Tractor Supply Feed

[Arkansasfarmergirl]

For me, yes, it was true. I only fed my 35 laying hens purina feed and out of those 35 hens I was maybe getting 3 eggs every 4-5 days. I've now switched them, added in black sunflower seeds, and give them sprouted lentils. here's what I got today so far. 30 eggs. I just switched them a little less than 2 weeks.

We have 20+ chickens… We went from getting three dozen within a couple days…& having to sell them bc we couldn’t keep up… To getting zero eggs!!! It has nothing to do with the weather here in Arkansas. My chickens have always laid eggs year-round. They have never once not consistently laid eggs. It has everything to do with tractor supply feed..We recently switched to a co-op feed… Just waiting for it to fix the problem.

 

[FrostRanger]

We have 20+ chickens… We went from getting three dozen within a couple days…& having to sell them bc we couldn’t keep up… To getting zero eggs!!! It has nothing to do with the weather here in Arkansas. My chickens have always laid eggs year-round. They have never once not consistently laid eggs. It has everything to do with tractor supply feed..We recently switched to a co-op feed… Just waiting for it to fix the problem.

It's not unusual for pullets to lay through winter their first year but not the winter after. It's indeed not due to the weather but to the reduced daylight hours. As long as they are getting adequate nutrition it's nothing to do with diet.

There are indeed better foods than dumor but it won't cause your birds to not lay
Your birds should start laying more in the coming weeks regardless of what you feed them since days are getting longer

 

[Arkansasfarmergirl]

It's not unusual for pullets to lay through winter their first year but not the winter after. It's indeed not due to the weather but to the reduced daylight hours. As long as they are getting adequate nutrition it's nothing to do with diet.

There are indeed better foods than dumor but it won't cause your birds to not lay
Your birds should start laying more in the coming weeks regardless of what you feed them since days are getting longer

That’s not true at all. Look up all the complaints about tractor supply feed. They have basically put birth control in the feed. It does not matter about the weather or the hours… I have raised egg birds as well as processed close to 200 meat birds. No one goes from having 3 dozen eggs to zero eggs.

 

[FrostRanger]

That’s not true at all. Look up all the complaints about tractor supply feed. They have basically put birth control in the feed. It does not matter about the weather or the hours… I have raised egg birds as well as processed close to 200 meat birds. No one goes from having 3 dozen eggs to zero eggs.

Daylight hours do matter. I was getting between 5-7 eggs a day during summer and went down to 1 a day as winter hit. Now that days are lengthening, I'm getting 1-3 a day and the others should be starting again soon. I've made zero changes to their diet, they've been eating the same feed they have been since they were 3 1/2 weeks old. I get my food from chewy but that's simply because my local tractor supply sells the feed I want at a higher price than chewy. if they had 20% all flock at a lower price than chewy I'd get it from there if for no other reason than to get my points, but their 20% all flock is more expensive by a few bucks so chewy it is. If the winter drop in production is an issue you can add supplementary light, I don't do this personally as I'd rather my girls take a break when needed, but many people do and they've had good success with it. Of course this won't help if they are also molting at the same time (which also happens around fall and winter and also makes birds stop laying) but it should help once they're past that

 

[K0k0shka]

Look up all the complaints about tractor supply feed. They have basically put birth control in the feed.

That's a very bold statement. Do you have any actual evidence to support it? Other than social media hype and conspiracy theories. And what would their motivation be? To shoot themselves in the foot and hurt their sales? Not to mention that "birth control" for chickens is expensive, hard to get, hard to dose, and usually injected, not consumed orally (undosed) in a giant bag of feed.

Every year, people freak out about some new conspiracy about poultry feeds, when their hens slow down or stop laying in the fall/winter, then the owner switches feeds and miraculously the hens resume laying, when they would have done that regardless, because it was just time for them to resume laying anyway.

I've been feeding my flock Purina Flock Raiser (purchased at TSC) exclusively for many years and they are doing perfectly fine. They reliably lay through their first winter, provided that they are old enough to start before fall sets in, and then don't lay anything any winter after that - at all. But they always resume as normal (adjusted for age) in January/February. As hens age, their productivity drops naturally even in the active season, they wrap up earlier in the season and take longer to start up in the spring. And yes, they can drop to 0 overnight when their body tells them to stop for the cold season.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

That’s not true at all. Look up all the complaints about tractor supply feed. They have basically put birth control in the feed. It does not matter about the weather or the hours… I have raised egg birds as well as processed close to 200 meat birds. No one goes from having 3 dozen eggs to zero eggs.

You have mistaken unsourced, unverified, social media posts for data.

Not only is there no commonality in feed, brand, or type, there is also no chronologic or geographic commonality in reporting (you know, the things we expect to see in cases of disease, contamination, poisoning, or other efforts at mass adulteration). The few consipiracy-minded Youtube personalities have tested and found Nothing.

Further, it makes no economic sense - the feed business if FAR more profitable than the egg business. Margins are much higher.

Nor does it have a significant impact on the US food supply - even the US food supply of eggs. No one is "controlling" anything when thousands or even tens of thousands of backyard owners experience seasonal reductions in egg laying. Tyson had a bigger effect on the market when they chose the wrong rooster. In this, we need to get over ourselves - its a nation of 330 million people. US commercial egg production involves a combined flock of nearly as many birds, producing about 270 million eggs a day. Backyard production is a rounding error.

Moreover, there is almost nothing you can do to feed that will cause birds to stop laying that won't have other, obvious, health consequences.

The hormone treatments used to stop birds from laying for certain medical conditions (and also zoo population control) are far too expensive to put in feed, and are mostly injectable anyways.

And yes, plenty of people show massive drops in egg production - including 0 per day. My flock is in my sig, below. I'm one of them. and no, I don't feed Purina, or Nutrena, or DuMor, or Producer's Pride, or whichever else feed is being blamed on Facebook right now. Things have improved in the last couple weeks, owing to my more southern location - we've crossed the neede ddaylight hours mark, or close enough.

Now, if you want to believe that "they" (pick any they you want) have somehow maintained a vast conspiracy (in spite of widespread ineptitude in gov't and business for as long as there has been gov't and business) to do "something" (pick any something that fits your world view) by inserting some magical, undetectable, X into bird feed which has no other health consequences except to stop egg production, during a period when egg production normally slows or stops (particularly in older layers) with the effect of damaging a high profit revenue stream in order to improve a very low margin business thru damage to a "competitor" affecting maybe 1-2% of the total market, you are welcome to do so.

But i submit to you that, even if that were somehow (however implausibly) true, it is irrational. No competent, vast, consipracy of any duration would waste their time with such an obviously wasteful, inefficient, and low reward behavior.

 

[NanaK]

They have basically put birth control in the feed.

I am sorry your hens are not laying at present.

If there were a birth control product you could add to feed to stop a hen from laying I and several others here would buy it. I've lost hens in the past with laying issues. Others have too. I would gladly have given it to the girls I lost if it kept them alive and not laying.

This would be the answer but sadly it just does not exist.

Daylight hours, age, weather, molting, other stressors influence laying cycles. All hens eventually take breaks. Hens that lay 6-7 days per week non stop often do not live long.

I think you'll see improvement as spring comes in.