Commercial Poison (err... "Feed")

[Shabby Chic-Hens]

Seriously guys. @Tango Charlie is right! the companies have been putting stuff in the feed.

 

[TooCheep]

So this one might have warranted a new thread, because it does have some definite differences.

One definite difference people haven't mentioned is that his hens stopped laying in June. Definitely no winter issues there. At 3yo, they are just starting to see reduced egg laying, but still should be laying at a semi-regular pace. Interested to see where this goes.

 

[Tango Charlie]

None of these other posters account for what would cause a flock to stop free ranging? Old hens - no winter eggs - possible. Old hens always free range in winter months.
Stressed hens being chased by a fox in the hen house ….. stop laying … not for 8 months!

If you believe the “tests” over your neighbors observations and experience than you havent been paying attention to the way our regulatory agencies operate. To those who have eyes to see, let them see. To those have have ears to hear, let them hear.

This

And I'll add:
Winter didn't start in June.
And I didn't flip on the sunlight switch, lol.

Zero eggs to daily eggs?? Pretty abrupt.

(Like changing feed.)

 

[nuthatched]

I agree with most of your points, but I think this poster does have one thing VERY different than most of the other accounts:

these chickens showed other signs of ill-health, not just a lack of eggs.

(These ones also started laying a reasonable length of time after the feed change, not the "next day" wonder stories that are biologically impossible to cause by changing feed.)

So this one might have warranted a new thread, because it does have some definite differences.

Very true. I'm chalking off behavior as a rough molt, though it could be something else like an illness, Deficiency or parasites. It's hard to say unless more info is offered.

 

[NatJ]

Seriously guys. @Tango Charlie is right! the companies have been putting stuff in the feed.

At risk of stating the obvious, companies put lots of things in the feed.

Just read the ingredients label: they put in corn, and soybean meal, and salt, and calcium, and many other things that provide nutrients needed by chickens.

There might be ingredients that could be added to feed to make chickens stop laying.
But I think leaving out ingredients would work better, and be cheaper as well. Skipping some of the high-priced protein, vitamin, and mineral ingredients would probably work quite nicely, and cut costs along the way. If any company did that, testing the feed should make it clear. (But I have yet to see any feed test results that find anything missing like that.)

Why a company would want to sabotage their own product, so people quit buying it, has me throughly puzzled. I have seen many explanations, but none that made sense to me. I've decided not to waste time on the "why" until someone finds actual evidence that the feed really was changed. (If it wasn't changed, there's no need to look for a reason at all.)

 

[nuthatched]

Let's take this from the top, op.
How old are your hens? What breeds?
What was their diet? What was their symptoms besides 'off'? Did you attempt to treat them first any illness or worm them? Any new stessors such as predators, noise, changes?

 

[Tango Charlie]

The timeline you give is also quite believable, if the feed was the problem.

Or else something else changed right around that same time.

As regards many of the other stories of chickens that quit laying: when people say they changed feed and the hens resumed laying "the next day" or "within a week," that is pretty good proof that it was not the feed. It takes longer than that for an egg yolk to grow to the right size and get turned into an egg. So very fast results mean that the change from not-layer to layer was already happening before the feed change. This is one way in which your story is quite different than many of the other stories that have been posted. Yours took about the right amount of time to show the results.


My guess: more likely a deficiency than a poisoning, but of course I can't be positive either way.

Yeah the timeline made sense. I was a little disappointed they didn't immediately start laying, but as it played out it made perfect sense. The First egg we got was tiny. All others have been normal.

And, I can buy "deficiency".

 

[Tango Charlie]

Let's take this from the top, op.
How old are your hens? What breeds?
What was their diet? What was their symptoms besides 'off'? Did you attempt to treat them first any illness or worm them? Any new stessors such as predators, noise, changes?

One red sex-link & 2 barred rocks. Not quite 3 years. No additional treatments. No new predators. Coop, inside a run, inside a pen, inside a 6' privacy fence, guarded by our dogs.

 

[NatJ]

And I'll add:
Winter didn't start in June.
And I didn't flip on the sunlight switch, lol.

Zero eggs to daily eggs?? Pretty abrupt.

(Like changing feed.)

True, winter did not start in June.
However, some hens do start molting in June. Some others wait until January. If your hens are all the same age and breed, they are more likely to all molt at the same time. If you have different breeds it is more likely that some will molt at different times than others. (Different ages might also molt at different times, but you said yours are all the same age.)

Zero eggs to daily eggs, for a single hen, is very common. She is not laying, then her body starts preparing the egg yolks, and one day she's ready to lay an egg. There's another one already in progress for tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and so forth.

Assuming all your hens are living in the same conditions, they are all exposed to the same amount of daylight. It is fairly common for an entire flock to start laying within a relatively short time, when the days reach the right length, if no other factors are involved. The larger the flock, the more likely you are to have a few early birds or slowpokes.

(Edit to clarify: this does not rule out the feed being a problem. Just trying to figure out details of what else might, or might not, be involved.)

 

[SourRoses]

This

And I'll add:
Winter didn't start in June.
And I didn't flip on the sunlight switch, lol.

Zero eggs to daily eggs?? Pretty abrupt.

(Like changing feed.)

It was crazy HOT in June. What state are you in?
All my birds quit laying in late summer (I'm in FL). The stress of the heat is a lot.

Even POL Leghorn pullets - the eggiest breed there ever was - could not come into lay when they were due at 4 months but waited until it was cooling down and they were 6-months old!

4 of my hens are 2-3 year olds. They started molting in summer and they were SO depressed. Chickens hate molting, the exposed skin is sensitive and the new feathers coming out are painful. They don't like to brush up against objects or for other chickens to touch them. Mine laid around in former dust bath holes for most of their days.
Does this sound anything like what your girls were doing?
The only time I've seen chickens free-range during molt was when the rest of the flock was not molting, so they felt the need to keep up with the flock, which is a strong survival motivation.

Those older girls (we call them "The Golden Girls") didn't start laying again until Jan & Feb. Light levels were increasing which stimulates reproductive hormones.
My young hens all came in to lay for the first time in Jan. I was expecting to wait for March! They haven't quit pumping out eggs since. It's a rare day that one doesn't lay. That's the benefit of first-year hens.

I haven't changed the feed, Dumor Grower 20% (Oyster Shell on the side).
Protein above 18% is better than layer.