"Fred that feed you sold me is no good. The chicken feed." - The Birds
I had a long conversation with a friend who raises chickens. Egg production is down but here’s what she thinks: winter has most egg production down. 2. A chicken has a specific number of eggs she can lay in her lifetime. Winter is when she rests and builds up her energy. My friend does use the TSC feed but is shopping around for another source. She says she cannot afford “organic” feed and is considering making her own. In the meantime, she’s not too concerned. They have ducks and they are still laying and her girls give her 2-3 a day. Well, she is concerned and thinks that it is totally plausible that TSC feed is tainted. It is produced by a company that sponsors WEF. Scary all around.
"Fred that feed you sold me is no good. The chicken feed." - The Birds
what a total crock of shite ... commercial chicken farms buy chickenfeed by the trainload from commercial sources, not a few bags from tractor supply ... i just bought birdseed from tractor supply and the clerk and i chatted, and she buys her feed from there herself, i lamented that at least she gets eggs, unlike the freeloading birds around my house.
also, free range chickens generally don’t lay eggs in the winter because there’s not enough sunlight to stimulate the ovary to release a yolk ... i personally know a few free range backyard egg producers and they lament that they don’t get eggs in the winter ... commercial growers (and even small householders) fix that with controlled lighting in their hen houses ...
One of the major reasons for the shortage is an outbreak of the bird flu (avian influenza), which is a very contagious and deadly virus. While this outbreak occurred over a year ago, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, it has affected more than 57 million birds in both commercial and backyard flocks.
In California, newly enacted laws designed to ensure the humane treatment of egg-laying birds are also a factor. californians are paying triple the average price as the rest of the nation ...
Our bird’s are laying normal amounts for this time of year.
Never used feed from TS or any other big retail chain.
I’ve heard about this. Wouldn’t surprise me. I quit going to Tractor Supply because of their demon clown support. Rural King is priority.
It’s true. We got a new flock last spring and they stopped laying last summer. We pretty much narrowed down to the lay pellets at Atwoods.
We’ve had backyard chickens in Texas and Arkansas for more than 30 years and I haven’t seen anything like it before. We should have had about 100 more eggs over the past 8 months than we have gotten.
Feed from Tractor Supply?
The backyard farmers that buy feed there raise probably 1/1,000 eggs in the nation .
This isn’t complicated .
It’s a bird flu thing, large flocks have been euthanized .
Those farms will be back online soon.
Too many people with too much time on their hands post things online that are silly.
OK here’s a few facts. We are moving to the country soon so not getting any new hens til then. We have one remaining 9 year old chicken who has been on The dreaded Dumor mash and Flock Party 5 grain scratch from Tractor supply. I read about the Dumor mash the other day and vowed not to buy anymore of it. Our hens almost never lay during the winter no matter the feed brand.
However Henrietta laid an egg about 4-5 days ago and another egg yesterday. I was really shocked to get eggs in January so apparently the mash is not affecting her. But in future I’m moving back to the Layena by Purina for mash even though its more expensive.
Other brands she mentioned was Dumore feed, Producer Pride, Cal-Maine and Moark. (I wrote the names down quickly so they may be typos) It appears one company owns many other companies.
So I pulled up the USDA numbers for 2016 poultry production.
Did you know that in 2016 they lost over 106.8 million chickens due to “Includes rendered, died, destroyed, composted, or disappeared for any reason except sold during the 12-month period”.
Tell me again how destroying 54 million chickens because of avian flu has driven up the cost of eggs.
Total number of chickens produced in 2016 was over 8.7 BILLION. What percent is 54 million of that?
This is how it went down according to a food distributor I spoke with.
The cost of everything has gone up. Thanks to the Democrats, minimum wage laws in most states have greatly increased labor costs. Also, thanks to the Democrats, the cost of transportation has skyrocketed. The egg farmers sell the eggs to distributors who have to inspect, clean, package and ship the eggs. This is all labor and transportation. If you noticed, the price of eggs started to increase months ago. They went from about $2 a dozen to about $3.25 a dozen. This was the distributors tacking on their increased costs.
The chicken farmers noticed the increased prices at the supermarkets and complained that not only weren’t they getting more, they were getting less. Yes, the distributors were trying to make back their losses on both ends. The farmers fought back and cut off their supply. You might remember a couple of months back when their were no eggs in the stores for about a week. This was when the avian flu story started. The distributors gave in and started paying more for the eggs, but had to pass that cost on to the consumers, so now we are paying $6 per dozen in some places.
So why the avian flu story? We can’t have the Democrats looking bad, can we? If the truth came out that runaway costs created by Democrat policies are clearly causing the increase in egg prices - and it is clear as day that they are - there would be a HUGE backlash and the Republicans would have a great talking point with eggs as a great visual reminder. But the Democrats have the media on their side and so the cover story of avian flu gets put out there and everyone - including many here on FR - buy it hook, line, and sinker.
My chickens always slow down in winter. I just let them rest and build up their calcium level now so I’ll have better shells next season.
I would wonder WHERE most of the chicken feed is supplied from. If China (Which is a strong possibility) then I wouldn't put nothing past them. I'm pretty sure the poisoned the dog food supply (maybe unintentionally) a few years back.
5/dozen? That’s a bargain compared to where I live. The last time they were 5, was 1.5 years ago when the prices when up. Everyone is acting like the prices just went up recently. It’s been well over a year or 1.5 years.
Is the chicken feed from China?
Plus a fire that killed 100,000 chickens in Conn.!!
Catturd ™
@catturd2
If you think the same people who won’t stop screwing with viruses in labs, won’t screw with the egg and food supply - you still don’t get it.
Hint ... it’s the same people who tell you to eat bugs and take the bus - while they dine on lobster, steak, and fly on private jets.
7:28 AM · Jan 31, 2023
I heard about this the other day from local radio. A caller claimed what this article is saying and said the way farmers were currently dealing with it was to give the chickens feed for goats.
Anecdotally it’s Tractor Supply’s Dumor (?) brand chicken feed that’s causing a near-total drop-off in egg-laying, even more than would be expected during winter’s shorter days. Seems their feed is now much lower in protein. Switching to another source of chicken feed causes egg-laying to resume its normal mid-winter pattern. Again, this is just anecdotal . . . but there have been many such anecdotes.
If I were an evil overlord wanting to corner the egg market I would first
corner the chicken feed market and stop putting calcium in small bulk chicken feed.
A fake avian flu outbreak to roast your competitors laying hens never hurts either.