[Oliveview]

We give the hens scraps (when we have them) and they get what the sack says is  food for ´layers´.  I used to give them grain as well but they just chucked that out.  
I´m getting a very bad hen/egg ratio now, we are lucky to get 3 eggs a day   We have 8 older girls (ranging from 18 months to about 2 years) and the other 7 are about 5 months old.  
One hen was poorly, she was in very bad moult, had a temperature and was walking sideways..... I kept her in a crate in the garage for a few days on antibiotics and she is now fine and her feathers are growing back, it is hard to tell her from the other hens now.  
It is costing us about 10€ (now 10 pounds) a fortnight to feed them.....  any suggestions on other food I can add to make the expensive small sack of food last longer?  
They free range about the orchard bit of the garden, at the moment they are eating the black olives that are on the ground  and any oranges that fall off the trees too:lol:
Our neighbour has 4 hens, the same age as ours, bought at the same place/time as ours  and they get 4 eggs a day (one day they had 5 eggs!!)  they never get scraps, she feeds them on grain, the stuff our hens chucked about everywhere and didn´t eat.
Pamela

[woodburner]

Start a wormery, easy if you have a compost heap that isn't heating up properly
Grow alfalafa.
Give them all the vegetable trimmings (except potato and avacado). Blemished fuit, but don't over do it or they will get the runs.
Grass clippings are supposed to be good too, though I haven't tried it.
I'm surprised they turned their noses up at the grain, but even so I would still offer it now and again as their appetites do change, and it's cheaper than 'feed'.
It's the protein content of feed that makes it expensive, and as it's usually the inedible until processed soya, I'd rather mine get their protein elsewhere.
Alfalfa is very high in protein, around 18-19% IIRC, and won't make them fat, or give them kidney trouble, if they eat more of it just for the sake of the protein.
I really really hope it grows well enough on my lottie to make it worth the effort.

[Kate and her Ducks]

I'd certainly go with the wormery idea. Mine love them!!! Never seen them catch on to an idea. The moment mine see me go near them they come running over quacking. Means you can covert off food to compost and worms and the worms onto eggs!

[Oliveview]

In the 2 and a half years we have lived here I have only seen 2 worms..... our soil is very sandy, when it isn´t wet!  Alfafa, is it easy to grow?  
Wonder where I would get worms here in Spain?
Pamela

[azubah]

Our neighbour has 4 hens, the same age as ours, bought at the same place/time as ours  and they get 4 eggs a day (one day they had 5 eggs!!)  they never get scraps, she feeds them on grain, the stuff our hens chucked about everywhere and didn´t eat.
Pamela

If you are sure that your neighbour really is doing so well perhaps you could try copying her feeding program?? It might be worth finding out exactly what she does and trying it for a few weeks.

[Aunt Sally]

Make sure they get plenty of calcium too Pamela or you'll be getting soft egg problems  :!:

[Oliveview]

Neighbours hens live in a small  ´shed´ with a tiny outside run area, they are given the layers food in the afternoon and the grain (wheat?) in the morning.  They never get any veg scraps, nothing.  They are never wormed either.  They never get cleaned out, well about twice a year! Mine live the good life  I am going to try her feeding regime though, but with the scraps added in.
Pamela

[azubah]

Forget what I just said. The poor little souls are probably so bored that they lay eggs just for something to do.

[Aunt Sally]

... but they have NO scraps.  That must tell you something !

[karlooben]

woodburmer u said no potato scraps why not  :?:  i give mine the peelings and they love them .

[Aunt Sally]

My guess would be incase there are any green peeling.  They are very poisonous.

[woodburner]

Alfalfa should grow well and easily in spain. Once it's got going you can cut it two or three times in a season.
Potato peelings, TBH I don't know why not, apparently it's ok to give them cooked but not raw. Avacado is toxic to birds. Even quite small amounts can cause heart failure.
Don't be jealous of your neighbour getting an egg a day more than you, yours will be much healthier eating on account of the green stuff your chooks get. It makes more omega three wheras grain makes more omega 6 which is not good.  I suspect that they lay more because they don't use up so much energy as they have so little space to run around in, much the same as broiler birds in barns grow faster than the same birds kept free range.

[karlooben]

mine only get boiled peelings so thats alrite then . i aint had one egg today out of 19 girls now thats never happened before , probably pop out frozen anyway    

[Oliveview]

If I give them scraps it is only cooked scraps- they have cabbage tomorrow- they won´t eat it raw but eat it cooked.
I think the ´too much to do´  syndrom is a bit right, they were laying every day before they were let out to ´free range´ they stopped for a week then!  They did start to lay every day again then went off towards the end of September.  Whenever I look out at them they are walking about, at the moment they are hunting insects off the logs.  We (the royal we) were chopping some wood and one log had loads of insects inside so I gave the log back to the hens, they pecked the log clean
2-3 eggs a day is plenty if it is just us, but the neighbour comes and buys  a dozen eggs from us, so we end up going without or buying from the supermarket if I need eggs for baking
AT least they keep down the weeds, before we had them we had dreadful trouble keeping on top of the weeds.  If only we could train them to eat the weeds in the veg plot and not the veg, that would be good.
Pamela

[garddwr]

Before the fox got my hens I use to feed them a lot of grass clippings and soft fruit and veg.