Sooo much pooping

[Luvachicken]

For Christmas, my Mum and Dad bought me a copy of "Hens in the Garden, Eggs in the Kitchen".

I read it yesterday, as a treat before starting work today.

In it, it said that " you may find that your pullets or indeed two or three year old hens are reluctant to start laying in February. This is when you start using layers mash or pellets"

 

Have I made a mistake ?

I have been feeding my Wyandottes on Garvo layers pellets the whole time and they stopped laying Oct/Nov ish.

Are you supposed to feed them something different to layers pellets when they aren't laying any eggs ?

 

Thanks for any info and .....

Happy New Year to everyone too xxxx

[Egluntyne]

I feed my laying hens, both pure breed and hybrid, with layers pellets all year round. It gives them a chance to replenish their calcium supplies.

[Luvachicken]

Thanks Egluntyne, I've only had hybrids before and of course they laid all the time, thanks again x

[The Dogmother]

It's standard advice to feed layers feed all year round from 20 weeks of age.

 

Mine are pure breeds though and they stop laying through the winter, which is when I swap them onto growers until January when they start to lay again. They are all fighting fit, the oldest two are 6 years old, and the oldest laying hen is 5

[Redwing]

most of my lot are eating growers, some are on 'maintenance' pellets which are a good alternative to growers or layers

 

Feeding layers all year round is standard practice though so you are fine

[Luvachicken]

Thanks everyone, even after almost 3 years of chicken keeping there are still so many things to learn.

[Sammiboo]

just to add i concur

 

my girls have layers all year round

[sparkysmum]

Mine are given.............growers until first egg and a little bit beyond, layers when they're into the swing of things and back to growers when they're off lay. This year I don't think 2 of my older hens will lay very often but I'll probably keep them on layers or a farmyard mixture like the others. Hope this helps. Alli xx