What to feed chickens to lay more eggs.

[themadchicken]

I feed a mixed grain feed. I start with a good scratch and add stuff. Yes...stuff. The scratch i start with is corn, wheat and barley. 14 percent protein. the last 250 lbs i added 50 pounds of all flock pellets ( I bought this in a pinch before my grain came in). 15 pounds of oyster shell, 25 pounds of oats, and about 5 lbs of DE.

 

[DeepFriedBacon]

15 chicks to 5,000 in a few years?!?!?



That's chicken math to the power of ten...

And a healthy income i'd say, minus all the overhead, means I wanna small farm in Wisconsin!

 

[jkhenry]

i was given 25 lbs of starter feed to start for 6 weeks and almost out now lol its only 8 chicks but man do they eat i love eggs especially fresh but never had the chance to eat one right out of the chicken

 

[jkhenry]

my coop is 24'x16' and almost done with it if i succeed in these 8 i will get 8 more later

 

[Mac in Wisco]

That's chicken math to the power of ten...

And a healthy income i'd say, minus all the overhead, means I wanna small farm in Wisconsin!

If the bills weren't $224,000. No... we do ok on it. Some years are better than others depending on feed prices, but we enjoy it.

The cost of the first hen house is included in our mortgage so we aren't trying to fund it separately. I figure at the very worst, even if we break even on that one we're still paying for a good portion of our mortgage, insurance, and property taxes which allows us to live a rural country life versus a less expensive small property in town.

The second hen house is rented from a neighbor so the economics of it are a little tighter, but it still works out.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

my coop is 24'x16' and almost done with it if i succeed in these 8 i will get 8 more later

That's a pretty big coop. Since you are living in Mississippi I'd think they'd just need a safe place to roost at night and would generally live outside of it. We had an 8 x 8 coop in Texas with 15 hens. They ran our fenced backyard year round and just went in the hen house at night. We did have a larger covered pen attached to the hen house that we could lock them in if we were going to going to be away for a period of time, but they mostly just ran our 100 x 100 backyard.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

I feed a mixed grain feed. I start with a good scratch and add stuff. Yes...stuff. The scratch i start with is corn, wheat and barley. 14 percent protein. the last 250 lbs i added 50 pounds of all flock pellets ( I bought this in a pinch before my grain came in). 15 pounds of oyster shell, 25 pounds of oats, and about 5 lbs of DE.

Without the flock raiser do you expect that to be enough protein?

I'd suggest a vitamin and mineral premix too. What about methionine, salt, and phosphorous?

 

[ladytoysdream]

Fun stuff. I started hanging out here seven years ago when we first bought 15 chicks and raised them on our back porch/backyard in West Texas. A few years later I ended up buying a small farm in Wisconsin with a large hen house. Now we have two hen houses with 2500 hens in each and we are selling about $225,000 of organic eggs each year.

Hi Mac,
Are you certified organic ? In this state to be able to sell eggs as organic, we have to be certified.
I just call my eggs natural and when asked about organic, I mention that we practice quite a few organic methods,
but no, we are not certified. Too much red tape. We have a small set up.
Thank you for sharing what you do.

 

[jkhenry]

inside my pen i built an 8'x8' roost coop for them to get out of the weather and roost at nite also with 4 nest boxes im by far not a carpenter my profession is a boat capt in houma,la. but it was fun building it when im home im debating whether to put hay on the floor or leave it bare i didnt wanna confuse the chicks bout laying in their nest boxes

 

[countryhen]

What is game feed? I use scratch & chops is this better/ cheaper than what I use now?