I saw that about the feed on the chicken forums too. It seemed to be more like a fairly small number of vocal people were trying to blame their own failures on someone else. The complainers were mostly people with a few pet chickens rather than big egg producers. People would write things like "I have had Henrietta, Lucy and the rest of the girls for close to 6 years now. I rescued them from a bad situation. They have always laid well in the past, nearly an egg each a day, but now they have suddenly stopped laying. The only thing different is I just opened a new bag of feed." Then the guesses of why nearly 6 year old chickens stopped laying would focus on the feed.
Keith
I didn't keep up with it to much time at work. I do remember my wife talking about the stuff going around. Then later ours did stop laying as well. She sourced feed mixed at a local feed mill and shortly Week or two ours started laying again. We are not big producers keep between 35 and 60 egg birds and only raise 120 to 225 Cornish cross each year. Add a few pigeons so not big bird people and far from save the possum type. Though my wife does have 2 of the birds named the one duck named when we got it that came with some young chickens a lady was geting rid of and a hen that had an injury she nursed back to health.( old enough to be called at this point but will continue to be a pet)
Feeling typical feed store feed now and they're laying well. I expect them to start dropping off before much longer with shorter days.
Wolfdog91 Something my wife played with when we had a lot less chicken was mixing her own feed mix from different grains, soaking and fermenting the feed as well . She thinks it makes feed go further and beter for the birds. Does it or is it ? she "thinks" so I have no idea dont keep track. She has not done that since moving up to the farm. We keep more chickens and it a more work to to do. She said it cost less since they didnt eat as much. ( I question that she is not good at keeping track of things like $ per lb and lbs used) It is one of the thing I know and just figure in her numbers will be low and not accurate. Could just have been an inter net thing she was following and wanted it to do what was claimed so looked for and found the savings and improvements? So take it for what its worth. But may be something your wife would be up for trying. Maybe she would keep beter track and let us know your results. Its been over 12 years since my wife was doing it. But I rem at the time it did seem to cost less and our birds did very well. But I may have been lookin for what I wanted to see as well? been to long ago to remember.
Keith do you have any experience or knowledge about this?