This past week, I spent an hour on my radio show talking about an issue I knew nothing about just 24 hours before. I had gone home from my office and my daughter asked me about chicken eggs. Her teacher has some chickens and the chickens had stopped laying eggs. Rumors were circulating that corporations were putting something new in the chicken feed that stopped egg production.
*****
Finally, somebody's showing some common fucking sense.
Yes, people's chickens did stop laying. No, I don't think it had much if anything to do with feed. It's a normal cycle, and people that have raised chickens for at least a couple years will recognize that.
It's a plain and simple fact that unless the birds are put under lights when the days start getting shorter, they'll either slow down drastically or will quit laying completely during the winter months. Sometimes they'll lay normally through their first winter, depending on the breed, but the natural cycle kicks in after the first winter.
Why? It's nature's way of protecting them. Check it out: Chickens molt during the winter. They lose most of their feathers and look downright pitiful, all scraggly looking and shit. Seriously, they're uglier than that 2 AM Last Call girl at the bar. If they're laying while trying to regrow feathers, it puts too much strain on their little bodies and can kill them.
Why do chickens molt and lose all their feathers in the winter instead of the spring when they won't need them as much to stay warm? Fuck if I know, they just do. Mother Nature's a cruel bitch.
Okay, not all birds molt during their first winter. None of my Leghorns or Naked Necks molted during their first winter, and they did continue to lay, but just not as much. My newest additions, the Buff Orpingtons, didn't shed a feather this year and started laying between Christmas and New Year's.
So, like the author of the article, what I think happened with the feed thing is that there's been a jump in popularity for backyard chickens over the past two years. People bought chickens for their first time and they laid fine during the first winter, but when the second winter hit, the birds quit and instead of doing a little fucking research to find out why, they immediately blamed the feed. Somebody started the rumor that Tractor Supply's Producer's Pride layer feed and Dumor grain was causing chickens to quit laying and everybody jumped on it, blaming the feed for all kinds of shit. I even saw one woman that posted a video on youtube blaming the feed for her chicken's feathers falling out. I'm not kidding. I checked her comments and there were about 75 of them, and to her followers' credit, most of them were denouncing her as an idiot.
But people love a conspiracy theory. I saw another video where another girl said her birds quit laying completely, but then she switched from Producer's Pride (the feed that got the blame) to Purina and what do you know, her chickens started laying the very next day.
Okay, two things. Number One - had she had even a little knowledge about the laying cycles of chickens, she'd know that it takes about 26 hours for an egg to develop inside the bird which means that first egg was formed from the nutrients of the feed she blamed. That bird was going to drop an egg even if she hadn't fed it at all the day before.
Number Two - she switched from Producer's Pride to Purina and they miraculously started laying again.
Sweetheart, I hate to tell you this but Producer's Pride is made by Purina. It even says so right on the bag if you look close enough. I'll admit you look cute in your new Carhartt knit cap, but you ain't got much else going on up there.
Purina is such a large company that I'd be willing to bet they make a huge amount of the feed sold under different brand names in farming supply stores for folks that have backyard chickens.
I have a few homesteading/prepper channels that keep popping up on my youtube. I do watch them occasionally if the subject line catches my attention. Some of them I watch a little more regularly than others. Maybe I should say I did watch a little more regularly. There's a few I'll never watch again because they jumped on the bandwagon and helped perpetuate the rumor. I mean, these people claim to be helping but not a single one I saw offered a solution to replace the protein that's allegedly not at the right level for laying feed. All they did was smear the feed, making me wonder if they don't know these simple facts about chickens, what else are they trying to push over on their viewers?
Okay, one more thing. I want to say that if I'm wrong, I'll come clean with y'all and I'll apologize. I don't claim to be a chicken expert. But check this shit out.
I have 7 actively laying hens right now. There's the 5 Buff Orpingtons (The Daisys), one Naked Neck (Annie) and a brown Leghorn (the Brown Bitch).
I have fed all my birds nothing but Producer's Pride and Dumor grain, the feed that's supposedly causing chickens to quit laying, all their lives.
Annie and the Brown Bitch quit laying late October. Stopped suddenly and completely. Did I worry? Nope. It was just that time of the year. I never got another egg from them for the rest of the year.
