Cat food for laying hens?

[CreativeName123]

Hi all. I did a google search on this and found an old thread on this site from around 2012.

A bit of a quick back story. I have 10 Rhodes island reds that are 2 years old and everything seemed fine in the first year of laying where I was getting a bunch of eggs. I can’t pinpoint when it started but for at least the last 8 months it has gotten bad to where I get 1-2 eggs per day, some days none. Nothing has changed with the feed or routine. I have tried all kinds of chicken feed to see if it would help, but no luck. These are not free range btw

On to the cat food question. I decided to let them out to run around one day and they made their way to the cat food and absolutely destroyed it lol. I looked into the nutritional info and it’s high in protein (30%). I thought about feeding them more of this to experiment whether it helps with egg production but wondered about long term use. In that old thread, one person explicitly stated NOT to feed them any cat food or it will kill them. Others said it’s fine in moderation. Some saying they feed it to them daily and have been doing it for years without issue, so the answers are all over the place.

Sorry for the long post but I’m trying to explore some options since changing chicken feeds hasn’t been working for me

 

[FrostRanger]

Cat food is fine as a treat but don't overdo it. The issue with your birds is simply they're getting older. Hens lay best their first 2 years of life and drop off after that (some harder than others), it also doesn't help that it's fall where the days are shorter and birds are usually molting (mine are barely laying because of that). They should pick back up in spring but not to the point they were when they were younger, if anything they will lay less and less overall with each passing year. The long term solution is to add pullets every year or 2 so you will always have young layers, that's what many do

 

[nuthatched]

Feed does not affect laying unless they're starving and life is more important than reproduction.
Laying is product of light and hormones, it's ovulation. Nothing I eat is going to increase my ovulation cycle, it's silly to think it will for any other female critter.
This is an off year for a lot of people, it's just part of the cycle.
At two, they've already passed their young and perky laying stage and egg laying is tapering off.
Giving them cat food won't do a thing and isn't good for them as anything but a treat.
Neither will sunflower seeds , mealworms, oats or goat feed etc.
The best thing for them, is feed formulated for chickens.
There are plenty of higher protein feeds formulated for chickens and those don't help, nothing will.

 

[CreativeName123]

Cat food is fine as a treat but don't overdo it. The issue with your birds is simply they're getting older. Hens lay best their first 2 years of life and drop off after that (some harder than others), it also doesn't help that it's fall where the days are shorter and birds are usually molting (mine are barely laying because of that). They should pick back up in spring but not to the point they were when they were younger, if anything they will lay less and less overall with each passing year. The long term solution is to add pullets every year or 2 so you will always have young layers, that's what many do

I read about egg production going down as they age but I wasn’t expecting it to be this bad. It didn’t just start either. It’s been like that through the summer. I’m also in FL and we only recently got our first cold snap. I’m thinking either I’m doing something wrong or I just got unlucky.

 

[CreativeName123]

Feed does not affect laying unless they're starving and life is more important than reproduction.
Laying is product of light and hormones, it's ovulation. Nothing I eat is going to increase my ovulation cycle, it's silly to think it will for any other female critter.
This is an off year for a lot of people, it's just part of the cycle.
At two, they've already passed their young and perky laying stage and egg laying is tapering off.
Giving them cat food won't do a thing and isn't good for them as anything but a treat.
Neither will sunflower seeds , mealworms, oats or goat feed etc.
The best thing for them, is feed formulated for chickens.
There are plenty of higher protein feeds formulated for chickens and those don't help, nothing will.

The drop off in production has been anything but tapered. The info about feed and laying is interesting though… That’s a new one for me

 

[FrostRanger]

I read about egg production going down as they age but I wasn’t expecting it to be this bad. It did just start either. It’s been like that through the summer. I’m also in FL and we only recently got our first cold snap. I’m thinking either I’m doing something wrong or I just got unlucky.

Extremely hot weather can also throw them off too but honestly this is normal and part of keeping laying hens. Some will lay pretty well for a few more years and others will either slow down a lot or even stop altogether, just depends on the hen

 

[nuthatched]

The drop off in production has been anything but tapered. The info about feed and laying is interesting though… That’s a new one for me

Really hot, really cold, clouds (light controls hormone production), molting, noise and predators can all make hens not lay. But not feed unless they're getting nutritionally deficit feed i.e nothing but corn.
I have 16 hens, all are old enough to lay, but I'm only getting 3 eggs a day. It's just an off year.

 

[Folly's place]

I keep older hens as long as they are apparently healthy, and egg production can be zero or nearly zero for many of them. Chickens need about 14 hours of light daily to produce eggs, and without a light in the coop early mornings my older birds especially just quit until spring.
I have six pullets in lay, and otherwise hens two years of age and older, and I'm getting eight or nine eggs daily right now...
Mary

 

[sniper338]

Im getting a dozen eggs a day from my 16 hens. A few are old and dont lay or lay every few days.

I call bs on feed. I've had chickens for many many years. Feed/feed quality matters ALOT. I just doubled the amount of eggs I was getting daily by changing to a different feed.

I just found a feed mill to get pellets and mash from. Im feeding both pellets and a powder mash wet down to clump/ pre sloppy.. letting that soak then feeding it.... fermented mash basically... without fermenting 2 or 3 days..

 

[Mother of Chaos]

All this is a great reason to stagger your new pullet purchases/ new chick hatches into 1/3 years at a time. Girls A one year, then add the same amount of Girls B in year 2, then Girls C in year 3. Rotate the ages of your pullets and hens so that you always have a mix going.

If you cull your hens after age 2 or so when their laying drops off (some do, so don’t), it’s the same principle: keep a mix of young, 12+ months, and 24+ months going.