Question for the egg experts

[goatlady]

FB, I would be most interested in where you got your information that laying mash can have estrogen in it. A laying chicken's egg producing hormone is triggered by light striking the eyes and it biologically takes approximately 24 hours for a chicken's body to manufacturer an egg, so no matter how much ovulation happens you wil get 1 egg every 24 hours approximately. Hormones in any form added to poultry feed is illegal.

From the North Carolina Poultry Newsletter..."There are a number of reasons why hormones are not used in the poultry industry. In the United States, European Economic Community, and most other developed countries there are extremely strict controls concerning the use of hormones and hormone-like substances against their use in animal feeds. In other words it is illegal." Also..."Currently there are no growth hormones FDA approved for poultry including chicken."

[Forest Beekeeper]

Are you aware of the nations's #1 estrogen source for females seeking dietary HRT?

Can anyone say soy?

Layer feed available in this area is mostly soy.

Estrogen is not 'added' because that is illegal. Besides why add estrogen to estrogen?



Yes you can make the argument that soy also has some protein in it. However compared to using other protein sources, the others pound-for-pound of protein still do not produce as much eggs as using soy does.

Other sources of protein [like bloodmeal] simply do not have the estrogen that soy has.



What are the ingredients of your layer feed?

:)

[goatlady]

Ah, gotcha - but soy contains the estrogen hormone Precursor which in a mammal body IS converted to estrogen, but not in avian or reptile bodies. I personally have NO soy products on my homestead, never have, never will. especially since now days almost ALL soy is GM soy and the extra protein is not worth purchasing organic soy meal. My layers get cracked corn only in their feeder in the coop and they free range from dawn to dusk and produce a egg every 24 hours per hen at their present age of 5 years! They do range in the goat barn and scarff up dropped alfalfa from the goat feeders plus turning the compost pile for me cleaning up any insects and/or seeds in the compost plus they range all over the pasture and woods. They only need 17% protein to maintain good egg production. Plus in a pinch I can grow the corn necessary to keep them producing.

[Forest Beekeeper]

You can substitute other sources of protein, and you can still produce eggs; but not at the same levels as what you produce using soy. Per week you will produce less eggs because without the soy you would be lacking the estrogen.

[goatlady]

I'm really curious - are your chickens producing more than 1 egg per hen per 24-hour period?

[Forest Beekeeper]

I'm really curious - are your chickens producing more than 1 egg per hen per 24-hour period?

No.

From what I have read hens can be 'pushed' up to 6 egg/week and that is about the limit.

With sufficient protein 3 to 4 eggs/week each.

Add soy and you get 6 eggs/week; but the stress of constant laying shortens their lifespan on the back end.

Companies like Purina have done a lot of studies on this topic, showing the benefit of including soy in layer-feed. [of course it does not hurt that soy is a subsidized crop, so it can be purchased for less than what is costs to produce.]

[grower]

Ah, gotcha - but soy contains the estrogen hormone Precursor which in a mammal body IS converted to estrogen, but not in avian or reptile bodies. I personally have NO soy products on my homestead, never have, never will. especially since now days almost ALL soy is GM soy and the extra protein is not worth purchasing organic soy meal. My layers get cracked corn only in their feeder in the coop and they free range from dawn to dusk and produce a egg every 24 hours per hen at their present age of 5 years! They do range in the goat barn and scarff up dropped alfalfa from the goat feeders plus turning the compost pile for me cleaning up any insects and/or seeds in the compost plus they range all over the pasture and woods. They only need 17% protein to maintain good egg production. Plus in a pinch I can grow the corn necessary to keep them producing.

Goatlady, corn is THE most genetically modified food crop in the United States! Where do you get your corn?

[goatlady]

There are only 2 registered GM corn varieties and those are only sold to the large Ag business farms. I purchase my corn and other grains at a local grange mill who buys locally produced grains and processes and bags on site here in my town. When I lived in SD I specifically asked the feed sellers there who hauled in bags of feed from out of town about GM corn and I was standing in the office when they called the mill and inquired. The smaller feed mill do not and basically cannot mill and bag both GM and non-GM grains because Fed. regulations are very stringent about having totally separate storage bins, totally separate grinding mills, totally separate bagging areas as GM grain MUST be kept totally separated from non-GM grains and most all small independent mills cannot afford to have 2 entire mills set up plus all the FEd inspections required for processing GM grains. I remember one GM type name was Star* but cannot remember the other. Those 2 varieties constitute 100% of the GM corn grown which IS used for the human food industry more than for livestock feed though some IS livestock feed.

[Forest Beekeeper]

85% of corn grown in USA is GMO.

"Attribute" is the dominate brand name for GMO Bt sweet corn in the USA.

"StarLink" is GMO Bt corn licensed for animal feed in the USA.

"Cry3Bb1" was developed to carry a delta endotoxin which protects the plant from corn rootworm. It is licensed but no longer being used.

"MON 863" [a variation of "Cry3Bb1"] carries a delta endotoxin which protects the plant from corn rootworm. And is approved for use in Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States.

"MON 810" [also called YieldGard] is poisonous to insects in the order Lepidoptera, such as the European Corn Borer. It is approved for use in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, the European Union, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Philippines, South Africa, Switzerland, South Korea, Taiwan, the United States and Uruguay.

[naturallysweet]

With 500 birds per acre, your not going to get anything more nutricious than what they sell in the grocery store. Especially since corn isn't really that healthy. It's all calories and no vitamins. (Or not many.)

I don't feed soy to my birds, mostly because of the cost. I'd rather cobble together a mix of grain screeings (wheat, peas), farm produce, clover from the pasture, and all the goodies that they find in the cow pies. I still get plenty of eggs, especially when the pasture is growing. Of course mine have acres to roam over, and I don't have 500.

There are actually some farmers who have to 'drag' their pasture to break up the cow pies so that they decompose better. I simply feed a little wheat a couple of time a year to the cows. Their stomachs can't deal with whole wheat well, so there are lots of 1/2 eaten and 1/2 digested bits of wheat left in their cowpies. Chickens go nuts over things like that.