I found this article/study about heat stress in chickens that mentions vitamin E, A, and C supplementation...
http://www.wattagnet.com/Alleviate_poultry_heat_stress_through_antioxidant_vitamin_supplementation.html
Here is the nutritional facts and analysis for sunflower seeds.
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/nut-and-seed-products/3167/2
At the top you will need to change the serving size to get a more reasonable amount that can be consumed by a chicken. Of course this info is for humans, but you can get the general idea of how much nutrition is in there.
I am a nerdy type that likes facts a figures and this type of research is always fun for me. Hopefully, this info will help out.
Sunflower Seeds to Increase Egg Production
You are my exact opposite titanium!! Sooo needed.. I don't do that well..
I think it is different for different cases.. A nutritional deficiency in one person's birds may not be the same somewhere else.. So feeding Sunflower Seeds to a bird that desperately needs the Iron, calcium & protein in them, will start to produce again.. If that was the deficiency in the first place.
It is hard to say what is causing them to lay poorly.
Loon, are you sure your birds are not molting? Have you seen a lot of feathers around? They may be coming out of a late spring molt?
This is a very interesting thread. I don't dispute the value of feeding sf seeds, I just am not convinced it is a layer food.. I have an open mind though! :)
My girls have really slowed down on their laying. I assume it is the extreme heat. They pant nearly all the time but otherwise do not seem to feel unwell.
Can you feed too much sunflower seed?
Can you feed them just the sunflower seeds & rolled oats?
I can buy those both for the same price as a bag of crumbles right now... or do they need the crumbles as well?
Was trying to follow the thread & see if that was discussed but I can't see if that was ever asked outright or not.
Either way I would like to feed them better.. less of the fully processed premade food for them (crumbles) and more of a simpler food.. like oats, corn & sunflower seeds. If that is something that would be healthier for them. We are still getting 9 to 11 eggs a day out of 18 hens. but i have a set of chicks coming up that I wouldn't mind experimenting with on types of feed to see if I can get them to lay better, be healthier and have healthier eggs for us to eat.
I don't think a diet of just grains and seeds would be balanced - probably low in both protein and calcium.
I'm thinking that chickens survived long before they were domisticated and didn't have special prepackaged feed to survive. Right now my ladies are out there eating mulberries, bugs and weed seeds. They come and go at the feeders but don't totally depend on me feeding them. The prepackaged feed was probably made for big egg laying companies where their birds never even see the light of day let alone a bug, worm, maggot or mulberry...also probably for winter feeding. i'm trying to get back to nature and let them forage for themselves with a little supplement feed on the side.
I agree that hens allowed free range are probably able to pick out a balanced diet for themselves. Caged or penned chickens are the ones the commercial feeds were designed for and need to be more carefully fed.
OK guys went and bought sun flower seeds today,am waiting for my bumper crop of eggs to start any day now.lol I do let mine free range in the evenings now .
Good luck green! Although getting 9-11 eggs a day isn't all that bad. I've heard that if you put apple cider vinegar in their water it increases egg production.
My hens do free range from about 6 p.m. till dark. They have access to the baby's starter feed so they may be eating some of that in addition to their own feed. I do gift them with scraps of veggies from the garden which they all like or let them peck on a watermelon rind or something. I hope they start laying more eggs soon or I'm going to put them all on Craig's list and give them away keeping only the babies.
Loon, what breed are your hens?
IowaAnn I have always given my chickens ACV
mine are free range all day. they forage more than they eat. cats won't drink apple cider vingar water and they share the same waters since they are free range so i can't use it. They also get scraps from our meals. I just want them eating more natural & less like a caged chicken in the months they can be out with things to eat.
Try it. It is unlikely to do them any serious harm, and you may like the result. I'd be interested to learn how they do.
ok gotta buy chicken feed next week or the week after. I will get a bag of oats, sun flower seeds & corn to feed them, try it for a couple weeks plus our scraps & fresh produce from garden.
The older laying hens are golden comets and rhode island reds about equal. We have one light brahma that is the one that lays an egg almost every day. That is why when I was ordering new chicks this spring I bought all light brahmas .................. that plus I'd be able to tell the new chickens from the old chickens. Oh, and we also put ACV in their water too. I used to let them free range all day long but they would get in my flower beds out front and make such a mess. They'd also go on my pole barn porch and crap all over the cement and the furniture which ticks me off. Now they only free range a few hours a day so that limits their hanging out time on the porch and they aren't making as big of a mess.
Curious, how much ACV is added to their water?
About one tablespoon or maybe a tablespoon and a half for a three gallon waterer.
I think Sunflower Seeds are too high in protein to feed as a staple. I'm sure they would eat it and do just fine, but long term I'd think there would be problems.
