One Chicken Is Laying Some Whoppers!

One of our leghorns started laying huge eggs/doubles. She laid 5 over the space of 7-8 days, then stopped. She's had a few here and there since then, but not like the last spree.


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kcult said:
Are you saying she slid it in and out a few times before leaving it in the nest?
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I believe that is called prairie dogging!
 
That's a big ole butt nugget. Sometimes my bitches amaze me too. All mine are back on their regular laying schedule.
 
One of ours is doing that too. Whopper sized eggs my says they must have hurt. Might explain some of the noise they were making too.

More common in pullets. They’re teenagers and aren’t regular yet.
 
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You'll get a lot of double yolks from the young hens also. I bet her 'I just laid an egg' song was a little higher after that one.
 
I used to work on an egg/chicken farm. The older chickens would lay the jumbo eggs. There were quite a few double yokes in those big eggs.
Campbell’s soup would come out every six months to get a chicken house full of chickens for the soup.
 
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Aqua vista egg farm off Masonboro Loop Road. Picked up a lot of Pecans for gas money on that farm too.
It’s now a housing development.
 
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What is that one eating?

Serious question. You might look into seeing if that one is consistently getting something else to eat beyond what she and the others are being fed.
 
RetiredUSNChief said:
What is that one eating?

Serious question. You might look into seeing if that one is consistently getting something else to eat beyond what she and the others are being fed.
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I’ve got some that lays them like that. The free range ones have a tendency to get in the dry cat food of the outside cat. Not uncommon for mine to lay them like after consuming extra protein. I give the others feed with the higher protein content and they lay double yokes at times.
 
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easternnc4me said:
I’ve got some that lays them like that. The free range ones have a tendency to get in the dry cat food of the outside cat. Not uncommon for mine to lay them like after consuming extra protein. I give the others feed with the higher protein content and they lay double yokes at times.
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I ask that because another person on another site raises chickens which consistently produce eggs bigger than that. But he can't sell either the eggs or the chickens because they're not fed FDA approved feed, even though the feed is considered GRAS (generally recognized as safe) for human consumption.

The eggs from his chickens won't fit in egg cartons!

Eggs q.png

Eggs 2.png
 
RetiredUSNChief said:
I ask that because another person on another site raises chickens which consistently produce eggs bigger than that. But he can't sell either the eggs or the chickens because they're not fed FDA approved feed, even though the feed is considered GRAS (generally recognized as safe) for human consumption.

The eggs from his chickens won't fit in egg cartons!

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I'll take a half dozen of his chicks.
 
Goofyfoot2001 said:
Does it come out their butts?
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Yes. There was a scene in Sanford and Son where Fred walks into the kitchen, where Lamont is cooking something. Fred asks what it is. "Beef tongue," Lamont answers, "do you want some?"

"I ain't eatin' anything that's been in a cow's mouth!" Fred says.
Lamont says, "You eat eggs, don't you?"
 
REELDOC said:
I'll take a half dozen of his chicks.
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I just posted a question about straight up giving away chicks, chickens, eggs, or meat of those chickens of his. It is flat out illegal for him to sell any of those to anyone for human consumption due to the laws as they currently stand. However, he and his family may consume all they wish.

This guy grows hemp commercially and is currently approaching exceeding the protein lb/acre of soybeans in the process.

From one of his posts (where he had posted some graphs in illustration of his various points):


I added some coloring to show where hemp provides an abundance of methionine and lysine, compared to soy and corn, respectively.

As you can see, hemp seed represents a "sole source" balanced array of the various essential amino acids necessary to the construction of core tissues in animals. The right edge of the graph is human muscle composition of those amino acids (black bar).

Anyway as gross % per mass (mg/g) hemp has about 40% usable protein in natural form and because it's so well balanced, it is well over 90% digestible, meaning less of the useful product is expelled as waste; it's used by the body (this varies by species; the values are for human consumption).

Long way to get to the point here; but;

If I can beat g/kg in protein per acre of soybeans and corn, given that it is a more usable form of protein, this would provide a better, more plentiful food source for livestock (which in turn serves as a food source for us)

The proof is in the pudding, so to speak. Our *average* egg size on hemp protein fed poultry at my farm resulted in an unexpected outcome... in that...

Our eggs wouldn't fit in cartons anymore.


Later he adds (in response to someone's question with respect to it being legal for humans to consume hemp seed):


It is illegal still to use hemp products for animals, period.

It is recognized (GRAS, generally recognized as safe) for human consumption - you can buy hemp protein powder and seed as a human and consume it.

But if I feed it to my animals, I cannot, under any circumstance, get a USDA grading tag on the meat or eggs that is produced. It is illegal to sell that meat, or eggs, to humans to consume.

