I was wrong about feeding kitchen scraps, it took 6 months to see it

I used to be one of those people who thought table scraps were just a cheap treat for the flock, nothing more. But after my neighbor Dave gave me a tour of his setup last spring and showed me his egg production records, I had to try it his way. He's been feeding his hens a mix of veggie peelings, stale bread, and even some leftover scrambled eggs for three years straight. So I started doing the same back in March, noting down how many eggs I got each week. By September, my 8 hens went from maybe 4 eggs a day to a solid 7 almost every morning. I didn't change their layer feed or light schedule or anything else. Has anyone else seen a real spike from just adding scraps late in the season?

2 comments

2 Comments

felix_thomas739h ago

Man, that is a solid bump in production. I had a similar thing happen when I started tossing in spent grain from a neighbor who homebrews. My girls went from 4 or 5 eggs a day to a consistent 8 or 9, but it only took maybe 3 months for me to see the difference. Makes me wonder if the type of scrap matters more than we think. What kind of stuff are you giving them exactly, like is it mostly wet peelings or are you mixing in stuff like crushed eggshells and oyster shells to keep their calcium up?

matthew_owens92h ago

Three months seems like an awfully long time to credit the scraps, don't you think?