properly prepare eggshells. It is better than throwing the eggshells into compost. Make sure you properly prepare them because the last thing you want is chickens to eat their own eggs.
https://www.wikihow.com/Feed-Eggshells-to-Chickens
If you're focusing on egg production for yourself, family, and neighbors then you can go without layer pellets. But if you're focusing on selling eggs and making the most out of the hens, then layer pellets may be a good way to go to utilize them well.

Other plants I supplement their diet with is amaranth and millet. Millet might be hard to purchase online because of the COVID-19 stuff but it used to be really cheap and I'd throw it in their run for it to sprout. Then they'd eat the sprouts. My chickens ate a lot of meat too. I would never feed my chickens maggots because it makes them sick. but if a steak in the freezer got old we would cook it up and give it to them lol they loved it. We also fed them cooked raccoon meat and mice. Cat food shouldn't be fed regularly to chickens but our cat used to knock dry cat food everywhere and get it all moist and disgusting and we'd give it to the hens.

It seems that your hens are free ranging alongside eating corn and seeds so they should be okay. But supplementing their diet or at least attempting to is always a good thing even with free ranging, and personally I don't believe you have to buy super special chicken vitamins to successfully supplement. I don't recommend feeding them only cracked corn, although that was how my great grandparents fed their chickens back in the day.

Anyways I hope I helped

 

[Bknobel]

Is there a link to good food vs bad?