Egg production lately

[egamalski]

Y’all may stone me, but my chickens are laying great! I just collected 22 this evening.

I’m with you; 24 here tonight! They’ve been laying great all winter.

 

[triciayoung]

If your birds are starving to death, then I would expect less eggs due to feed. Reproduction in all animals will shut down, or even abort in mammals with a starvation. But if you are feeding anything, and your chickens have good feathers, bright eyes and are active this is not the issue.

Often times people post on here very rigid ideas about feed, and a common question is: "WHAT are you feeding?" As in the proper feed will fix anything. Adequate amounts of feed is important, but certain % of protein, not any scratch...not too much scraps needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Don't any of these people eat potatoes chips?

I have had chickens for years, and I always post in Facebook my first eggs after the molt and break. In the memories it comes up, one year - Jan 6! Yay! One year, Jan 14, one year Jan 26, and one year Feb 4....

All is do to the amount of sunlight, and the intensity of sunlight. Cloudy days have a much bigger influence on setting it back. This year, I am still waiting. But a few neighbors are getting some, I MUST be getting close.

They are not machines, we have to wait.

Mrs K

Well said @Mrs. K

 

[Curnow]

Still using Dumor and haven't had any issues but we play them encouraging, uplifting music and offer incentives when weekly egg quotas are met.

Right!

How do you explain the incentive to the chickens? I've tried this.

Me: Lark, I'll give you extra mealworms if you start laying by this Sunday.
Lark: Pecks my finger for the little bit of spinach on it.

Me: Middle, if you start laying by Sunday, I give you your own TABLESPOON of BOSS.
Middle: Sees nothing in my fingers, toddles away.

Me: May, will you start laying soon? Please? I'll get out the bone broth scrap snack.
May: Wanders off.

I'm at a loss as to how to persuade them to get back to it. Incentives don't seem to work.

At our place it's all in the blueberry smoothies!
That's a bribe they can't refuse....HaHaHa!

Truthfully though...I do give bone broth and meat broth from cooking to mine over layer rations as well as blueberry smoothies.

 

[triciayoung]

I think we should all take our time in being suspicious, but also inquisitive. It’s great to be aware and interested in researching topics that are important to us (with peer reviewed sources). Then again, I am also a scientist by profession.

While I know it is antidotal @LizzzyJo, if it acts and sounds like a duck - it must be a duck. haha

 

[Curnow]

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.

EXACTLY! I too wish the ones causing such chaos would just stop. There are so many factors we don't know from each of the chicken keepers supposedly reporting this drop in production. It's very sad to see how many just jump on the band wagon without knowing the science and life cycle of chickens.

 

[Curnow]

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

Not sure where you are in Missouri. I am in North Central. I have used MFA products for years. Larger quantities (50 lb. bags vs. 40 lb.) at a lower price. You give them a try if you have one in your area. And yes, that's also a shameless plug for MFA, DH is a manager at one.

 

[triciayoung]

EXACTLY! I too wish the ones causing such chaos would just stop. There are so many factors we don't know from each of the chicken keepers supposedly reporting this drop in production. It's very sad to see how many just jump on the band wagon without knowing the science and life cycle of chickens.

I don't think anyone is causing "chaos". People here need to feel like they can say what they hear and are thinking, without being "labeled" as causing "chaos". We all have one very important thing in common...we love our birds. Let's let all of the members...who, by the way, we may all need someday...freely and openly share their thoughts.

 

[Erinnlyn]

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.

Thank you for the info! Yes, I am regretting not doing a walk in coop too. I have also looked into making my own food. I've started to grow a little bit of fodder, and possibly setting up to grow mealworms as well!

 

[Erinnlyn]

"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....

Makes sense! Well that's precisely why I came here, to see if people had any substantial correlations to what they were feeding vs. what's normal slowing down for the winter months. Maybe there is something to production breeds that are now 2+ years old (back when people went crazy buying chicks) are now slowing down a bit, in addition to taking longer molting/winter breaks.
Thank you for your very thorough reply!

 

[Mrs. K]

It is one thing to share thoughts and what they hear, it is another to defame a company. It is called libel when it is done in print. I would think the moderator would have something to say about this.