Egg production lately

[Mrs. K]

I GOT AN EGG! HURRAY! I had completely given up on January eggs!

 

[ChirpChirp963]

I've had a few people ask me about this recently and I read some stuff on the interwebs, so I wanted to check Backyard Chickens, and see what everyone on here had to say, and I figured I would add our info to the group.

BACKGROUND INFO
We currently have 24 chickens and we live in Illinois so it does get pretty cold sometimes and it's getting dark around 5pm. We used to have 12 chickens and they never laid enough during the winter, so we always used a light to get them to lay more. We eat at least 6-9 eggs per day and then we also feed some to our dog if we have them available, but that wasn't possible when we had 12 hens, so we picked up 12 pullets in March 2022. Our birds free-range throughout the day in our forest and roost in a locked shed at night. This is the first year we haven't used a light at all and we are averaging 9 eggs per day. I have a spreadsheet tracking egg production for the past 2 years and this average is only from 1/1/23-1/26/23.

AVERAGES
January (2023): 9
December (2022): 8
November (2022): 11
October (2022): 12
September (2022): 11
August (2022): 7
July (2022): 9
June (2022): 9
May (2022): 9
April (2022): 9
March (2022): 10
February (2022): 8
*Everything looks pretty normal based on the data.
**The 12 new birds from March started laying on 7/25/22

FEED
We feed them a mix of Dumore Organic layer pellets, whole corn, Purina Layena layer pellets, and household fruit & veggie scraps. I usually try to eyeball a 3:1 ratio of the Organic to the non-organic because I don't like giving them non-organic feed. I'm sure I can get them to increase their production if I turn on a light but we are fine with an average of 9. Today we received 11 and yesterday was 13. I forgot to mention, 6 of our birds are 3-4 years old, 6 birds are 2-3 years old, and 12 birds are less than a year old.

MY QUESTION
My question to the people that aren't getting eggs is, where are you located and where do you get their water? We live on a well & septic and give them well water mixed with Apple Cider Vinegar (with the mother). We give them filtered water during the summer but it's too much work in the winter with these temperatures and dumping/refilling the water so often. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the city water is contaminated with something that is affecting the birds' reproduction. Especially, if we are all using the same feed and getting different results. Plus, I've read many articles about chemicals in the city water like fluoride, chlorine, pHarmaceuticals, pesticides, and all sorts of other chemicals from runoff, so it would make more sense if it was in the water...

I hope this info is useful to some of you! Please let me know if you have any questions.

 

[TSWRA]

The big freeze pretty much knocked my production down to 0 from 210 a week at peak. I average about 3 or so a day now. But, I don't use light or supplemental heat. I think people have sky is falling syndrome....

 

[Mrs. K]

I agree with TSWR blaming feed for a natural variance in weather. People tend to think that what you feed your birds is crucially important. It really isn’. What is important is that you do feed them. Most barnyard chickens were fed a bit of grain for centuries, and were expected to scavenge the rest. In a backyard, there really isn’t enough to keep them alive, so adding a good quality feed is important.

 

[First girl]

Not that I am worried...yet, but in a few chicken groups I am a part of, there has been a big uptick in people saying their hens are not laying. Aside from it being cold in most of the U.S., less daylight, some have/are molting, etc., many hen owners are saying they are getting very few eggs or none at all. They're now pointing towards certain feeds possibly causing them not to lay. So far people are pointing towards Tractor Supply Dumor or Producers Pride. They say they've had chickens 10, 20 years, whatever and have never seen production issues like this. Mine stopped laying in October (molted). I have 1 that lays throughout, just slow, and another one that has laid a couple eggs over the last 2 weeks. I suppose she's starting back to it. I don't use supplemental light. I just let them have a break.
So my question is, is anyone seeing production issues (aside from cold, light, molting) that seems out of the ordinary? If so, what feed do you use? Also if not, what feed do you use? Trying to figure out if there is anything to this or not!! Thanks!!

