Good morning,
The ladies have not yet laid any eggs and based on what I've read on this, and other forums, it is likely that they will not lay their first eggs until spring.
Don't be shocked if you do see a few eggs before spring. They don't always do what you expect. I've had pullets start to lay in early December during the shortest days of the year and I do not add any lights. You are further north so your days will be shorter than mine right now, but I think a safer way to say it is that not all of them will be laying until spring.
They are all healthy, active and behaving normally. My question is, should I switch their feed back to grower feed?
I'll address the Grower part first. Some Grower or Layer can come in a higher protein percent than others. I could not find the percent protein in your Lakeview feed. Most Grower or Layer come in 16% protein but I have seen some as high as 18%.
Some people feel that they need to feed a higher protein feed. I don't, I'm quite happy with a 16% feed. My chickens are healthy, active, and act normally. Besides, mine forage for part of their food and they get garden and kitchen wastes so I can't micromanage their feed anyway. There is nothing wrong with feeding a higher protein feed as long as you don't get ridiculous about it. Some studies have shown that if you get up to around 28% to 30% protein they can develop problems like avian gout. My main suggestion on protein is to be fairly consistent in what you feed them so they are used to that. If you want to go up a little it won't hurt them.
There are studies that show feeding growing chicks the amount of calcium in Layer as their sole food can be harmful. These studies are paid for by the commercial chicken industry, for both broilers and laying flocks. That's who has the money and the interest. These studies really don't apply to your situation. You don't butcher yours at 6 to 8 weeks of age. You don't have layers specifically bred to lay a lot and early and don't control when they start to lay, mainly by manipulating lights. These studies are where the recommendations on the bags of feed come from. I learn a lot from the various studies they do but I try to see if they really apply to me.
Several years back, someone (probably Bobbi or Canoe, can't remember who) shared a study where roosters were fed a diet that had the same amount of calcium as Layer. The commercial operations do have breeding flocks so they were interested. They found that mature roosters can develop medical issues on that high calcium diet. All of them didn't develop those problems. They cut them open to look at the internal organs so they could see what damage was done. They counted dead roosters but that wasn't the only criteria they used.
I think their is a correlation between roosters that don't lay eggs and pullets or hens that aren't currently laying eggs. Broody hens, molting hens, and pullets not yet laying all fall into the category of not actively laying. Since the commercial operations know when they are going to manipulate the lights to start their pullets laying they can preload them with calcium. We don't know when ours will start laying.
This is the type of stuff I base my opinions on. Since I almost always have growing chicks in the flock, let alone a rooster and occasionally broody hens and even occasionally molting hens, I never feed Layer. All the chickens get the same low calcium feed. If I have baby chicks in the flock the entire flock gets Starter with a higher protein content. About the time they hit a month old and that bag of feed runs out I switch back to Grower. I always offer oyster shell separately for the ones that need the calcium for their shells.
Hopefully you will get something useful out of all this. Good luck.
