Best chicken snacks?

[Mrcox]

Hello!
My birds are just about ready to lay, they free range in daylight and are locked up at night. In their run they have crumble(since one is underage still), I raise my own mealworms that they eat daily with rolled oats, and they are fed fresh produce scraps regularly. Is there anything else I should be giving regularly to keep them happy and help them begin laying?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

More nutritionally complete feed.

They will lay when they lay. That's a factor of age, breed, season, with significant individual variation. You can thumb the scale with artificial light, but that's the only thing you can do which has significant impact on laying. A really good feed will make them lay more frequently and produce heavier eggs, but the differences while measurable, are not noticeable (generally 1-3%) That's a couple to a handful of ectra eggs per year, and maybe an extra gram in weight, on average. Or, if their nutritional intake is low enough, they will start canibalizing their bodies, decline in condition overall, and eventually slow (or even stop) laying.

 

[nuthatched]

You're already feeding them snacks. Mealworms are pretty fatty (half of the dry weight is fat) and should only be given in minimal amounts once or twice a week. Oats have properties that block nutrition absorbtion and veggies should be given only once or twice a week.
Feed them high protein layer feed once they start laying and only occasionally give them treats like that.
Also, you might want to get Hardware cloth instead of chicken wire, predators can get through it without issue.