I'm having this problem. I buy feed "Country Road" at Rual King in Missouri.

 

[Erinnlyn]

Mine slowed down but never stopped. I switched from organic Purina too a local feed three months ago. I have three year olds, two year olds and two pullets.

My neighbors 40 chickens are barely laying, 2 eggs or less a day, they have them on the cheapest feed at the store. The just bought feed from the same feed mill I switched to. She said that the hens are eating it with more gusto. I'll post here if she tells me she sees improvement.

Awesome, thank you for the info

I'm having this problem. I buy feed "Country Road" at Rual King in Missouri.

I'm in Missouri too. I have been feeding DuMOR All flock and I give vitamins and supplements. How old are your chickens? I wonder if it's just time for mine to slow down with their numbers. Most of mine are 2 years old. Hopefully they start laying next month with the days getting a little bit longer. Thanks for your input!

 

[charlie1051]

Hi Sally PB, I feel that they have a pretty eclectic musical taste or it could just be that they're a captive audience!! Some days it's Glenn Miller and big band music, other days we turn it up a few notches and go with some Van Halen and/or all 80's music.

I'm just kidding about the incentive thing (I wish they did what I said!) but I will say that our girls and boys are spoiled rotten. We break every feeding rule that's ever been established and they sure love being little gluttons and producing eggs. Sounds like your girls are not appreciating a good bone broth or mealworms, that's a bummer-my ladies would go crazy over both those!

One thing that I will never understand about my chickens is their 100% complete and total LOVE of eating Styrofoam. They got ahold of some the other day and looked like a school of piranhas attacking it.

Good luck with the egg pep talks Sally PB

 

[Happy Helper]

I have had new hens starting to lay each season for several years so I have not had the issue of no eggs during Dec and Jan. They might not lay as much but I always had eggs. They do quit laying for a period into the second season when the daylight starts to decrease. The feed is not the issue in my opinion.
I am forever grateful for all the information I have received from this site in the last few years. I have learned to incubate eggs, take care of day-old chicks, etc.
I was born on a farm but paid no attention to what my mother was doing with her chickens. She received100 chickens each year through the mail but I only played with them and saw them in a big room with a large heater plate over them.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Not that I am worried...yet, but in a few chicken groups I am a part of, there has been a big uptick in people saying their hens are not laying. Aside from it being cold in most of the U.S., less daylight, some have/are molting, etc., many hen owners are saying they are getting very few eggs or none at all. They're now pointing towards certain feeds possibly causing them not to lay. So far people are pointing towards Tractor Supply Dumor or Producers Pride. They say they've had chickens 10, 20 years, whatever and have never seen production issues like this. Mine stopped laying in October (molted). I have 1 that lays throughout, just slow, and another one that has laid a couple eggs over the last 2 weeks. I suppose she's starting back to it. I don't use supplemental light. I just let them have a break.
So my question is, is anyone seeing production issues (aside from cold, light, molting) that seems out of the ordinary? If so, what feed do you use? Also if not, what feed do you use? Trying to figure out if there is anything to this or not!! Thanks!!

"they" are a few, mostly self selected anecdotes from channels specializing in fringe theories and hyperbole/sensationalism to drive clicks, which are then repeated by hundreds or thousands of others. Makes it hard to judge the scale of as thing when a few cases are magnified and the tens of thousands of contrary cases are ignored or dismissed.

Most of the "solutions" I'm seeing bandied about are nutritionally worse still, which leads to an even greater distrust on my part for the competence and veracity of those making the claims.

I have a dozen ducks. Most are hens. I've had three eggs in as many months, and I'm in a rather southern latitude. Parts of FL, TX, and a sliver of those on the Gulf of AL, LA, MS may get a ferw minutes more light per day than I do.

I have I don't know how many chickens (40-ish). Most of three dozen hens. Some are approaching their third year (April), some are approaching their third year (September), most are 12-18 months old. Last month, I was getting four, sometimes five eggs a day.

