This is what a balanced layer feed with no treats delivers

[Kiki]

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.

This is not true. My hens are going to be 8 years old next month. All they get is layer feed and they still lay eggs. They aren't missing any feathers.

 

[Perris]

as you know more than most Kiki, layer feeds vary a great deal. I imagine you buy your birds a very good one. Industrial egg producers are probably less fussy; they certainly don't keep their hens for 8 years and counting.

 

[NanaK]

Examples of birds fed mainly a complete feed with occasional garden vegetables and rarely mixed grain.
***Many are 7-10 years old and some still lay a few eggs each year.

 

[AinaWGSD]

since that is all a commercial hen gets, her condition demonstrates that it is not complete.

It absolutely does not. Having a complete and balanced diet is not what is causing that condition. If battery hens got treats they would  still look like that. They would look like that no matter what they ate. The condition of that hen is not due solely to diet.

layer feeds vary a great deal. I imagine you buy your birds a very good one. Industrial egg producers are probably less fussy

This is an accurate statement. And also different to the original statement that feeding only a balanced layer feed and no treats will result in a hen that looks like a battery bird.

 

[Perris]

They are beautiful @NanaK.

The key word in your text is 'mainly'. I'm really trying to convert those who recommend 100% commercial feed, who consider everything but commercial feed a treat, and who condemn such additions to birds' diets.

 

[Perris]

Having a complete and balanced diet is not what is causing that condition. If battery hens got treats they would  still look like that. They would look like that no matter what they ate.

do you have any evidence for those assertions?

 

[21hens-incharge]

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 stand by my statement that overcrowded conditions are playing a roll in the condition that example bird is showing.

My birds for example are fed Purina all flock and get a couple handfuls of scratch daily. Scratch is 9% protein according to the mix I buy.

Many in my flock are approaching 7-8 years old and still laying.
Mine look nothing like the bird shown.

One simply cannot compare commercial egg hens to the backyard flock hens. The conditions tend to be vastly different.

A few of mine are showing a bit of rooster wear....side eying my rooster.
Still none of mine look like that example bird.

 

[AinaWGSD]

They are beautiful @NanaK.

The key word in your text is 'mainly'. I'm really trying to convert those who recommend 100% commercial feed, who consider everything but commercial feed a treat, and who condemn such additions to birds' diets.

Ah, but that is not really what the original post says. The original post states that feeding a balanced commercial diet with no treats will deliver a hen with a body condition like a spent battery hen.

None of the people here who recommend feeding only a balanced diet with no treats are going to change their mind based on that picture, because most of them have been feeding that way for years and not a single one of their birds looks like that. Because they are not kept in the same conditions.

Further, the overwhelming majority of the people who recommend a balanced commercial feed and no treats are not actually recommending that birds have zero access to any other kind of food. They are advocating not offering treats, because most people are going to be offering too many treats and offsetting the balance of the diet. They're not recommending against the chickens ever getting any other kind of food, they're recommending against offering the chicken equivalent of potato chips. Many people who recommend not offering treats are all for allowing chickens to forage naturally.

 

[Perris]

and get a couple handfuls of scratch daily. Scratch is 9% protein according to the mix I buy

the key word is 'and'. Scratch varies even more than bagged so-called complete feeds, but whatever, it will contain a lot more than just protein. It will have fibre, assorted minerals (micronutrients, essential in very small quantities every now and then [not every mouthful of every meal]) varying with what it is, where it grew, when it was harvested and how it was stored etc., and it will have nutrients that are destroyed by the industrial processes that turn more or less the same raw ingredients into a shelf-stable bag of chicken feed.

One simply cannot compare commercial egg hens to the backyard flock hens. The conditions tend to be vastly different.

I couldn't agree more. So why feed backyard hens what has been developed for commercial hens?

 

[AinaWGSD]

do you have any evidence for those assertions?

Not any scientific peer reviewed evidence, no. But do you have any evidence that feeding a bird nothing but a commercial diet while not overcrowding and putting stress on the reproductive system by keeping them under lights to maximize egg production will have the same results?

Your argument seems to be that diet alone is responsible for that hen's condition. I would love to see your peer reviewed evidence for that assertion.