feed mixture

[canada-goose]

Quote:
Yes you can get as many as three eggs per day. Uncommon yes, but many chickens will lay 2 per day regularly. That was when I was raising chickens commerically. Had over 50,000 chickens working hard for me every day. They only lasted a year or two at the most. Now my grand children and I have pet chickens that are 8 years old and we still get eggs from them. We all know what a chicken that doesn't lay 3 or 4 eggs
a week is called (dinner).

That's not healthy. Poor hens.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

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Yes, I oversimplified as we just had another thread on this topic the other day:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=270640

 

[Mac in Wisco]

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Come on... Your comments are ridiculous. It takes a hen a little over 24 hours to produce an egg. Even the very best of layers only lay 300 - 330 eggs a year.

There's a lot more to nutrition than than just protein. That extra protein is not necessarily good for them. The commercial feeds are well balanced rations that include the proper amounts, plus the minerals and vitamins necessary for a layer hen needs.

 

[catdaddyfro]

I posted a thread a while back on adding extra protien to the hens diets, but this was mainly for this time of the year when egg production was falling off from molting and shorter daylight hours.

I agree with Mac in Abiliene that 17% protien is plenty for laying hens to produce eggs. Now if your going to be adding scratch and other grains to their deit you will have to compromise for the deletion of the total protien numbers average by upping the regular feed rations % of protien.

The reason I said to add a higher protien to the hens diets this time of year was due to the fact that hens are molting and that a good bit of the protien they consume is directed toward feather growth as feathers are around 100% dead protien(same as hair, finger,and toe nails) it takes a lot of feed energy to substain this growth. Then you add in the cold factor they will use the rest up to regulate body heat. Now this was to help keep the hens laying eggs during this time or to help get some coming out of the molt a quicker kick off back in to production. Alot of people don't do this as they will let the hens just start back up later on into the next laying season to let the girls rest over the winter months.

Anyway Mac 96% production is great this time of the year and the guy that was getting 3 eggs a day from his commercial layers should have been selling those eggs as breeder eggs to hatch those little robotic egglaying machines with a beating heart. He'd made a mint off them and I'm sure that should've turned the egg production world upside down by now.

With that being said if you get more than 1 egg a day from any type hen consider yourself lucky, and as a matter of fact most of the time if they do lay two eggs in a day that they'll usually skip the next day. It takes approximately 25 hours to for an egg to develop, so even at that rate a hen will eventually skip a day every so often. Do some number crunching there's only so many hours in a day, week, or year. And Mac I agree 300 to 330 eggs a year is a very good average and that usually under ideal egg producing conditions not out in someones back yard where its cold or hot, short daylight hours, not fed on a timed feed schedule, ect.....

Yes there is a record set of a Black Australorp laying 364 eggs in 365 days,but that was only one hen that has ever done this and strange things happen everyday in every walk of life. These late model Wh. Leghorns and most all of the sex links will lay circles around the average Black Australrop. If that weren't true then there would be nothing but black hens laying eggs all over the whole world.

Here's my thread if interrested: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=254277

catdaddy