This month, closer to fifteen a day. My birds free range acres and get a (according to the nutritional label) a very good local milled feed which is NOT as good as it was two years ago.

The only "magic" chemical that will cause birds not to lay with no other symptoms is sunscreen, and I can assure you the dumor/producer's pride (Land O'Lakes / Purina Mills) people are not secretly slathering birds in Zinca/Zinc Oxide while people aren't watching.

There are plenty of things you can take out of feed which will affect their rate of lay. They appear on a guaranteed nutritional label. Significant reductions in any of them are associated with other health issues which aren;t also being reported. The most likely conclusions (Occam's Razor)? Either those health concerns aren't occuring, Q.E.D. the speculative "missing" ingredient isn't missing, or those reporting concerns with laying lack the education, experience, and awareness to be reliable reporters of their bird's condition.

There are also plenty of people (FB, primarily) promoting absolutely ignorant feed recipes and supplimental solutions which they claim immediately triggered an increase in rate of lay, yet are patently, obviously, deficient nutritionally - sometimes highly deficient in the chemical those same posters are claiming has been taken out of the Dumor-branded feed. Which tends to prove its not the feed (A) and that getting advice from Facebook is like trying to learn Economics from Memes or to understand History from Twitter.

Finally, the conspiracy minded seem to think "someones" have successfully maintained a many months long conspiracy (either across the whole of the nation, or perhaps in small geographic areas - its seemingly everywhere until you ask for locations) to deprive backyard chicken owners of eggs (somehow only just now being noticed) with no other health concerns, yet those same assumedly highly competent leaders of this vast conspiracy chose Producer's Pride/Dumor brands in an effort to manipulate the egg supply??? Really? I thought there was some suggestion these people were competent.

If I were going to constrain backyard chicken production, you can be absolutely certain I'd pick someone with significant market share, and choose locations which would maximize impact (SE US, Western US) and be likely to hit large flocks of production birds, not people with a vanity flock of occasional layers of pretty eggs living in Suburbia who think a trip to TSC is like going rural....

 

[triciayoung]

Not that I am worried...yet, but in a few chicken groups I am a part of, there has been a big uptick in people saying their hens are not laying. Aside from it being cold in most of the U.S., less daylight, some have/are molting, etc., many hen owners are saying they are getting very few eggs or none at all. They're now pointing towards certain feeds possibly causing them not to lay. So far people are pointing towards Tractor Supply Dumor or Producers Pride. They say they've had chickens 10, 20 years, whatever and have never seen production issues like this. Mine stopped laying in October (molted). I have 1 that lays throughout, just slow, and another one that has laid a couple eggs over the last 2 weeks. I suppose she's starting back to it. I don't use supplemental light. I just let them have a break.
So my question is, is anyone seeing production issues (aside from cold, light, molting) that seems out of the ordinary? If so, what feed do you use? Also if not, what feed do you use? Trying to figure out if there is anything to this or not!! Thanks!!

I heard this also about the feed. I don't know what to make of it. I make my own feed and my chickens also get fresh fruit, vegetables and cooked meat everyday. I like knowing what is in my feed, and I can balance it with the fresh food they get. Because of a large population of hawks, I can't free range, however, my chickens have a 80-foot chunnel - I let them in 5-6 hours a day, and move after they have cleared the grass. I keep the equivalent of a night light on in my coops. I have to because the "big girls", even in the dark, kept playing roost bullies and knocking the silkies and my speckled sussex off the roosting bars and since they couldn't see - they would sleep on the floor and get pooped on and be stressed out in the morning. Until I get a bigger coop (I wish I had done walk-in to begin with) - I am converting a shed into a chicken coop; I need them to be able to get back up to roost. This minimal light has allowed them to do so. I don't know if the little night light that doesn't put out much light - makes a difference, but mine are laying consistently. For 9-hens, I get 6-7 eggs a day.