Point of fact; every animal fed hemp in any hemp feed study has to be destroyed at the end, and the meat or products cannot be sold.

So the birds I feed it to, the eggs can only be consumed by my household, and the birds themselves, if slaughtered, cannot be sold to the public for consumption.

Just the way it is, since the FDA said it cannot be used as an ingredient for animal feed.
 
I just got a response back from him:

Me:
But...can you GIVE them away?

Not talking trade or anything which could be construed as a monetary exchange of any kind. Straight out give away.

HIM:
Ironically there's a loophole. That last picture I posted with the chickens foraging around cannabis?

You can't FEED them feed which has cannabis sativa seeds or material in it. But you can legally allow the birds to FORAGE land which has it growing. There's no restrictions on dietary input from foraging / pasture.


Here's the picture he was talking about:

Eggs 3.png
 
I asked him about the cost of supplementing their feed with hemp seed.

His response:


Hemp seeds sell wholesale at 0.55-0.65 cents per pound; roughly equivalent to premium organic certified poultry food. Not cheap, yet, but also not break the bank extraordinarily costly if you buy in any decent qty.

Do not feed poultry more than 30% of their overall intake in feed with hemp seed, and there were no noticeable benefits to incorporating *more* than 20% in any study so far done. Hemp seed is a little short on lysine, one of the essential amino acids. Whichever amino acid is the least, is the limiting amino acid; and in this case, that's lysine. This being said, it's not like it's anemic in lysine; just the least plentiful out of them all. Corn is very rich in lysine, so you still want quite a lot of their feed component to be corn.

Also there is an adjustment period while the birds become accustomed to the new food. It would be best if hemp seed is first introduced as a voluntary 'treat' for a week, then incorporated in to their main food at 10% for a week, then 20% for a week, and then remain there.

The nice thing is hemp is rich in methionine, and all feed (organic or otherwise) has synthetic methionine (chemically produced) in it as a supplement. So you can fully forego using synthetic methionine in your feed composition

Sidenote: The main goal I am trying to accomplish, methionine is the last remaining allowed synthetic additive to certified organic poultry feed; as soon as an alternative, such as hemp, is available, then NO certified organic poultry farmers will be able to use synthetic methionine, and ALL certified organic poultry companies MUST use the available organic ingredient! Read this, as "Trent Profits Greatly" because for a period of time all certified organic poultry farms - and there are many, with millions of birds, will be required by law to incorporate the sole organic ingredient - hemp seed/protein - in to their poultry diet. From year 1 after hemp seed / protein is allowed for poultry *all* poultry operations will be dependent on hemp seed for a natural source of methionine and an *immediate* market opens up that is worth roughly 500 million per year, in the USA, for hemp seed sales to certified organic poultry operations. If I have the best genetics for growing this grain per acre? ... well...

No one ever accused me of being stupid, and don't assume I don't still have an eye towards how I can make millions of dollars quickly by growing hemp
:)


Along the way, if you are constructing your own diet for feed composition for the birds, including other whole grains is always good, up to the recommended limits. Pay attention to the amino acid profiles and fat % of the various components, and compare to what is generally used for birds.

Wheat, sorghum (I grew ~3 acres of sorghum for the birds this year), amaranth, sunflowers!!! All very good sources of protein. Amaranth is REALLY good.

Each of those has their own amino acid profiles and recommended % maximum for chicken feed, shouldn't be too hard to figure out with some google searching of each grain, and to find some studies on the effects of including each in their diet.

Some (many?) actually offer this feed in separate feeders so the birds can pick and choose, as they see fit. This is known as volunteer feeding, the birds decide what they feel like eating, on the supplementary components, and is a great way to introduce new feed.

Like with most animals, I found the birds are wonderfully healthy on a very diverse diet - so the more stuff you can include (within reason, on the % max limits that are advisable), the better off they are! The goal is to make sure they are getting as wide a range of amino acid and healthy types of fat as possible, rich in all essential amino acids and omega 3's.


Also if you have backyard chickens, perfectly legal to feed them any-damn-thing-you-feel like.

The restrictions I mentioned w/ FDA are only for products intended to enter the retail market via USDA grading and certifications.

SO unless you have an actual egg dealer license (like we have) and are selling to restaurants, or something, do whatever floats your boat!
 
RetiredUSNChief said:
So the birds I feed it to, the eggs can only be consumed by my household, and the birds themselves, if slaughtered, cannot be sold to the public for consumption.

Just the way it is, since the FDA said it cannot be used as an ingredient for animal feed.
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Kind of reminds me of how a farmer I know sells milk that is only for animal consumption. I hear people’s goldfish love it.
 
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