Eggs
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Millions of eggs are sold in America every day laid by hens on feed grown via commerical agriculture. You are a rotten guesser and a propagandist.
Bill G
ArboristSite King
I agree.
https://unitedegg.com/facts-stats/
In 2022 there were 92.6 billion eggs produced in the USA
That is over 253 million eggs per day
Yearly commercial egg production (mostly with GMO corn)
Iowa – 14,980,300,000.
Indiana – 10,606,800,000.
Ohio – 10,456,000,000.
Pennsylvania – 8,111,000,000.
Texas – 6,420,500,000.
Georgia – 5,064,200,000.
Michigan – 4,541,900,000.
Arkansas – 4,248,700,000.
Common sense tells me the issue is not GMO corn
Since summer we've gone from 22 chickens to 17. 3 had issues so were killed and the two rental hens finally went to the place they were supposed to be at. (Not my house.) The chickens have free range of my place and the neighbors. He loves them, says he hasn't had a tick on his dogs since we got the chickens. Still averaging close to a dozen eggs a day. Still having a hard time just giving the eggs away.
Hardly went through any feed this sumer with them out full time. We keep their feeder filled up, but unless the weather was really crappy it usually lasted a few days. I stopped for feed a few weeks ago and layer mash was down to $10.00 50lb bag. Rolled corn was around $6.00 50lb bag. Highest I paid for layer mash was just a tad over $12.00 50lb from the mill.
We did kinda settle in less chickens when these stop laying, and we (my wife.) Has agreed no more of the big stupid red chickens. All 3 that had issues were the Ohio reds. 2 of them had their guts come out their butts and the third broke her leg jumping off the perch in the coop. The white ones and black ones haven't given any issues, but the white ones are a-holes.
Hardly went through any feed this sumer with them out full time. We keep their feeder filled up, but unless the weather was really crappy it usually lasted a few days. I stopped for feed a few weeks ago and layer mash was down to $10.00 50lb bag. Rolled corn was around $6.00 50lb bag. Highest I paid for layer mash was just a tad over $12.00 50lb from the mill.
We did kinda settle in less chickens when these stop laying, and we (my wife.) Has agreed no more of the big stupid red chickens. All 3 that had issues were the Ohio reds. 2 of them had their guts come out their butts and the third broke her leg jumping off the perch in the coop. The white ones and black ones haven't given any issues, but the white ones are a-holes.
I completely switched flocks a couple months back. I only have 3 hens of laying age. They are Black copper marans. I have 1 white leghorn that probably wont start to lay for at least a couple more months, and I have 4 Americanas, that should be close to laying. So I dont expect many eggs. My old flock met the butcher, The meanass rooster was the first bird to meet the plucker. I have never seen birds that carried as much yellow fat as these birds. When gutting, I pulled out handfuls of fat. There where no eggs in their egg tract. The meat was tough and stringy. Wife put one in a pot to make dumplins. I couldnt eat it. Threw the whole pot out. My wife makes the best chicken and dumplins I have ever eaten. She even gets request for her dumplins when we go to family reunions and other pot luck dinners. Only thing I can figure is it had to be the corn I was feeding my birds. I still have one sack left of the corn, I plan on throwing it out to the wildlife, if they will eat it. At any rate I am convinced there is something wrong with this corn.
I tried grinding some up for corn meal when I first bought the corn. Did one small run of meal and didnt like the cornbread made from it so I didnt grind anymore. Fed the meal to the chickens. I guess that should of been a clue as to the quality of the corn. Since my garden is over with for this year, I am letting my birds out during the day. They spend most of their time scratching in the woods around their pen. They also make their daily run up around the house, wife has threaten to start plucking if they ever get on the porch.
It came a real frost last night, with more frost over the next 2 or 3 days, so sometime in the next few days I will be picking my white polific that I planted. There wont be enough to keep the chickens fed for a year. I only planted a few rows with intentions of making corn meal and seed. I am debating planting a larger crop next year, Just got to figure out where I can plant it. I dont have room for a real garden here at the house, much less a field of corn. Blasted deer will wipe out a small field in a couple of nights, and I need to plant it where it wont mix with somebodies elses corn crop.
I tried grinding some up for corn meal when I first bought the corn. Did one small run of meal and didnt like the cornbread made from it so I didnt grind anymore. Fed the meal to the chickens. I guess that should of been a clue as to the quality of the corn. Since my garden is over with for this year, I am letting my birds out during the day. They spend most of their time scratching in the woods around their pen. They also make their daily run up around the house, wife has threaten to start plucking if they ever get on the porch.
It came a real frost last night, with more frost over the next 2 or 3 days, so sometime in the next few days I will be picking my white polific that I planted. There wont be enough to keep the chickens fed for a year. I only planted a few rows with intentions of making corn meal and seed. I am debating planting a larger crop next year, Just got to figure out where I can plant it. I dont have room for a real garden here at the house, much less a field of corn. Blasted deer will wipe out a small field in a couple of nights, and I need to plant it where it wont mix with somebodies elses corn crop.
