Corn/Soy/Organic Feed

[Kiki]

It's probably the way I said it. Is it true that corn heats up the digestion?

No, that is NOT true.

 

[Kiki]

@R Wind It makes me cringed that there is so much false information out there. It is extremely hard for a person who is brand new to chickens to understand if what they're reading is complete hog wash or not.

The whole corn keeps you warm caca is complete. Hogwash.

 

[Kiki]

It's probably the way I said it. Is it true that corn heats up the digestion?

I'll put it this way. I can almost assure you that your birds would thrive and do better if you fed them a pelleted or crumbled type commercially made poultry feed only instead of all of these "extras.". I too was once under the belief that a variety of a diet for them was better. Thankfully I learned that isn't true quickly.

 

[R Wind]

and agreeing with @Kiki , your spouse is getting advice from the ignorant - who are likely repeating something they've heard without understanding.

Laying all year every year has little to do with nutrition (unless its deficient), and most to do with ambient light levels (which can be artificially manipulated), breed, and age. For most birds, each year of production drops off to 70-79% of the year before - so a bird in its third year likely lays only about 1/2 as much as it did the year before. Most birds slow (or even stop) laying when they molt, and molting usually occurs after their first year-ish of adult egg production. You can delay this a bit, maybe get some extra months, via artificial lighting (one study of very, very many), but eventually biology makes demands the environment can't overcome.

That's why commercial egg producers are often "repurposing" adult hens that they have maintained with artificial lighting at their first adult molt, which can be anywhere between 16 and 22 months of age.

Re: Nutrition - corn has roughly half the needed protein to support an adult layer, and is across the board deficient on every key amino acid, mist vitamins, and almost all the minerals. Its inclusion in feed is as a source of Carbs (energy), because its cheap, because it has few anti-nutritional factors, and because its deficiencies aren't so horrific that they can't be compensated for by reasonable amounts of more expensive ingredients. Oats are only a little bit better, but are high in fiber and beta-glucans, neither of which are great for chickens.

The advice is similar to telling a human to eat more doritos (or marshmallows) to stay warm in winter - only chickens don't deposit fat as we do, so its even LESS effective than it would be in a human.

Chickens were fed corn in the winter 100+ years ago because it was cheap, stored readly, and was one of the few things available while people lived at essentially subsitence levels of nutrition for months - but mostly they culled their flocks to have far fewer mouths to feed.

If you want to keep chickens warmer in winter (and in your climate, its not even a concern), increase their protein content, cut their carbs. WHY? basic biology. Metabolizing protein for energy is inefficient - its MUCH harder than converting carbs. Animals are built to run on simple sugars for a reason. In biological processes, inefficiency is expressed as waste heat - only heat is what you are looking for here - its not "wasted".

Hope that helps.

Suggest the spouse gets an account here. We provide better advice. Oh, and we cite our sources!

Oops, seems I missed the better portion of these helpful posts from Kiki and U_Stormcrow with answers to my questions. Back when they were sent. Dunno why, my bad I'm sure, assuming any notification would send me into the thread at the first new post. But I found them today and appreciate the helpful info. And we will study the answers. Thanks again!