Thank you Erick for this timely response. I listened to Tucker Carlson and also have been seeing reports. Went to bed last night wondering what the heck was going on. As always, your level headedness rings true. It’s why you are the only one I subscribe to.
My son and daughter in law have chickens and were happy with the chicken production... I get my eggs from them.. About 6 months ago.. The flock they have stopped producing.. She is on a "chicken group" and they all figured out that the maker of the feed they all were using had changed their formula... So my daughter in law changed brands... and now we have production again. I don't think that is any government conspiracy... It was just one company changing a feed formula for some reason and I guess the hens didn't like it very much. I am happy now though... as my supply chain is now back....
I do currently have chickens and have owned a flock for about 20 years. They DID randomly stop eating their normal layer pellets and I tried 4-5 different kinds before I found one that satisfied them. (Layena finally made them happy if anybody wants to know). The girls also went on an egg laying strike during that time (summer-early fall) and refused to produce which is not typical. They are 1 to 2 year old hens. Not a conspiracy theorist but I did notice....my neighbor had the same thing happen with hers. Just so you know people who do have backyard chickens noticed this and wondered what the heck was going on.
So about the Grand Hen Conspiracy. This is a bunch of new hen keepers not understanding what a hen requires to produce an egg. Hens are born with 4000 ova in their bodies. Most of them can be expected to reliably lay 250 eggs a year - not counting holidays however. 😵💫 (I jest). According to the long standing biology of the hen (created by God and frequently tampered with by us mortals) “The hen's ovulation is stimulated by the length of the day. Maximum egg production is reached during summer days with 16 hours of daylight. Egg production may continue during the spring, fall, and winter when artificial light is supplemented to provide 14 -16 hours of light.”
So my hens, knowing all about this, cut back around mid November and stopped laying entirely by December 1.
I turned on the light in the henhouse, which has a timer, in mid January to start at 4 am and go off at 8:00 am after sunrise. Four additional hours of daylight! Guess what? They started laying again ten days ago. It AIN’T the feed… it’s the amount of daylight. This battle FWIW is also raging on the hen pages on FB. Hen-sanity!
So Erick you can tell everybody to consult their hen-formation manual and it will set them straight
When there is no trust in the government or media, conspiracy theories multiply like chickens. You can keep up the criticism of conspiracy theories, but it is a wasted effort until and unless trust in government and the media returns.
And frankly, many, many of the so called conspiracy theories criticized over the last 6+ years have proven to have been true. So don't step in the tainted chicken feed here.
Fantastic introduction and segue into the chickens--all leading to the inability of people determining what is actually false! Once we abandon the truth, like Chesterton stated, then everything is true--it has to be since we have lost any means by which to measure.
I am so glad you’re calling out the what you accurately call “crazy town” in certain areas that are called “conservative” or right wing. It seems to have really picked up speed with the 9/11 conspiracy theories and has steadily gotten worse. The pro-Putin sentiments we see in some right wing media is of the same nature I believe. And finally, it Tucker Carlson really pushing this chicken feed stuff? What happened to him since he became so popular? Are is that a “chicken/egg” question?
However, it isn't just people on the right who are wondering about the chickens laying eggs. I suggest that if you don't have chickens, don't know masses of people who do have chickens, and haven't witnessed the rather unusual change in the laying pattern, you stop calling people names. We always have a lull in production in the winter. But seldom, if ever, do they stop for months. And again, this is happening no matter what party a person supports. And I wish you were half as tough on the left wing liars as you are on the right.
I'm tougher on my own side because I want my side to be better than the other side. As for the chickens, there are a lot of non-conspiracy factors about why their production is so low. But most of it comes down to weather patterns over the past few months that are unusual.
We are, overall, much better. And some things called "conspiracy theories" have turned out to be factual. And the fact is that people on both sides are concerned about the chicken issue and there is nothing conspiracy about wondering what is going on. And that is coming from chicken people.
I’m a life long ( maybe 60 years) chicken keeper. I live in a poultry rich area and have a regular guy I talk to at the Georgia poultry lab (oh! But maybe they’re in on it)
IMHO, This isn’t a new thing and I refuse to buy into the feed fear or the conspiracy.
The problem is people calling it a conspiracy in the first place. Because a significant number of people are having a similar problem, and would like to know the answer, thus speculate, does not a conspiracy make. Rather than jumping on the name calling bandwagon, some logical suggestions could be made. Now my chickens are only a little less productive than they normally are at this time of year, but that doesn't mean other people are in the same boat and I am not going to call them liars and conspiracy theorists because I haven't had the same problems. People who immediately yell liar, conspiracy theory when they don't think the opinion of someone else is correct is really just being nasty for no reason.
I don't know a lot about the Newsmax issue, but I did read what I thought was a credible report that DirectTV pays licensing fees to 22 left-of-center channels with lesser viewership than Newsmax. This may or may not be accurate, but if it is, then I think DirectTV is at fault.
I would not have believed Tucker Carlson’s ‘conspiracy’ about eggs except we have been getting hardly any eggs from our chickens for several months. So yeah we ditched our producers pride feed and bought ranch pro (Atwoods) and some Nutrena feather fixer and started feeding that to them yesterday. We will see what happens.
I doubt Tucker has ever seen an egg pop out of a vent. So he’ll believe anything. And I like the guy.
Mine were seasonally off in Mid November. Put a light on them December 1 for four hours starting at 4 am and on January 25 - bingo one by one their little engines started running again.
