Chicken Feed Conspiracy

[bowhunter1023]

Grab your tinfoil and let me make you go

But first, the disclaimer...

I'm not saying correlation equals causation. I've had chickens long enough to know the winter is slow. I also suspected eggs theifs in the form of mice and coincidentally, I've dramatically lower their #s in the last 4 days. I also recognize the weather is better and the days are getting longer. All that said, this is pretty intriguing.

If you haven't heard, one of the other viral conspiracies other than balloons and burning chicken houses is the idea that commercial feed is effectively "sterilizing" layers and it's shutting down egg production for a ton of people. The comments I read indicating this started in September and coincidentally, our chickens slowed way down earlier than usual and by Thanksgiving, our hens straight up stopped laying. Everyone was saying to let them free range and pull their feed, and the eggs would come back. So, I pulled their feed and let them start free ranging again (was not allowing it due to hawk predation) and within a week, they've laid 11 eggs. From 0, to 11 in a week. There were 2 within the first 48 hours, then 2 more in the next 48, then this in the last 48.

Where there's smoke, there's fire? Or are we just back on track?!? Anecdotally, my hens have never just stopped. It'll slow down to a few a week, but never 0. We went 2.5 months with no eggs.

 

[triple_duece]

Molting in October here and shorter daylight hours have the biggest effect IMO. There is claims a high protein diet and your birds never stop. To me Mother Nature rules and until you except that, many headaches are in your future. Mature birds will molt once a year reguardless wtf you feed them. Prove me wrong

 

[Ohiosam]

If your corn comes from an area that suffered hot dry weather there could be an issue with aflatoxins. It could be 1-2 year old corn so not just last summer. Aflatoxin is a natural mold that would affect egg production

 

[bowhunter1023]

Molting in October here and shorter daylight hours have the biggest effect IMO. There is claims a high protein diet and your birds never stop. To me Mother Nature rules and until you except that, many headaches are in your future. Mature birds will molt once a year reguardless wtf you feed them. Prove me wrong

No molting in play during this time frame.

I agree, Mother Nature is full of variables and frankly, I chalk it up to that. However, it's more fun to speculate about conspiracy theories

 

[giles]

Something happened and it was food related.

 

[jagermeister]

I wouldn’t put it past a giant company to pull some BS to thwart the farm raised egg business. Way crazier things have happened. It’s just all too convenient.

 

[loose_is_fast]

My wife brought this up 3 weeks ago....... I went back to getting feed from the local elevator and I'll be damned they have started laying better.

 

["J"]

My wife brought this up 3 weeks ago....... I went back to getting feed from the local elevator and I'll be damned they have started laying better.

Did you get the other feed from Tractor Supply?

 

[Tipmoose]

Time to set up some controls and variables. Divide your chickens and feed one third of them their normal feed, one third of them corn you trust that you grind yourself, and one third free range. Let em go for a month or two and see what ya get.

 

[jagermeister]

Did you get the other feed from Tractor Supply?

My mom's flock was on the TSC feed (purina). Went from November til a couple weeks ago laying ZERO eggs. Slowing down is one thing... ZERO is something completely different. She switched to feed from Rural King and they started laying again within only a couple days.

 

[Cogz]

Time to set up some controls and variables. Divide your chickens and feed one third of them their normal feed, one third of them corn you trust that you grind yourself, and one third free range. Let em go for a month or two and see what ya get.

This for sure. Would love to see it.

- The earlier point about immature corn is interesting too.

- If it was manufactured, could’ve been a test run and things may be all clear now. Very unlikely scenario but certainly possible.

 

["J"]

My mom's flock was on the TSC feed (purina). Went from November til a couple weeks ago laying ZERO eggs. Slowing down is one thing... ZERO is something completely different. She switched to feed from Rural King and they started laying again within only a couple days.

Yeah, been reading and hearing the same down here.

 

[bowhunter1023]

Yeah, I'll pass on the experiments. I'm happy to have eggs again. Not about to fuck it up in the name of science

 

[HE>I]

I was waiting for this subject to come up. Was using Purina feed from TSC. All of my birds (8 total and 3.5-4 years old) stopped laying in the the beginning of November. I've had hens for over 30 years and have never had all birds stop laying at once. Feed, age, weather, stress, health, molt, etc. all impact laying but not all at once. After 3 weeks I opened the coop door and said no laying, take your chances (lost 3). A guy at work showed me an article about the feed thing, I thought BS, too many brands etc. for that to happen then talked to a few coworkers who experienced the same thing. Went to the feed mill and bought some of their in-house laying mash and 11 days later I got eggs, they're laying now like they always did. Cause, who knows but I did close the coop door to save the remaining birds.

 

[giles]

More reason to support the small local guy.

 

[Left field]

Guys from work were talking about this , get my feed from rural king haven’t noticed a big difference in egg production it is interesting and believable though

 

[bowhunter1023]

I think the big thing to keep in mind here is slowing down versus straight up stopping. I've talked to 15-20 people who had the same experience and all say the same thing: first time they've ever stopped altogether. As I said, things that'll make you go

 

[Dannmann801]

I wonder how easy it would be for someone to put something in the human feed supply to achieve a desired effect?

 

[Hedgelj]

The reports I've read are mainly with the TSC/Duramor feed. All the reports seem similar, whole flock stops laying until the feed is changed.


My issue is different (i think). My problem is it's the first winter I've had chickens so i don't know what's normal vs abnormal yet. I'll make a different thread.

 

[triple_duece]

No molting in play during this time frame.

I agree, Mother Nature is full of variables and frankly, I chalk it up to that. However, it's more fun to speculate about conspiracy theories

My birds molt every October. May just be our climate here. I do have some new birds that just started laying around Oct/Nov that just became adults that will molt next October. I get one to two eggs every other day or so for a month. I don’t run a light so usually it’s minimum production while the days are short. May need to cull a few of the older birds as there production slows as they get older.