Purina Layena...Full of Fluff....???

[Country Living Farm]

Ok. I have a mill near me where the feed in crumble in 50 pound bags for 9.50. It is a corn meal based then they add all the extra stuff. I just switched to Purina Layena to see if there would be a difference. Well one week later, out of 36 laying hens the eggs are very less and less every day. It seems like the chickens eat more as if the feed is not filling them up. I know Purina has lots of stuff in it but is it full of fillers that do not keep them full? It seems the feed from the mill last much longer...

 

[ivan3]

Purina is no worse, and probably a bit better than most feeds (not `fluffed'). Might find too many fines in a bag that rode at the bottom of the stack in the truck, but that is mechanical and not a lack of nutritional content.

Had your layers always been fed the mill formulation? If you don't mind my asking, why the change? I'd bet they haven't adjusted to the Purina and I'd probably go back to the mill feed with this flock.

Chooks get set in their habits (likes/dislikes) pretty early in life and some folks who start with crumbles have no luck switching to pellets. Could be they're ticked off and their digestive tracts are a bit unnerved as well.

Could also be a bad bag of feed (any mold, etc.?).

 

[Mahonri]

I've about decided that Egg Maker is just as good as Purina Layena and much less expensive.

I'm doing a test in the coop and pen to see what the percentages are of layers and how often they lay.

 

[Tala]

If you switched from crumbles to pellets then they might just not LIKE it and if they aren't eating it then they aren't getting enough fuel to make eggs out of. Could be as simple as that!

I've had good luck with Layena feed (pellets) but switched to Flock Raiser (crumbles, also Purina feed) because I wanted a bit more protein and the birds seem to like it better.
I'm with ivan3, I mean if you had healthy birds and good egg production with the cheaper feed....why switch? I mean, "if it ain't broke...."
Was there a problem? Did you feel that their diet was lacking something?
If they also get to free range on the yard, then the brand of feed isn't really a huge deal. Mine barely touch the feeders after they leave the coop

 

[rancher hicks]

I bought layena on sale BOGO. I've been trying to keep a tally. Its been cold and they seem to eat more than usual. 3.7 eggs a day from 5 marans.

 

[Country Living Farm]

I changed to see if it would make a difference. I am moving to GA n a few months and I will not be abot to get the Mill feed so Iswitched to see what would happen. I bought 30 bags of the stuff so I got a while to go to see what happens.

 

[Opa]

I was feeding Dumor feed and recently switched to Layena. The birds seem to be doing quite well on it and I'm not sure of just how much filler is in it. I did however get a bag of scratch feed from TSC that seems to have a tremendous amount of ground corn cob in it. Never seem quite this much before.

 

[Jim from Cincinnati]

Maybe your hens like the Purina brand better so are eatting more? And don't hens lay less eggs this time of year anyway?
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[CARS]

Every time I switched feeds in the past the hens went on strike. After a couple weeks they were back to normal, but the change must effect their cycle.

 

[CountryMom]

Since most of my birds are of laying age, I have been feeding Layena for over a year. I had a drop in egg production pretty drastic during the fall. I figured something must be up and wormed and added some oyster shell. Still not much in egg production. It seemed weird since I had good luck with it over the years time. I had a batch of silkie chicks I was going to add in the silkie coop. They were not quite laying age, so I picked up a couple bags of Flockraiser for their coop. Within two days I had silkie eggs coming out my ears. I was shocked. Prompty had one hen go broody too. So I went ahead and switched my entire flock over to Flockraiser and have had a lot better egg production since. In fact, for it being our coldest month so far we are up in production. Now, some of my birds did go through a molt, but not everyone. There should have been no reason for the drop in egg production that drastic.....like 30 something hens and no eggs for days. I spoke with my local feed dealer and all he could say is that maybe they changed the formula some because of the season. Anyhow, I am buying Flockraiser from now on. Oh, and I have always done crumbles also, so no change there.