As I said yesterday, my five Daisys have been eating that shit from Day One and they laid their first eggs right after Christmas, and are now giving me at least 3 and sometimes 4 eggs a day which is perfectly normal for Buff Orpingtons. Yesterday I got four.
And this morning, one of my two older birds, the Naked Neck, laid her first egg of the season after taking a couple three months off for the winter. What do I feed her? You guessed it - Producer's Pride feed and DuMoore's scratch grains. Apparently Annie didn't get the word that she shouldn't be laying any more eggs.
I have a mixed flock. The brown eggs started on the solstice, haven't had any white eggs yet. They are all two years old this spring. Don't have any Buff Orps though I prefer them because they seem to handle Idaho winters well.
ReplyDeleteIf you put a light on a timer in the coop it's supposed to get them to lay more in the winter.
The only problem with lights in the winter is then you've got chickens trying to molt and lay eggs at the same time which really stresses them out.
Deleteand the reason they moult is to replace feathers, as well as give them a break from production. Pushing any thing, animal or human to it's limits with no rest is how you break things. Overproduction leads to stress, leads to higher mortality.
DeleteYessir, absolutely correct. My birds all drag ass when they're molting, so there's no way I'd do anything to keep them laying during that time.
Delete15 hens and 2 roosters. Get 10 to 14 eggs per day. Insulated coop, no heater or lights. Feed them the Fleet Farm Sprout 16% pellets. They’ve gotten the TSC feed when I was there and they needed feed, but mostly FF.
ReplyDeleteWiscoDave
Well,
ReplyDeleteIt’s a female, so there’s that…
We have both Black Australorp and Golden Comets as well as 4 each Khaki Campbell & Rouen females and 1 male of each and a pair of African geese. The ducks and geese are just over 6 months old and the ducks just started laying with an occasional egg from the goose. They all regularly get TSC feed as it is the closet local source and we have no issue with eggs. We currently supply 5 other families with eggs each week.
ReplyDeleteThe issue this spring will be getting pullets as the most local hatchery where I could buy pullets is out of business from a combination of covid and bird flu issues. I usually add 5-5 pullets each year as the eggs come within weeks instead of months. Even chicks will be harder to find and more costly as a lot of folks are looking to raise tyheir own laying hens now with the eggs shortage and high prices.
My wife works at the local TSC and she'd heard this rumor, but all our birds are still laying, and she hasn't heard any complaints from all the regular customers.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that's all it is, an internet rumor. Two months from now when all these peoples' chickens get out of the winter doldrums and resume laying, we'll never hear anything about it again.
DeleteOut of everything that you wrote yesterday, I'm more concerned about how you feed them scraps of their own eggs. That sort of practice has let to mad cow disease, and I fear you might end up causing a similar event in your chickens. Fucking with mother nature and crating twisted prions that poison your food supply doesn't seem very wise.
ReplyDeleteI didn't say I feed my birds hardboiled eggs, I said if YOU'RE concerned about a drop of protein in their feed, YOU can give them some hardboiled egg. I also pointed out several times that my birds are laying just fine, so there's no need for me to do that.
DeleteWhat I didn't mention is that I got that information off of the poultry sites I frequent. They also mention giving them ground up eggshell for a calcium supplement so it can't be that bad for them.
Chickens will eat their eggs for a variety of reasons. If an egg breaks, it's gone! If they need calcium, they eat eggs.
DeleteYup, I've gone out a couple times and picked up sticky eggs with a broken eggshell on top, but no trace of a yolk to be found.
DeleteThe wife has had us saving eggshells for years for the chickens. Lets them dry in old egg cartons, 1/2 shell per spot. Once dry, she tosses them in a bag and crushes them into small fragments so the chickens don't become conditioned to damage fresh eggs. Chickens eat the fragments and get easily absorbable calcium; we haven't had problems with them damaging the whole eggs. Also occasionally whips up warm scrambled eggs for chickens that are ill.