I was hoping The Daisys would mature enough to start laying before winter because like I said, some birds will lay through their first winter, but they didn't so I figured I wouldn't get an egg one until the early spring. So I have liberal birds - expecting to be fed and housed but not giving anything in return.
Then I started hearing about the Great Chicken Feed Conspiracy. I shrugged it off, figuring I'd find out in the spring. I mean, my birds aren't laying anyway right now, so why trip? Plus, just how in the hell was I supposed to determine if they're laying or not when they're off cycle, right? But all of a sudden this shit blew up and I'm getting links from readers and seeing videos about this shit and I'm laughing - not at the folks that sent in the links for me to post but at the whining people in the articles. Most if not all of them were hipsters and youngsters - manbun and White Claw people. Hell, the second sentence in this article HERE ought to tell you all you need to know: "The theory gained steam on Facebook, TikTok and Twitter in recent weeks, with some users reporting that their hens stopped laying eggs and speculating that common chicken feed products were the cause." Yup, social media - the same folks that brought you the Tide Pod and Stick a Red Hot Knitting Needle Up Your Dick Challenges.
I had a few readers email me about their birds. They were new to raising hens and wanted to know if it warranted concern. I told them to be patient and cool their heels until the days started to get longer, but if they were all that worried they could supplement their feed with protein, and told them how by giving your chickens diced up hardboiled egg, mealworms, shredded meat scraps, or, if your birds aren't real flighty, letting them free-range during the day.
By the way, I don't feed any of my birds any of those supplements, and I don't let The Daisys free-range yet. I do toss them a handful of mealworms as a treat occasionally, but not enough to make a difference.
So, while all this speculation was flying all over the internet:
A couple days after Christmas I went out to clean the The Daisys' henhouse and found 2 warm eggs in the nesting box. That surprised the hell out of me considering we'd just had a week of zero temps at night, and I honestly didn't figure I'd get eggs for a couple 3 months yet.
It was like somebody turned a faucet on. I was getting 3 eggs a day until the two younger Daisys matured enough to start a couple weeks later. Then it was 4 or 5 eggs.
About a week after all The Daisys started laying, Annie and the Brown Bitch resumed laying too.
So now I'm getting about 5-6 eggs most days, sometimes 7, but never less than 4. Now, I eat 2-3 eggs every morning for breakfast, so now I've got more fucking eggs than I know what to do with, all from birds that are fed nothing but the feed that's supposed to make them quit laying.
So you can understand my skepticism about a feed problem, right? But let me ask you this: have you heard much about the feed issue in the past week or so? I haven't, maybe a couple articles, and nothing at all on youtube. It's becoming a non-issue. The days are getting longer and the birds are beginning their laying cycle again.
Great read. Thanks, from someone who didn't know shit about it. On a side note: have you seen where something in the yolks blocks the jabs effects? Seen it several times in the past couple days
ReplyDeleteYes, I have. I haven't done enough checking on the subject to post about it though.
DeleteAnd at the same time, the MFM is posting stories about how eggs supposedly cause clots and strokes.
DeleteRight on! We don't use lights over winter, so I know not to expect much in the way of eggs. That was only different the year we hatched chicks in May, and only for those chicks. It does seem like production didn't pick up in January like normal this year, but I always figure that there will be variation from year to year.
ReplyDeleteCan I buy an egg?
ReplyDeleteWe'd like to get some chickens, and are new to this whole thing. Unfortunately we both grew up in the city with no exposure to them (other than my Mom saying that as a kid she hated tending to them during the Great Depression). Is there a reference that you can recommend to start us off down the right path?
ReplyDeleteMatt
Email me at k59lane@yahoo.com
DeleteOn another note, the FDA has the power add over 400K eggs to the supply chain by simply changing the rule that forces the broiler industry to destroy the excess eggs it has after incubating their supply for new broilers.
ReplyDeleteThese eggs could go to the egg breakers where egg products are being processed thereby freeing up 400K whole eggs that could go to consumers.
Lot of processing plants have burned up. Not sure that will create system wide shortages but it might make some locals a little tight. Biggest problem I have with a large Conspiracy is that more people are involved. Something like that there would be someone flapping there gums.
