feeding Chickens Black pepper

[daddy_roo]

Ok for those of you trying to figure out your "pepper dosage", I have 12 chickens eating my peppered up treats. I use regular ground pepper on popcorn. I use about 3/4 cup of pepper to the 8 cups of popcorn. I have tried replacing the popcorn with cherios. I have had the exact same results with the cherios as I did with the popcorn. I also have tried differant amounts of pepper and have noticed that once I get above 3/4 cup in the popcorn there is not additional effects on egg production. This converts to 1 tbsp PER BIRD .So anything over that is a waste of pepper. Now if you have more chickens than I do it will probably make sence to put more in. And likewise if you have fewer chickens using less. I tried the cherios because a comment was made about it possibly being the extra grease in the ppopcorn. Well I eliminated the extra grease did not feed the pepper for 2 days to kinda let it get out of their system, and gave the cherios with the same concentration of pepper. So after egg production dropped back to 3 eggs in a day, I gave them the cherios, and got another 5 eggs this morning and another one at noon. So I do not believe that it is the grease.

 

[Hiram]

I asked my father(who grew up on the farm) about the "pepper equation" and he agreed with yall's finding. But he said it's the increase in drinking water that cause a hen to lay more. I'm thinking of trying it but my production is good now. I don't want to throw a monkey wrench in there.

 

[Jay262]

I have been doing this for 3 days now i started day one with ground pepper day 2 with peppercorns and decided today to go with ceyene pepper. No eggs only difference is water consumption so far cant seem to keep enough water in the coops lol. Poor guys it was fun on the get go but i think im gonna quit they will come around in there own time.

 

[tsiecz]

Justone egg today. So if the schedule is the same tomorrow will be 2-3. No change other than this is my E.E. 4 th egg and they are going to a blue green. It may be cleaning the ink jets.

 

[Lisa0318]

Quote:
Just ate a bit of Layena! Doesn't taste like eggs to me.

 

[luvmymillies]

sad to say no eggs again today....once again very raining all day in NC....and weird because we are experiencing records highs....upper 60's, which is 30 degrees warmer than normal for this time of the year. Once again I will say definitely a major increase in water consumption! After reading the 1 tbsp. per bird....I am not giving enough pepper. Funny cause this am I put so much pepper in the oatmeal so I thought.....that I could not stop sneezing!( I promise I was keeping a safe distance from the pepper application!)

Hmmmm...not giving up, however I will definitely be heading to Sams tomorrow to by some pepper in bulk. Stay tuned......

 

[daddy_roo]

Hiram your father is probably right. The main thing an egg needs is water to make all the magic happen so I can see the increase in water being the kicker. So now the question is how do you make a chicken thirsty? Pepper is my way of it.

What other ways can we think of?

 

[aoxa]

I gave them quite a bit of pepper in their oatmeal. Only got one egg the next day

And I have 3 that are laying too!

 

[stormylady]

Just out of curiousity, if your hens are molting and you feed them pepper to increase the egg production, would it be a big stress on them? Seeings how they stop laying during the molt because they are using all the energy and feed for that purpose ? Just asking, I would like to try the experiment but don't want to cause them to slow the molt down and all, its getting pretty cold out there and not sure if I need the eggs bad enough to risk them being cold.

 

[daddy_roo]

I am sorry but I do not know how to answer that question. My hens had been moulting, but were just about out of it. By this I mean all feathers were back and 2 of the 6 that are old enough to moult were starting to lay an egg every few days. All my moulting hens started the moult at the same time, so should be out of it roughly at the same time as well. So this was when I started the pepper expiriment. I never thought of it the way you did but it just worked that they were comming out of moult. I am still new to chickens I was introduced to chickens for the first time in my life in september of this year. So questions of that nature I am not able to fully answer.