Should I switch from layer to grower? Hens not laying

[NatJ]

Should I do half layer and half chick crumb? Or even more chick crumb? Is there any possibility of issues using just chick crumb? If extra calcium is available on the side?
there’s not much of a price difference chick crumb is 16 for 25kg whereas layers is 11 for 20kg so I can switch all to the chick crumb if it would be better for them

I would do all chick crumb after the current layer feed is gone, just to keep things simple.

Or if the layer feed is pellets, and they scatter the chick crumb too badly, I would leave a feeder of layer pellets available, but give them chick crumb as a wet mash. Just put some in a dish and add water, then let them eat it. I would try to give them mash each morning, an amount they will finish eating sometime in the afternoon or evening. That way the mash won't sit around long enough to spoil, but it will provide most of their feed for the day. If they have a feeder of layer pellets available too, you don't have to worry about them being hungry after the mash runs out each day, so you don't have to be too fussy about making exactly the "right" amount of mash.

For either of these ideas, I would also provide free-choice oyster shells, so the layers can get the calcium they need, when they need it. Crushed eggshells are also fine as a source of calcium, but the hens need more calcium than they can get just from the shells of their own eggs. So you won't have enough eggshells to provide all their calcium, unless you are also buying quite a few eggs and giving the hens those shells too.

 

[Shadrach]

Adding the breakdown list of layers vs chick crumb also in case anyone knows a bit more than me

I don't think the protein content of the feed is responsible for the lack of eggs.
Hens will still lay eggs with 12% protein feed. The usual protein content in the feed given to battery hens here in the UK is 16%.

What I do find a bit concerning is the feed labels you've posted. I wouldn't buy that brand of feed just because they do not provide enough information on the contents.

This is a feed label from a common feed here in the UK. If a feed manufacturer doesn't supply at least the information in the label below, pass them by.

 

[Jada22]

I would do all chick crumb after the current layer feed is gone, just to keep things simple.

Or if the layer feed is pellets, and they scatter the chick crumb too badly, I would leave a feeder of layer pellets available, but give them chick crumb as a wet mash. Just put some in a dish and add water, then let them eat it. I would try to give them mash each morning, an amount they will finish eating sometime in the afternoon or evening. That way the mash won't sit around long enough to spoil, but it will provide most of their feed for the day. If they have a feeder of layer pellets available too, you don't have to worry about them being hungry after the mash runs out each day, so you don't have to be too fussy about making exactly the "right" amount of mash.

For either of these ideas, I would also provide free-choice oyster shells, so the layers can get the calcium they need, when they need it. Crushed eggshells are also fine as a source of calcium, but the hens need more calcium than they can get just from the shells of their own eggs. So you won't have enough eggshells to provide all their calcium, unless you are also buying quite a few eggs and giving the hens those shells too.

Great thank you!

 

[Jada22]

I don't think the protein content of the feed is responsible for the lack of eggs.
Hens will still lay eggs with 12% protein feed. The usual protein content in the feed given to battery hens here in the UK is 16%.

What I do find a bit concerning is the feed labels you've posted. I wouldn't buy that brand of feed just because they do not provide enough information on the contents.

This is a feed label from a common feed here in the UK. If a feed manufacturer doesn't supply at least the information in the label below, pass them by.
View attachment 3406377

Here is the breakdown on back of the bags. Does that look better?

 

[Shadrach]

Here is the breakdown on back of the bags. Does that look better?

Yes, that's a lot better.

 

[Jada22]

Yes, that's a lot better.

Thanks I’m a bit confused on the differences in ash, fiber etc not sure how that would affect them

 

[Shadrach]

I'm not surprised you're confused. Reading all the various advice on feeds one gets makes it all very confusing as do the various nutritional options offered by the feed manufacturers.

To regain a bit of sanity what I suggest you do is look at various feed analysis labels and notice that there is a wide range in the percentage of the various things that go into a feed. It's quite a large range.
As long as the feed you give falls somewhere within the range you've looked at it is likely to be fine.
There are a few things that one should pay attention to keeping in mind the age and sex of the chicken.
The easiest is if it says the feed is for laying hens then simple though it may seem, that is what that feed is for. In this case pullets not laying, chicks, hens at the end of their laying life and males don't lay eggs so shouldn't be given layers feed.
I've yet to read anything convincing that states that more protein in a feed guarantees more eggs. Certainly a feed with a very low protein percentage, below say 10% is far from ideal and may impact the quantity of eggs the hen lays over a year, it is more likely to have other adverse affects on the hens health. Hens will lay eggs with what resources they have in preference to supplying that protein to their bodies.
So, there is a difference between optimal levels of the various feed ingedients and adequate levels.
The feed you have posted falls into the adequate range.

There are many reasons why a hen might slow down in egg laying or even stop altogether. It's very rarely due to the feed. What often gets forgotton is chickens are not machines and it is not a simple question of shoving feed in one end and getting eggs out of the other.

The two factors I've found that have the greatest impact on laying is daylight length and quality and stress. Stress is often overlooked and is quite complicated because chickens stress over things that we are often not even aware of.

 

[Jada22]

I'm not surprised you're confused. Reading all the various advice on feeds one gets makes it all very confusing as do the various nutritional options offered by the feed manufacturers.

