chickens not laying due to feed

[Leaann liske]

okay so im hearing about this producers pride feed making chickens stop laying is this really a thing? I have been feeding this to my chickens for years and have never had a problem so wondering whats going on. Is this a hoax or is it really happening?

 

[Fallenone05]

People want to think it's the feed companies tampering with their own products to make the chickens lay less to help the egg companies make more money. If you're not having issues with the feed, I say keep using it.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

No, its not a thing. There are dozens of threads on this already, its a social media firestorm.

A quick look at the threads at the top of the feed forum will bring you up to date.

Short form. There are very few mechanisms which will cause a bird to stop laying - the most well known one is reduced light hours, and its winter... Stress can briefly cause chickens to stop laying, we've had some wicked weird weather in parts of the country. Molting is the next most common cause. All those going on two year old birds which were purchased two years ago spring early summer who laid right through their first winter (as they should) are now in their first adult molt (as they should) and their laying should either slow or stop - usually for months. Birds who go thru "hard" molts get huge bare patches, return to fully feathered (and resume laying) relatively quickly. Birds who go through "soft" molts loosing only a few feathers at a time may look like they are having a bad hair day, a few feathers out of place, but tend to take much longer to resume.

Reduced nutrition CAN reduce laying - after a bird's body starts to canibalize itself - but we are not hearing reports of assciated health issues you would expect from periods of subpar nutrition. Neither can feeding a superior nuitrition feed fix things overnight, or even in a few days - contrary some of the more lurid claims. Nor will most of the feed "fixes" being thrown around on facebook (extra scratch, extra corn, extra oats!) somehow "correct" a diet alleged to be low in protein, methionine, lysine, or phosphorus.

A minimally nutritious, lowest cost formulation chicken "layer feed" in the US is usually 16% crude protein, 0.3 Methionine, maybe 0.6 Lysine, and 0.45 phosphorus. Corn, IF YOU ARE LUCKY, is 9-9.5% protein, 0.2 Met, 0.3 Lys, and has essentially 0 usable phosphorus - chickens basically can't use P from plant sources without help. Oats? 11% crue protein, 0.2% Met, maybe 0.5 Lys, and again no useful P. Scratch? Mostly corn, see above...

The other recommends? "Use Goat feed". NO. Absolutely not. Goat feed is only 14-16% Crude Protein typically, has usually 2-3x more fiber than a chicken needs, and dangerous levels of copper - 5x what a chicken should get. Goat feed should only be fed to goats, ever. Precisely bacause of the excess copper. Rabbit feed? Maybe 16% CP, and WAY WAY too much fiber. Innterferes with digestion, your birds won't be able to make full use of what nutrition is in the bag, leaving them in greater deficit. Pig feed? Much the same, wrong amino acid profile, too. Duck feed? Fine. Turkey or "Game Bird" feed? Fine - but those aren't the recommends being made.

Finally, most of these livestock feeds use the same basic formulations, made in the same mills, then put in different bags by the feed makers, together with whatever makes it a chicken feed, a hog feed, a horse feed, a rabbit feed, a goat feed, a sheep feed, a catfish feed, etc - the vitamin premix and extra calcium ("layer") or fiber (more timothy and alfafa - rabbits), or copper (goats), or whatever. If the basic corn/wheat mix was grossly deficient, we'd expect to see other animal owners reporting problems. They arent. Big Mfgs like Purina Livestock have lots of mills - we'd expect regionalization if there was a problem at a single factory, or from a specific grain supplier - we're not seeing it. Feed batches are huge - but unltimately limited - the claim is that this has been going on for months but only just now being noticed - no one produces six months worth of feed at a time. Purina had a recall last year - two of their mills, only three months, limited to 18 states and four (I believe) different kinds of livestock.

That's what we would expect to see if there was a persistent, widespread problem with feed in this nation. There's no evidence anything like that is going on.
Hope that helps. We've been looking into it, kicking potential ideas around, eliminating possibilites as they are put forward. Mostly its "I heard" and "somebody said". The few posters showing up on BYC claiming its happened to them are real short on details, don't have the feed for testing, don't have the feed bags for lot codes, aren't offerin gmuch about their feed and management methods, location, etc and... some few of them have very low post counts. Read into that what you will.