ReplyDeleteSecrets can be kept by two people if one is dead. Main reason I don’t like the ones around Kennedy. Not sure Oswald was the shooter but he was in the right place. This last election was about the largest criminal Conspiracy we have seen for some time. But that isn’t really secret other than no one seems to be able to fix it.
Project Greek Island was kept secret from the public for 30 years. The GOV can keep secrets when they want.
DeleteWell there's this little project called the Manhatten Project. That's where they developed the nuclear bomb during World War 2. Over 100,000 people involved yet it was kept secret. Hell I know some things I've seen personally that I don't talk about except to close friends after more than a few beers. I don't talk about it since most people wouldn't believe me anyhow. As they say 'life is stranger than fiction' and that's a fact.
DeleteThe Manhattan Project was no secret to the USSR, which was the nation we should have been worrying about most. (German spies communicated with codes that we broke regularly, so their impact was limited. In any case, they couldn't afford our approach - trying every possible way of producing fissionable materials at the same time, then building bombs to two or three designs - even before Allied bombing and commando raids disrupted their efforts. They wouldn't have had a chance of duplicating our success even if we'd radioed our plans to them as soon as they were written.)
DeleteBut note that it took us 4 years to go from the preliminary experiments and studies to the first A-bomb, all the time wondering if it would work or was just a bottomless pit for money, our best minds, and vital war materials in the middle of our greatest war. Before 1945, the Russians had done the preliminary work and their spies had provided our data and comparisons of the various approaches, but it took them until 1949 to make their first A-bomb. That's 4 years after the war ended and we proved which of the plans they had stolen would work!
Uh, guys? This is a post about eggs, remember?
DeleteChickens were originally a SE Asian jungle fowl, so their cycles don't necessarily correspond to winter type weather. People who jump at every possible conspiracy theory lose credibility, at least with me.
ReplyDeleteI don't quit watching the preppers who don't exercise enough caution, but I try to verify anything they say. One advertiser that has popped up on some of those sites has to do with converting IRAs into precious metals which they hold for you. Sounds fine, but it requires too much trust for me, that company may be legit, but I seen too many such schemes turn out to be scams. The prepper market has too many individuals who are too trusting.
In the wild it makes no sense for hens to lay eggs in the winter when the cold and wet weather would either destroy the eggs or the chicks which might hatch. Good time for hens to take a little time off. My hens molted late last fall and quit laying after Thanksgiving and did not start up again until mid-January.
ReplyDeleteYou sound like you've got your shit together as far as chickens go. I'd be willing to bet you didn't blame the feed when the chickens quit laying.
DeleteI hate chickens. I don't raise chickens. But I read Wirecutters entire rant because I knew he was going to smoke a bunch of dimwitted fools. - Rumson
ReplyDeleteNever raised chickens, but the common sense thoughts by Wirecutter and a couple others are the type that people should not only follow, but stand out as things to learn about any kind of venture that you start on your own. If you want to raise rabbits, don't just read opinions on the internet, but actually find someone who knows their stuff to learn from.
ReplyDeleteSame thing about guns, money, or starting a business or a garden. A little extra time spent learning up front from reliable sources will save a bunch of time and money spent on the back end, along with regret.
It could be a combination of factors.
ReplyDelete• Do you include extra calcium?
• Do you include extra protein?
I was also skeptical. However, near 100% fix is being reported by those who switched feed, added protein, or gave the birds more free range time.
When diet change rapidly produces output change, one has to look at feed. Given the cost of input materials, did they turn down feed quality? Its not a crazy accusation.
No, I don't include extra calcium and the only extra protein they get is a handful of mealworms once a week as a treat. One handful between 7 birds is not going to make a difference.
DeleteThe only factor is the season. Those people's birds started laying again not because they switched feed, but because the days started getting longer.
My birds quit laying. I knew it had nothing to do with the feed since I give them whole grain and table scraps. I STARTED giving them layer pellets from TSC. Dang things are back in high gear.
ReplyDeleteThat's blows their narrative all to hell, doesn't it?
DeleteYeah, I've been hearing all this....and I feed mine Purina pellets. My girls have been going 7 for 7 most days. Sometimes 6. If it was the feed, EVERYONE would be up in arms, not 10 social media stars. And most were complaining of molting at the same time. Watch your chickens and learn something instead of immediately jumping to blaming anyone and everything. Oh well.