To regain a bit of sanity what I suggest you do is look at various feed analysis labels and notice that there is a wide range in the percentage of the various things that go into a feed. It's quite a large range.
As long as the feed you give falls somewhere within the range you've looked at it is likely to be fine.
There are a few things that one should pay attention to keeping in mind the age and sex of the chicken.
The easiest is if it says the feed is for laying hens then simple though it may seem, that is what that feed is for. In this case pullets not laying, chicks, hens at the end of their laying life and males don't lay eggs so shouldn't be given layers feed.
I've yet to read anything convincing that states that more protein in a feed guarantees more eggs. Certainly a feed with a very low protein percentage, below say 10% is far from ideal and may impact the quantity of eggs the hen lays over a year, it is more likely to have other adverse affects on the hens health. Hens will lay eggs with what resources they have in preference to supplying that protein to their bodies.
So, there is a difference between optimal levels of the various feed ingedients and adequate levels.
The feed you have posted falls into the adequate range.

There are many reasons why a hen might slow down in egg laying or even stop altogether. It's very rarely due to the feed. What often gets forgotton is chickens are not machines and it is not a simple question of shoving feed in one end and getting eggs out of the other.

The two factors I've found that have the greatest impact on laying is daylight length and quality and stress. Stress is often overlooked and is quite complicated because chickens stress over things that we are often not even aware of.

Thank you! I’m less concerned about the fact we are not getting a lot of eggs and more concerned with if there’s a reason they’re not laying and mainly the impacts of feeding layers feed when they’re not laying but at least now I can adjust feed and offer calcium on the side.
I remember someone saying when giving other foods you throw the balance and therefore they miss out on important nutrients in the feed so that’s what had me confused on switching to different feeds. It seems everyone has slightly different views on the best diet.

 

[NatJ]

I remember someone saying when giving other foods you throw the balance and therefore they miss out on important nutrients in the feed so that’s what had me confused on switching to different feeds. It seems everyone has slightly different views on the best diet.

That gets said pretty frequently, and it is at least partly true.

For example, if someone is giving large amounts of corn, the chickens will eat less of their other feed. Since corn is low in protein and in some other things, large amounts can cause problems. Similar problems happen with many other treat-type foods. Small amounts of treats can be fine, but large amounts can cause issues. And "small" or "large" amounts are based on how much feed a chicken needs to eat in a day, which is much less than a person would need. So an amount that is small for a person might still be large for a chicken.

But switching from one complete feed to another complete feed is generally fine. If both feeds have enough protein, then any combination of them will also have enough protein. The same goes for each other nutrient, each amino acid that is part of the protein, and so forth.

 

[Shadrach]

I remember someone saying when giving other foods you throw the balance and therefore they miss out on important nutrients in the feed

I'm going to be really boring and shed a bit of daylight on the 10% treat rule rather than the dim 40 Watt bulb it's usually examined under.

This is one of those "truths" that need some context before it makes much sense.
Any addition to commercial balanced feed, be that forage, or other types food given by the keeper will alter the nutrition that the bird receives. We have a pretty good idea of the nutrition and it's composition that will provide a hen with what she needs to live and lay eggs. There has been a lot of research put into this and the evidence overwhelmingly agrees; some people feed their birds nothing but commercial feed and their birds live and lay eggs.

There is the often quoted advice to only give 10% of the hens nutritional intake as treats so one doesn't upset this delicate balance.
What about free range hens fed commercial feed? They are going to forage and eat all kinds of grubs, roots, grasses, seeds, worms, reptiles, mice, other dead birds etc etc. They still lay eggs. The hens I've known were extremely heathy living to 9+ years old provided they avoided getting killed by a predator. Many other people will tell you a similar story. There is zero possibility that a free range chicken will eat less than 10% of it's total diet in forage from dawn till dusk. They still live and lay eggs.

Suppose the treat were to be a few ounces of cooked white fish. The nutritional analysis of both is worth reading about. Do all those extra nutriants and amino acids found in fish reduce the nurtional worth of the commercial feed? Extend this to the forages I've mentioned above and some of them are likely to exceed that percentages of some of the chemicals in the commercial feed.
So, it's what you give as treats that is important and what a chicken forages, not the percentage.

Commercial feed ( produced and fed in massive quantities in the last 100 years) is a relatively new development in rather unfortunate 8000 year history of the chicken. However, they managed to survive and lay eggs for those 7900 years without it.

I recently read an excited report that studies had been done that suggest chcikens know exactly what they need to eat to survive and lay eggs. I wonder how they thought the chicken had lived for the other 7900 years.
One of the prefered feeding methods is to feed a low calcium feed in mixed age and gender flocks and provide a free choice source of calcium. This requires the chicken to make a choice about what they eat and the system works and the chickens live and lay eggs.

Some people do what the large batteries do and keep their chickens confined all their lives and only feed them commercial feed. In such a case then yes the 10% rule makes sense. The large commercial concerns have carried out studies and worked out what a laying hens minimum nutritional requirements are and developed feed to those requirements. The feed is designed to give maximum egg production, or growth, at the minimum cost under fully confined keeping circumstances. Given the feed is at minimum requirements any major percentage change in the balance may have an adverse effect.

In just about any other circumstance it doesn't make any sense at all.