It's hard to know exactly what the best diet is for backyard chickens. I've had different breeds and in research found that certain breeds require (or have different background origins) and need certain diets. Reading nutrition articles just confuses the issue of just what and when the right amount of protein should be offered. With my chickens, what they require depends on whether they are laying, molting, brooding, weather conditions, or if they're ill. Some owners with different ages of chicks/chickens and roosters will feed an All Flock feed with free-will oyster shell for laying hens while other owners find individual feeds or fermenting for just their laying hens, etc. After all these years I've stopped confusing myself with facts and give my girls what works best for them and me.
I've been backyard chickeneering almost 7 years and put out all kinds of chicken feeds, cooked meats/seafood, and produce to make sure my girls find the nutrition their body craves. I offer Scratch & Peck brand organic non-processed/ unpressed layer feed with loose meal/vitamin powder additives, high protein turkey grower crumbles, manufactured pressed layer pellets, organic Scratch and Peck brand wheat/barley/rye scratch, free-will oystershell and/or calcium carbonate, organic cooked brown rice and I add Bee Pollen, Selenium Powder, Brewer's Yeast, and Rooster Booster Multi-Wormer to it, dry rolled whole oats, non-GMO canned corn, raw shelled sunflower seed kernels (my DH break off the pointy sharp ends of EACH kernel LOL!), plus a variety of cooked meats, veggies from our garden, non-citrus fruits, and a good bird seed mix without hard corn in it when we can find it. Plus the girls free-range for insects and weeds. Seems a bit fussy to do this but we're zoned for only 5 hens/no roos so it's a bit easy for us.
Another thing we found is that each chicken will have a different favorite food -- one will adore cukes, another loves cantaloupe, another grapes or raisins, etc etc.
In spite of all this variety, a chicken at the end of her laying cycle might still produce for us a softshell egg as her last egg.
