This is what a balanced layer feed with no treats delivers

[saysfaa]

The studies comparing CP in production layers found that going from 16% CP to 20%CP while maintaining similar AA profiles resulted in... A couple % greater egg production, a couple % larger eggs. a slight improvement in behavior (an admittedly fuzzy metric). Overall health (as measured by Mortality) was probably better, but not statistically significant.

How does that translate to hard numbers? A bird that would have produced 300 eggs its first cycle, on average, now produces between 306 and 309 on average. Average egg size increases 1 gram on average.

The difference in price, however, is close to 20% more expensive.

Quite simply, commercial margins are so tight the math doesn't work.

A few percent difference in either size or number seems unlikely to cause problems.

Two things leave me uneasy about it. One is whether the safety mechanisms are working properly. It seems some are not. Cornish X will eat themselves to death. 1928 textbook states hens who do not have enough calcium will not lay an egg; nowadays, we know to give more egg shells or oyster shells when hens lay eggs with thin shells. The mechanism to go broody when a clutch the size a hen can cover has been laid has been lost in many breeds. There is/was? probably a mechanism to keep eggs at a reasonable size for the size of the hen.

The other is that a 4% change in the amount of protein made a "couple %" difference in number and a "couple %" difference in size. What would a 10% change in the amount of protein do? Concept here - not specifically "4", "couple", or "10".

Commercial growers would never consider protein levels that high but what people might feed a few pets the size of chickens can be totally uneconomical. Or could be extremely high in protein without being uneconomical - a large family with a few birds, for one example, might have "too much" protein just from the scraps they would otherwise throw out.

 

[saysfaa]

Maybe three things. A few more eggs one generation, a few more the next, a few more the next... At some point the straw breaks the camel's back.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

The other is that a 4% change in the amount of protein made a "couple %" difference in number and a "couple %" difference in size. What would a 10% change in the amount of protein do? Concept here - not specifically "4", "couple", or "10".

The difference between 20% and 24% was even less beneficial than the difference from 16% to 20%, the price increased again, and there was significant increase in unused protein, expressed primarily as nitrates and ammonia.

In short, the Law of Diminshing Returns rears its big ugly head.

 

[MarketGardener]

I do not dispute what you are all saying about the conditions the egg industry adopts (it's at least as bad in the USA as here btw), but you are distracting from the subject of feed by looking at the environment. Yes I know both play a role.

But people keep claiming on BYC that a so-called 'complete balanced layer feed' will provide everything a hen needs, and since that is all a commercial hen gets, her condition demonstrates that it is not complete. It is merely adequate for a short life. It does not provide enough for her to thrive; it is just enough to keep her laying eggs until she is about 1 year and 5 months old, at which point she is thrown away, like the ones in the picture.

I can comment in this way
They argue battery and stuff
But…
Chicken tractors also have battery like spacing Justin Rhodes and joe saltin
Difference is mixed scratch and green grass bugs and meat protein

So yes I’d say the layers stuff is bad after seeing a few of my chickens too , since being on a normal protein diet my chicken with saddle ride marks is finally feathering out