I am going to agree with Bill and Del on this one. Altho I am 100% against the bio engineered roundup ready crap being sold today. Up until now, I sort of attributed my poor egg production on coop location and olde birds. My coop is well shaded and everybody knows chickens need lots of light for egg production. What has me is the chickens, nor anything else for that matter, will eat the corn. I have corn I have spilled on the ground that the birds just walk by and wont touch, squirrels running all around it and they aint eating it. It been laying there for a couple of weeks now and one would think the mice would have gobbled it up. This may be a grower problem from this one corn grower. I know he has already picked this years crop, so I dont now if testing his corn will provide any clues. I do have a bag of the corn left that I am considering having tested. Dont know where to send it to to have this done. At any rate, I have discontinued buying corn from this grower for now.
The way i see it GMO crops are the way to go considering how the growing environment is these days compared to years past.
We took in a variation of a booted bantam this spring, 6 hens. They have odd behavior. They don't roost at night rather huddle up in the corner on the floor. They also lay their eggs on the ground despite having plenty of nice clean hen boxes. The eggs are also quite small. Beginning this week egg production has fallen off sharply. From 5-6 eggs a day to 1-2. If this keeps up they'll be gone quickly.
If it's up to me, we'll be getting faverolles for our next flock. One of the rental chickens that just left was one. Real good temperament, laid an egg about daily. Light weight, not heavy like those stupid Ohio reds. Super low maintenance bird.
Layers are not good meat birds. I'm kinda concerned with the level of fat you describe in a laying hen. Thats not right. Even in a shaded area they should still get the light cycle they need. Heck my coop is completely shaded till around lunch time. It's not usually a big deal till winter for a back yard flock, especially since you let yours out to roam. It's the coop bound chickens that you need to worry about, no windows and never see the light of day. Yours should have been fine. I give mine zero consideration for light, outside of the windows in the coop. Heck they've spent days in the coop when its rains. Dumb things wouldn't come out in their own accord.
Mine won't come out when it snows. Auto door opens/closes at dawn/dusk to a large fenced in area. If the ground is white like it is now you won't see a single print until that snow is gone. Bunch of couch potatoes 
i just picked up a doz yard eggs at my buddie's farm. his chicks still out and about, but egg production down to 2-3 eggs a day ~
day before...
day before...
has the best eggs! cooler temps call for morning breakfasts/brunch....
brunch yesterday. orange yolks, whites with flavor!
Thats how mine were last year. I'd go out and shovel a little path for them in their run, but nope stayed in the coop.Mine won't come out when it snows. Auto door opens/closes at dusk/dawn to a large fenced in area. If the ground is white like it is now you won't see a single print until that snow is gone. Bunch of couch potatoes
Bill G
ArboristSite King
I chuckle at the folks that complain about GMO corn. They are not aware we had GMO crops long before the uproar of GMO corn. Any eat Ketchup?
Nothing wrong with GMO crops i just disagree over the heavy use of glyphosate on GMO crops.
There's zero proof it does anything other then what it's advertised to do.
Was doing a little research yesterday. Ran across a article about a toxin called Vomitoxin. Symptoms are diarrhea, poor reproduction and a few other things. Mostly effect grains during hot humid conditions. I dont remember the weather conditions last year, I do remember tons of rain. And it was last years corn I was feeding, this years crop just now being harvested. At any rate, I havent given my birds any of the corn for two weeks now, 21% production feed only. Been getting one egg a day for about a week and got 2 eggs yesterday. I only have 3 hens of laying age. Today I am hoping to find 3 eggs in the nest box, probably wont be any. Oh well. My sisterinlaw has been feeding 30% cat food to her birds. Actually she feeds it to her cats and the chickens get their share. She feeds a 3grain scratch in her feeders and whatever cat food the birds can steal and she is getting plenty of eggs. Her birds run free all the time, and she loses her share to the foxes and possums.
We just feed regular 16% layer mash. There's no real need for the super high protein content in the feed after the first few months. It's more important to have a balanced diet and offer up a good source of calilcium then try and over load them with protein. I doubt the cat food has much to do with their laying. It not really a good diet for chickens, but we toss the kitchen scraps out to ours as well, so I guess it doesn't really hurt them.
I pretty much agree something is up with your corn or feed. Just doesn't makes sense. Chickens are such an easy animal to care for.
I pretty much agree something is up with your corn or feed. Just doesn't makes sense. Chickens are such an easy animal to care for.
When I raised chickens in the past, all they got was the 16% layer pellets. I never liked to feed the mash because the birds liked to flip it out on the ground. Cat food wont hurt chickens and it is made with animal byproducts. Since chickens where never intended to be vegetarian, a little meat in their diets works wonders. Of course to much of a good thing isnt good either. Plus catfood is about $30 for 40lbs so I guess I will stay with regular chicken feed.
We feed our birds all the scraps they can eat. Garden is gone now so they wont get as much as they had been getting. I dont feed extra calcium, according to the feed sack, calcium is added to the feed. My egg shells seem to be pretty thick so I suppose they are getting plenty out of the feed.
We feed our birds all the scraps they can eat. Garden is gone now so they wont get as much as they had been getting. I dont feed extra calcium, according to the feed sack, calcium is added to the feed. My egg shells seem to be pretty thick so I suppose they are getting plenty out of the feed.