ReplyDeleteI got 7 for 7 today too. Only 4 yesterday though.
DeleteI'm not a backyard chicken guy but I want to thank you for introducing facts to counter the rampant speculation about this presumed feed/egg issue. I read about it in a couple places and, being otherwise clueless, had a tendency to believe it.
ReplyDeleteJust another example that proves how sharp your thinking is!
Nah, I ain't that bright.
DeleteBuff Ophingtons are bitches.
ReplyDeleteYeah? Mine are the friendliest chickens I've ever seen. I'll never own anything but Buffs from now on.
DeleteI agree. The few we've had were mean to the other chickens.
DeleteAll chickens are mean to other chickens at first. I had one hell of a time integrating my Naked Necks with the much smaller Leghorns because the Leghorns were beating the shit out of them.
DeleteCattle nutritionist years ago comparing two samples which "read" the same. One was bagged feed. The other was a ground up work boot, used crank case oil, and miscellaneous things that would provide the similar test results. Buyer beware.
ReplyDeleteFeeding milk cows, corn is first choice, barley a close second, wheat third. Personal experience was that wheat produced 2 pounds less milk, all else being equal.
20 years ago, before the ethanol boom, you didn't want to feed more than 4 pounds of the dried distillers grain, even though it was $20 a ton cheaper, because it was very inconsistent in fat content (and whatever else they were disposing of in it). Today it runs a $20 premium to corn, and you can feed 8 pounds, as they have really dialed in the QC on finished product.
Supplimenting something like Vit E used to have a cost effect of $8 per ton of mixed feed. So when the price of the E as an ingredient went from $300 per ton to $2,000 per ton briefly, you can bet they were trying to find substitutes.
This all being said, with the run up in costs, and substitutions to control costs, the feed may not be as "good" as it was earlier.
I've got about 70 free range chickens around. The fear mongering of "DEAD BIRDS! AVIAN FLU running rampant?" the only dead birds I find are the ones too slow to not get stepped on by cows, run over on the road, or caught by birds of prey/coyotes.
The government agents like to depopulate a mile around when the chicken houses have an outbreak. They're welcome to come try catch mine.
Y'all are welcome to come catch some birds for yourself. Or gather some eggs.
But you might want to float them first to see how fresh they are.
Jerry
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
ReplyDeleteThe rooster came first! That’s how it works.
Have had chickens in one way or another for longer than I care to remember, of all shapes, shades, and sizes. Right now we have a mix of welfare hens, up and coming layers, and not ready yet but soon henny pennys. Get anywhere from 2-7 eggs a day and by spring warm up it will be over a dozen. They get the bulk barrel feed I mentioned a while back and free range unless it is pouring rain. We do have Oyster Shell and Grit available free choice for them but they get plenty of extra minerals tearing the shit out of the yard and anywhere else I haven't got them fenced out of. Fun to watch them probe the hot wired areas and get zapped, they know where it is and work right up to it, Bzzzztt, Bwwaaaak...!
ReplyDeleteI have to be careful when splitting wood too, especially if it's full of ants, they will near trample me to get to them.
HTR
Don't know enough about chickens or their feed to say if tampering with it could interfere with egg production. I do know enough about the criminals running things to say that if it is possible they would be more than willing to make it happen. Time will tell. They haven't even tried to hide their agenda. They want the majority of us, especially white people to die. And starving us is an easy, safe and efficient method.
ReplyDeleteOne of the biggest reasons for the drop off was a reduction in the digestable protein content of layers pellets. Although on the labels it shows 16 percent it was closer to 14 percent. This affected even commercial egg producers.
ReplyDeleteOn paper it appeared that the content hadn't changed but the change in ingredients, due to the massive price spikes in many of them earlier in the year, had a serious affect. In the winter and particularly during moult, high protein content is absolutely essential.
Do you seriously believe that as strict as labeling laws are in the US today? And will you please explain why it affects all those other chickens while mine are laying like gangbusters?
DeleteWifey has had a dozen or so various types for the past 4 years. Every winter they slow down laying, but never stop completely. We have 11 hens now, all 2 yrs or older, and get 3 eggs per day. A stray showed up last week and joined our flock, obviously young, spits one out every other day (you can tell its egg from the others by the size and texture/color of shell (we only have 1 other golden comet)). Chickens free range about 4 hrs per day, longer in summer.