Personally, I think it's more important to have a balanced diet.. I'd just get the poultry vitamins that have electrolytes and add that to the water for the summer months or when they are off the water or feed..
It is odd that the comets and Rhode Islands aren't laying well. Those are both breeds chosen for their prolific egg production. (?)
Yeah, that is what I thought too. Good old Whitey (light brahma) seems the only one reliably laying an egg a day. We'll keep giving the sunflower seeds in with their regular laying feed and see what happens.
I'm going to try an experiment with 3 exact feeders, each with a different feed and see which one empties first. Just for hoots and giggles! ;)
Sounds interesting.
The one that empties first may not be the best for laying hens, though. Kids usually finish the candy first, and sunflower seeds seem like that to our hens!
True. My hens would rather eat corn than their laying pellets...
If they are off, there is a reason.. it is for sure not the breed. Are you absolutely sure they were not in molt? That can take like 6 weeks if they were slow... That would for sure make them stop laying.. Dehydration is another thing that will stop them.. The heat? I don't think that's as much to do with it than something else.. Unless you just got them and they are from a cooler climate.
Hens have to be content in order to lay.. something.. diet, environment, something is stopping them.. it is a mystery sometimes.. and sometimes we are lucky... sometimes not. LOL
No molting. I did have two broody hens who were fiercely guarding the nesting boxes and maybe they threatened the others not to dare come in there and lay an egg. Hubby kept throwing those two off their nesting boxes and locking them outdoors. It must have worked because they finally are through being broody and are out free ranging. We got two eggs today so far.
I'm growing BOSS (black oil sunflower seeds) this year. I feed them to the dairy cows for the exact reason the're good for the hens. The birds just get what doesn't get digested by the cows.
The seeds are from TSC and some sprouted in the corn field this year. I timed those to be 90 days to maturity. Some of my raised veggie beds are done till fall or resting till next spring. So I'm filling in the bare spots with the BOSS. If they mature in time it will be a good summer/fall intermediate crop.
Good luck with the hens Loon. No eggs can be frustrating!
This is a dumb question, I know your zone warms slower, but do the daylight hours also take longer to adjust in the spring?
We keep lights on all winter. We are having long days now. Doesn't get dark till 9+ at night. We'll just wait and be patient and hope they kick in laying soon. Yesterday it was quite hot so I took a few packages of frozen squash out of the freezer and let hubby feed it to them. THey were all over that fast. Like giving a popsickle to a hot kid. :) It helped cool them down I think.
Are your lights on a timer or do they have lights on all the time?
Cocoa_lulu! Good thinking! I might try that next year and have pole beans grow up on BOSS...double the harvest with the same garden space! Thanks!
THe timer is my husband. In winter he turns them on and before he goes to bed around ten he turns them off for the night.
LOL! What a mystery! I think your hens need to be plucked and fried. LOL!
Well, I just paid $19.99 for a bag of BOSS and not one of my chickens ate a single seed. I want to hate them for that!!
Wow! Mine adore them! Do you want to try hulling a few so they can see what goodies lie therein?
I will do a little more tomorrow.. LOL I guess I could sit there and munch with em! Brats.. LOL
ZZ - Throw that sunflower seed in some bird feeders and you will be inundated with wild birds - they love the stuff. I also have pesky squirrels getting into my feeders - they will clean out my bird feeder in a day if I didn't have a squirrel baffle.
LOL. ZZ, sorry, silly birds.
I had the hardest time storing them at first. Squirrels tore into the bag, so I placed it in a rubbermaid container. They chewed a hole in that. Then I placed them in an industrial cardboard barrel. Took them a while, but they chewed thu that. Now I have them in a metal trash can. If I forget to put the lid back on, squirrels, mice, wild birds and the chickens all hang out. Including the cats when they discovered mice would fall in the can and not get out. That can is worse then a watering hole in the Serengeti :0)
We are not trying psychology. :) Hubby had a good "talk" with them yesterday. He told them if they don't lay an egg they can't go outside to play. We've had them in the barn/exercise pen for three days now. We'll see how this works. Got two eggs yesterday. Two this morning so far. Maybe I should try playing music for them. :)
I wonder if they could have a few nests hidden somewhere. Years ago our hens weren't laying and we discovered a nest with dozens of eggs...all rotten and crappy looking of course but at least it solved the mystery. You might take a good look around your barn to see if your hens have a few hidden nests. : )
The indoor coop inside the barn where they lay their eggs is not very big. No real place to hide a nest. Out in the run we can take another look around and see. I'm thinking of withdrawing the corn from their diet and see if that makes a difference.