[wolfpup]

I keep 8 hens, all of which started laying in late July/August of this year.   I have also been studying chicken nutrition and diet for the last 18 months or so.

I was on a feed made by Glasson as it is a coarse ground mash - which my girls prefer to a fine ground or pellet, for the basis of their feed.    However this contained a small amount of GMO and I wanted to change to a non-GMO without paying £20 a bag for Organic plus £8 delivery, besides there is currently no coarse ground organic mash on the market that I know of.   If you know of one please shout up.

I went with the Dodson & Horrell mash (however this is also finely ground) as I considered this a good quality product  -  but after about 10/12 days my egg production had dropped from 7-8 eggs daily to 3 eggs daily.  In addition I was getting a shell-less egg every other day.  Also the egg size had gone down from around 49-53 grams  to around 42-45 grams.

Nothing else had changed - only the base feed, so reluctantly I went back to the Glasson about a week and a half ago  -   I am now up to 5-6 eggs daily and the weight has gone up to between 53-64 grams  and no shell-less eggs at all (yes I am sad enough to weigh each egg daily for my records).

Everything else was exactly the same, I prepared the feed the same, average temperatures/weather was the same overall, same 'extras' of lettuce and tomatoes, sprouted seeds etc  -  the only difference was the base feed.

Therefore I have to come to the conclusion that the different feeds do indeed make a large difference to your hens performance. 

[spud]

feed does make a difference! I'd say most commercial brands are fully utilising all products available to them ( many not pronounceable) and in so doing you can have more and bigger eggs! I can't speak for the brands you mention, but GMO could have serious repercussions down the line, so we prefer to cut it out!
For us the reason we keep hens is so we know at least one of our food sources is as natural as possible, we buy organic pellets, hens get used to them, and cheapen the diet by giving them organic oats as scratch from a local registered grower, works for us, but I know very (very) few poultry keepers that think like us.
In my observations a hen that lays every other day, lays a more nutritionally dense egg than the one laying every day, so for me its not all about numbers or size, but getting hens to lay over a longer season. Health is number one, cost is secondary!

[Snoop]

a more nutritionally dense egg than the one laying every day

Spud, can you explain what a "more nutritionally dense egg is"? I don't want to dispute your findings, just that my older hens that lay less often usually produce eggs that are more watery and have a smaller yolk even though the egg as a whole is larger in size than one laid by a young hen.

And wolfpup, are you still fermenting your feed? I was very interested in your experiment with that but for assorted reasons I am unable to try it at the moment.

[wolfpup]

And wolfpup, are you still fermenting your feed? I was very interested in your experiment with that but for assorted reasons I am unable to try it at the moment.

I most certainly am Snoop   -   I would never go back to feeding dry in a million years.    As you may remember my main initial goal was to reduce the number of flies I had buzzing in their run(s) and coop(s)  -  I have gone the whole summer with no flies in either.  The other reason to keep using LAB fermentation of course is that high concentrations of LABs are beneficial to the digestive tract and immune system and even produce additional nutritive value in the form of B Vitamins, Vitamin K2 and Enzymes, especially as I also feed them whole wheat, barley and oats    (a bit like spud).

[BabbyAnn]

Curious about the Dodson & Horrell feed - I went to get a sack of my usual pellets but the stockist had moved since my last visit and I ended up getting a much more expensive 5kg bag of the D&H from a local pet shop to tide me over.  Reading the ingredients (and glowing online reviews), it certainly sounds a much more superior pellet but the girls turned their beaks up at it and went on hunger strike LOL

[wolfpup]

My girls turned their beaks up at it as well - but at the time I did not have an alternative as I had bought a 20Kg sack of it   -  they ate it because they had to (they won't go on hunger strike like cats will)  -  but as soon as I changed back to the old feed they went at it like they were starving.

Their very favourite of all the various feeds I have tried was the Garvo layers mash  -  but it made their yolks a bright orange  -  made for rather funny looking omelettes - and I started looking for a feed with less GMO in it.

[spud]

a more nutritionally dense egg than the one laying every day

Spud, can you explain what a "more nutritionally dense egg is"? I don't want to dispute your findings, just that my older hens that lay less often usually produce eggs that are more watery and have a smaller yolk even though the egg as a whole is larger in size than one laid by a young hen.

Good question, you are comparing an older hen with a younger more vitally alive bird, I'm comparing lets say brown cage bird type hens which are famed for laying almost every day, fed on commercial additive rich feed with manmade vitamins and minerals, and a slower less frequent layer like a pure bred or even f1 cross that may give say 3 - 4 eggs/week but for a longer season and also over a longer life span.
I make no scientific claims, just noticing things in nature, like darker egg shell colour, takes longer for the hen to produce and gives more time for nutrients to collect in the egg before being sealed. I'm not saying dark eggs are of  more nutritional value, but pushing nature with additive rich feed and artificial light is going to give less nutritional value as its just not the natural way and the birds are going to be somewhat stressed, just like most folks are now, even from a younger and younger age! I try and keep to older breeds and choose breeding stock for health, vitality, egg laying, foraging ability and others, then I try and keep their feed as natural as possible, foraging being a priority, organic scratch feeding am and pm, with organic pellets as a top up.
Like I say not many poultry keepers see it this way and I'm ok with that too, to each his own.

[Snoop]

Thanks for the info, spud. Always good to hear what other people do.