ReplyDeleteWe use Rural King branded food or from the local co op (think its Tucker milling co.). I do add a handful of crushed oyster shell for calcium.
Every winter its the same pattern, we do not light their coop. We always get 2-3 eggs per day however, only the oldest hens completely shut down until spring.
I had read some reports of increased glycophosphate (roundup) in the purina/TSC brand? As much as I love a good conspiracy theory, and want to believe it too since the whole egg-yolk-fights-the-spike news, but it could be as simple as the wrong corn getting ordered for the food processor. Some new purchasing agent bought roundup ready corn instead of the more expensive one and... it COULD be the gov trying to kill us, or just someone at purina fucked up. I don't discount the former, but assume its the latter until shown otherwise (and I have a tin foil hat).
Don't you think that if there was a fuck-up at Purina there would be an instant recall instead of youtubers and White Claw people put out the warning? I've seen I don't know how many recalls I've seen on other feeds over the years.
DeleteI was talking to a clerk at TSC yesterday and she told me that a huge amount of TSC's profits come from feed, so why on earth would they cut their own throat by selling bad feed?
Seriously, think about that one for a while.
If your hens are in molt and you feed them commercial food, they will likely not lay. In my research, I determined that the protein content required to grow eggs is exactly the same as the protein content to produce eggs. So, if they are in molt (and sometimes it is subtle and difficult to judge) and eating commercial feed, then the protein is building feathers, not eggs.
ReplyDeleteI have a couple of birds molting now. One looks so sad you would think she is dying. But she fights her way to be first at the corn that I feed them every night as I close the coop. We are getting 10 eggs average on an inventory of 14 hens. That has been constant for the last few months. I use DuMor (sp?) rather than the producer's pride simply because the hens do not like the taste of Producer's Pride. I can see the difference in the amount of wasted feed that is in the coop on the two brands of food. I don't understand it, but I work from observation and critical thinking, so I have all of the answer that I need for that equation.
There's one type of grain in the Dumore scratch that my birds refuse to eat. I'm thinking it's rye seed, but I don't know for sure. They'll eat all the other grains in the scratch but leave that.
DeleteI may just switch to straight cracked corn. I hate paying for shit just to have it go to waste.
Great read! I heard a good joke the other day: Do you know why chickens have stopped laying eggs? It's because they identify as roosters. ;)
ReplyDeleteGreat post Wirecutter. As for your excess eggs, have you considered water glassing some?
ReplyDeleteI don't have excess any more - I've got 7 on hand at the moment after giving a bunch away yesterday.
DeleteI haven't tried the water glassing yet, but I will for sure this fall. It flat pisses me off to have to pay for eggs in the winter.
they freeze well. i scramble them, put them in silicone ice cube trays initially, when frozen remove and put in bags-- usually vacuum seal them .
Deletethe silicone ice cube tray is so that you can get them out easily. i don't know if they slide out as well in regular plastic ice trays.
you don't even have to thaw them. just drop the frozen in a pan and start scraping it off in layers viola! scrambled eggs..
Just crack and freeze the egg as is? You don't have to separate the yolk and whites?
Deletenope, just crack em open, scramble lightly and drop into trays.
DeleteI've baked with them too.
In California, or most of it, hens usually only slow up laying in the winter, not stop... and more protein helps with getting more eggs at any time of year. But most of the rest of the country is much higher above sea level than we are, ergo colder in the winters... ergo fewer or no eggs. I think that has a lot to do with why our outrageously high priced eggs have only risen in price by a miserable sum instead of a completely outrageous sum.
ReplyDelete--nines
ReplyDeleteToo much protein can be a bad thing too - it causes their livers to get too fatty and will kill them.
DeleteI didn't read all the comments or even the entire essay, but..
ReplyDeleteit could also be that people are feeding less food scraps, as things are getting ti$hter
mine jump in production significantly when give high protein/high fat scraps.
in winter any animal kept outside needs more calories to keep warm.
hence less calories and nutrients to go towards egg production.
All very true, but my five Daisys are giving me 3-5 eggs a day between them, and the only thing I feed them is the feed that's getting all the blame.
Delete