DeleteWatch out they don't get mad cow disease.
DeleteGrowing up it was standard operating procedure to save the egg shells, dry and crush them, and feed them back to the hens. Added calcium helped them lay eggs with harder shells, less prone to breaking. A couple of the smaller hens would sometimes overdo it and wind up laying eggs with shells so hard they wouldn't break if you dropped them in the dirt. Makes for good ammo, though, chucking them at your cousin when he's not paying attention weeding the garden. leaves a big red welt on the arm if you chuck 'em hard enough.
DeleteHey anon:just like mad cow is from mamma cows eating their placenta, and not sharing with the other cows....soreheads....
DeleteYou should have posted the memo in the coup so all the chickens could see it.
ReplyDeleteWhat, you don't think the KFC lid I've got stapled inside the henhouse does the trick?
DeleteFour Buff Orpington. Give me three to four eggs every day. Got them on Purina layer crumbles I get at the Tractor Supply. I give them some grit or oyster shell on occasion. Only time I use a light is when it's in the thirties. I use a red heat light.
ReplyDeleteMy Buffs seem to actually enjoy the colder weather. The only precaution I take with them is if the temps are going to be in the twenties or lower, I shut them inside the henhouse after the sun goes down so their body heat will make it a little less severe, and to keep them out of the wind.
DeleteI would not use a heat light at all but I got this wife ya see that loves her chickens. I'm just along for the ride and enjoying every minute of it.
DeleteI feel ya there. I have to admit I would probably put a heat lamp in with my not-so-feathered birds, but I don't have electricity anywhere near the coop. Plus I had that big-assed rooster to keep them warm until he tragically passed away.
Deletehttps://patriots.win/p/16ZWyiDIdc/tractor-supply-supports-drag-que/c/
ReplyDeleteMight have something to do with the boycott.
What boycott do you speak of? Nobody here mentioned one. And I just checked their mission statement and nowhere did I see anything about Drag Queen Story Hour. You're going to have to do better than providing a video of some lame off-the-grid guy who's channel I quit watching months ago.
Deletehttps://www.publishedreporter.com/2022/12/13/op-ed-why-is-tractor-supply-onboard-for-a-family-friendly-drag-queen-pride-event-in-tx/
DeleteTrying to packpeddle...ymmv
This is all so interesting as I am eating some killer chicken wings and of course accompanied by ample volume of beer
ReplyDeleteWe have a couple guys around our area that sell "bulk run" feed by the 55 gallon barrel. It is whatever is left over at the end of the day from the delivery trucks mixed in a hopper you drive under and they auger it into your barrel. If you buy a ton or more you get a price break.
ReplyDeleteI have a heat lamp in the coop but it is directed downward onto the waterer, which is suspended high enough to keep the debris out of it, so the birds have something to drink when it gets cold-cold while we rotate the water bowls out.
HTR
Within 24 hours, I saw your rumor elsewhere on a prepper site. On the one hand, y'all both reported TS and good eggs, but OTOH, y'all are both in the south. One can conceive scenarios where something bad being rolled out, one can also conceive nothing at all. We'll see.
ReplyDeleteI have 10 young hens, have had them on tractor suppply feed since day one. I still have them on
ReplyDelete" grower "feed. 20 % protien . We get 8-9 eggs every day. I believe this whole feed issue about Tractor supply is "well intended" folks upset about the drag queen event that TS donated to in Texas, I have issues with that. However I really don't see how you can punish all the really good folks that work at the stores. Besides , I would have to drive for over an hour to get to Rural King. Also a lot of new owners forget the hens slow way down in winter. Just my 2 cents....
You may be right about the reason why this rumor got started.
DeleteWe've got a farmer's co-op here in town where I can buy feed, but I've been going to our TS for 7 years now and I'm on a first name basis with damned near everybody that works there.
Gateway pundit is known to speak with forked tongue. Stopped reading him after catching some blatant lies.
ReplyDelete