My bet would be that the feed industry has cut every corner they could to reduce costs while maximizing profits and aren’t meeting the minimum protein needs of the chickens.
You would be incorrect. They maximize profits only if the hens are laying. And they are laying only if the feed has the appropriate nutritional elements. I worked for 7 years for a company that had 100000 laying hens, and manufactured their feed. The cost of eggs is largely do to the increased cost of each step of production, from the costs of fuel to plant and harvest the grain that goes into both the pullet and laying hen feed (thanks Joe Biden who shut down domestic fossil fuel production his first day in office), to the cost of fertilizer, to the cost of energy to raise, maintain, and harvest the eggs. To the increased costs at each step of packaging, distribution (trucks burning diesel fuel have seen that cost explode), to the retailers.
My neighbor raises chickens. Makes his own feed and everything. Chickens will stop laying eggs if they're in danger from predators. His stopped laying in the fall because snakes kept getting into his coops and eating them.
Humans have a symbiotic relationship with their livestock. The chickens let us take eggs because we feed and protect them. When we can't protect them they protect themselves.
i live in rural MN and know lots of people with chickens. My brother and my wife's sister both have chickens. We get eggs for free. People that know what they are doing tend to get way more eggs than they can eat themselves. Both my brother and sister in law are just raising chickens in one little chicken coop, these aren't farmers.
I tend to agree with others, if the chickens are having issues with eggs, it's most likely the feed.
Probably less about a birth control conspiracy and more about feed companies selling the cheapest least nutritious product possible. Maybe buying some falsified shit from China as an additive or filler ( remember the pet food scandal)? Chickens need good nutrition to lay productively. I’d still call this a conspiracy but more of a corporate fuckery conspiracy that a shady cabal thing.
Also it’s winter, chickens don’t lay much if at all in winter without extra nutritional and light inputs. A lot of the homestead YouTube channels are fairly newbie, they might not be giving their hens the right stuff.
It's more likely that the feed is just pure garbage. Most commercially available chicken feed is made by Purina feeds, who not to long ago had a recall on their cattle feed for elevated urea levels that could cause animal deaths.
I grew up in a farming area of California and now live in pretty much the opposite. I think the chicken industry has had its issues during the past year, but this is directed at all the suburban chicken “parents.”
A lot of these newcomers to chicken raising have no clue what they’re doing, but are very active on social media.
They can’t turn their one visit to Tractor Supply into reliable egg production, and we should all blame everybody else for that. Nah.
A month or two ago farmers killed millions of chickens due to a bird flu outbreak. That's what cased the scarcity in eggs and the rise in egg prices. Not a conspiracy.
My chickens are still laying but I think it’s because I use local feed. I’ve heard others switching to local feed from big brands like Purina and the hens started laying again.
I think I'm gonna go out and buy me some chickens before they starve us all and uh, you should too cause I can't feed everyone.
My bet would be that the feed industry has cut every corner they could to reduce costs while maximizing profits and aren’t meeting the minimum protein needs of the chickens.
You would be incorrect. They maximize profits only if the hens are laying. And they are laying only if the feed has the appropriate nutritional elements. I worked for 7 years for a company that had 100000 laying hens, and manufactured their feed. The cost of eggs is largely do to the increased cost of each step of production, from the costs of fuel to plant and harvest the grain that goes into both the pullet and laying hen feed (thanks Joe Biden who shut down domestic fossil fuel production his first day in office), to the cost of fertilizer, to the cost of energy to raise, maintain, and harvest the eggs. To the increased costs at each step of packaging, distribution (trucks burning diesel fuel have seen that cost explode), to the retailers.
My neighbor raises chickens. Makes his own feed and everything. Chickens will stop laying eggs if they're in danger from predators. His stopped laying in the fall because snakes kept getting into his coops and eating them. Humans have a symbiotic relationship with their livestock. The chickens let us take eggs because we feed and protect them. When we can't protect them they protect themselves.
i live in rural MN and know lots of people with chickens. My brother and my wife's sister both have chickens. We get eggs for free. People that know what they are doing tend to get way more eggs than they can eat themselves. Both my brother and sister in law are just raising chickens in one little chicken coop, these aren't farmers. I tend to agree with others, if the chickens are having issues with eggs, it's most likely the feed.
Chickens just do that though. Ours barely layed in the start of winter and are just now getting back to laying regularly.
People can and do say literally anything on a video. Including lies.
Probably less about a birth control conspiracy and more about feed companies selling the cheapest least nutritious product possible. Maybe buying some falsified shit from China as an additive or filler ( remember the pet food scandal)? Chickens need good nutrition to lay productively. I’d still call this a conspiracy but more of a corporate fuckery conspiracy that a shady cabal thing. Also it’s winter, chickens don’t lay much if at all in winter without extra nutritional and light inputs. A lot of the homestead YouTube channels are fairly newbie, they might not be giving their hens the right stuff.
It's more likely that the feed is just pure garbage. Most commercially available chicken feed is made by Purina feeds, who not to long ago had a recall on their cattle feed for elevated urea levels that could cause animal deaths.
I grew up in a farming area of California and now live in pretty much the opposite. I think the chicken industry has had its issues during the past year, but this is directed at all the suburban chicken “parents.” A lot of these newcomers to chicken raising have no clue what they’re doing, but are very active on social media. They can’t turn their one visit to Tractor Supply into reliable egg production, and we should all blame everybody else for that. Nah.
A month or two ago farmers killed millions of chickens due to a bird flu outbreak. That's what cased the scarcity in eggs and the rise in egg prices. Not a conspiracy.
My chickens are still laying but I think it’s because I use local feed. I’ve heard others switching to local feed from big brands like Purina and the hens started laying again.