 

[nuthatched]

The feed is perfectly fine.
The issue are:
2 year old hens don't lay after their first winter and 3 year old hens stopped/slow down laying because "henopause". Molting is also a factor, which happens in the autumn and chickens don't lay during that. It's like teething for birds.
What happened 2 and 3 years ago? Covid, and everyone and their aunt got chickens and haven't taken the time to actually look up the laying cycles of their animals.
It has also been a very overcast winter generally everywhere.
Not one post or video I've seen has offered results from scientific study of the feed.

Don't let the unfounded hysteria get to you. :]

 

[Fallenone05]

No, its not a thing. There are dozens of threads on this already, its a social media firestorm.

A quick look at the threads at the top of the feed forum will bring you up to date.

Short form. There are very few mechanisms which will cause a bird to stop laying - the most well known one is reduced light hours, and its winter... Stress can briefly cause chickens to stop laying, we've had some wicked weird weather in parts of the country. Molting is the next most common cause. All those going on two year old birds which were purchased two years ago spring early summer who laid right through their first winter (as they should) are now in their first adult molt (as they should) and their laying should either slow or stop - usually for months. Birds who go thru "hard" molts get huge bare patches, return to fully feathered (and resume laying) relatively quickly. Birds who go through "soft" molts loosing only a few feathers at a time may look like they are having a bad hair day, a few feathers out of place, but tend to take much longer to resume.

Reduced nutrition CAN reduce laying - after a bird's body starts to canibalize itself - but we are not hearing reports of assciated health issues you would expect from periods of subpar nutrition. Neither can feeding a superior nuitrition feed fix things overnight, or even in a few days - contrary some of the more lurid claims. Nor will most of the feed "fixes" being thrown around on facebook (extra scratch, extra corn, extra oats!) somehow "correct" a diet alleged to be low in protein, methionine, lysine, or phosphorus.

A minimally nutritious, lowest cost formulation chicken "layer feed" in the US is usually 16% crude protein, 0.3 Methionine, maybe 0.6 Lysine, and 0.45 phosphorus. Corn, IF YOU ARE LUCKY, is 9-9.5% protein, 0.2 Met, 0.3 Lys, and has essentially 0 usable phosphorus - chickens basically can't use P from plant sources without help. Oats? 11% crue protein, 0.2% Met, maybe 0.5 Lys, and again no useful P. Scratch? Mostly corn, see above...

The other recommends? "Use Goat feed". NO. Absolutely not. Goat feed is only 14-16% Crude Protein typically, has usually 2-3x more fiber than a chicken needs, and dangerous levels of copper - 5x what a chicken should get. Goat feed should only be fed to goats, ever. Precisely bacause of the excess copper. Rabbit feed? Maybe 16% CP, and WAY WAY too much fiber. Innterferes with digestion, your birds won't be able to make full use of what nutrition is in the bag, leaving them in greater deficit. Pig feed? Much the same, wrong amino acid profile, too. Duck feed? Fine. Turkey or "Game Bird" feed? Fine - but those aren't the recommends being made.

Finally, most of these livestock feeds use the same basic formulations, made in the same mills, then put in different bags by the feed makers, together with whatever makes it a chicken feed, a hog feed, a horse feed, a rabbit feed, a goat feed, a sheep feed, a catfish feed, etc - the vitamin premix and extra calcium ("layer") or fiber (more timothy and alfafa - rabbits), or copper (goats), or whatever. If the basic corn/wheat mix was grossly deficient, we'd expect to see other animal owners reporting problems. They arent. Big Mfgs like Purina Livestock have lots of mills - we'd expect regionalization if there was a problem at a single factory, or from a specific grain supplier - we're not seeing it. Feed batches are huge - but unltimately limited - the claim is that this has been going on for months but only just now being noticed - no one produces six months worth of feed at a time. Purina had a recall last year - two of their mills, only three months, limited to 18 states and four (I believe) different kinds of livestock.

That's what we would expect to see if there was a persistent, widespread problem with feed in this nation. There's no evidence anything like that is going on.
Hope that helps. We've been looking into it, kicking potential ideas around, eliminating possibilites as they are put forward. Mostly its "I heard" and "somebody said". The few posters showing up on BYC claiming its happened to them are real short on details, don't have the feed for testing, don't have the feed bags for lot codes, aren't offerin gmuch about their feed and management methods, location, etc and... some few of them have very low post counts. Read into that what you will.

i'm glad you have the patience to write all this out because i certainly don't.
and i mean that genuinely.