We inherited the ag clubs hens when the school closed for Covid. Drastic changes in weather affect production. No conspiracy here.
Thank you Erick for this timely response. I listened to Tucker Carlson and also have been seeing reports. Went to bed last night wondering what the heck was going on. As always, your level headedness rings true. It’s why you are the only one I subscribe to.
My son and daughter in law have chickens and were happy with the chicken production... I get my eggs from them.. About 6 months ago.. The flock they have stopped producing.. She is on a "chicken group" and they all figured out that the maker of the feed they all were using had changed their formula... So my daughter in law changed brands... and now we have production again. I don't think that is any government conspiracy... It was just one company changing a feed formula for some reason and I guess the hens didn't like it very much. I am happy now though... as my supply chain is now back....
I’ve used Layena with Omega 3 for a long time.
Good to know. My girls are happy with it so looks like that is my new feed!
I do currently have chickens and have owned a flock for about 20 years. They DID randomly stop eating their normal layer pellets and I tried 4-5 different kinds before I found one that satisfied them. (Layena finally made them happy if anybody wants to know). The girls also went on an egg laying strike during that time (summer-early fall) and refused to produce which is not typical. They are 1 to 2 year old hens. Not a conspiracy theorist but I did notice....my neighbor had the same thing happen with hers. Just so you know people who do have backyard chickens noticed this and wondered what the heck was going on.
So about the Grand Hen Conspiracy. This is a bunch of new hen keepers not understanding what a hen requires to produce an egg. Hens are born with 4000 ova in their bodies. Most of them can be expected to reliably lay 250 eggs a year - not counting holidays however. 😵💫 (I jest). According to the long standing biology of the hen (created by God and frequently tampered with by us mortals) “The hen's ovulation is stimulated by the length of the day. Maximum egg production is reached during summer days with 16 hours of daylight. Egg production may continue during the spring, fall, and winter when artificial light is supplemented to provide 14 -16 hours of light.”
So my hens, knowing all about this, cut back around mid November and stopped laying entirely by December 1.
I turned on the light in the henhouse, which has a timer, in mid January to start at 4 am and go off at 8:00 am after sunrise. Four additional hours of daylight! Guess what? They started laying again ten days ago. It AIN’T the feed… it’s the amount of daylight. This battle FWIW is also raging on the hen pages on FB. Hen-sanity!
So Erick you can tell everybody to consult their hen-formation manual and it will set them straight
When there is no trust in the government or media, conspiracy theories multiply like chickens. You can keep up the criticism of conspiracy theories, but it is a wasted effort until and unless trust in government and the media returns.
And frankly, many, many of the so called conspiracy theories criticized over the last 6+ years have proven to have been true. So don't step in the tainted chicken feed here.
Fantastic introduction and segue into the chickens--all leading to the inability of people determining what is actually false! Once we abandon the truth, like Chesterton stated, then everything is true--it has to be since we have lost any means by which to measure.
As you know, it's called the Canon . . . .
I am so glad you’re calling out the what you accurately call “crazy town” in certain areas that are called “conservative” or right wing. It seems to have really picked up speed with the 9/11 conspiracy theories and has steadily gotten worse. The pro-Putin sentiments we see in some right wing media is of the same nature I believe. And finally, it Tucker Carlson really pushing this chicken feed stuff? What happened to him since he became so popular? Are is that a “chicken/egg” question?
However, it isn't just people on the right who are wondering about the chickens laying eggs. I suggest that if you don't have chickens, don't know masses of people who do have chickens, and haven't witnessed the rather unusual change in the laying pattern, you stop calling people names. We always have a lull in production in the winter. But seldom, if ever, do they stop for months. And again, this is happening no matter what party a person supports. And I wish you were half as tough on the left wing liars as you are on the right.
I'm tougher on my own side because I want my side to be better than the other side. As for the chickens, there are a lot of non-conspiracy factors about why their production is so low. But most of it comes down to weather patterns over the past few months that are unusual.
We are, overall, much better. And some things called "conspiracy theories" have turned out to be factual. And the fact is that people on both sides are concerned about the chicken issue and there is nothing conspiracy about wondering what is going on. And that is coming from chicken people.
I’m a life long ( maybe 60 years) chicken keeper. I live in a poultry rich area and have a regular guy I talk to at the Georgia poultry lab (oh! But maybe they’re in on it)
IMHO, This isn’t a new thing and I refuse to buy into the feed fear or the conspiracy.
The problem is people calling it a conspiracy in the first place. Because a significant number of people are having a similar problem, and would like to know the answer, thus speculate, does not a conspiracy make. Rather than jumping on the name calling bandwagon, some logical suggestions could be made. Now my chickens are only a little less productive than they normally are at this time of year, but that doesn't mean other people are in the same boat and I am not going to call them liars and conspiracy theorists because I haven't had the same problems. People who immediately yell liar, conspiracy theory when they don't think the opinion of someone else is correct is really just being nasty for no reason.
I don't know a lot about the Newsmax issue, but I did read what I thought was a credible report that DirectTV pays licensing fees to 22 left-of-center channels with lesser viewership than Newsmax. This may or may not be accurate, but if it is, then I think DirectTV is at fault.
I would not have believed Tucker Carlson’s ‘conspiracy’ about eggs except we have been getting hardly any eggs from our chickens for several months. So yeah we ditched our producers pride feed and bought ranch pro (Atwoods) and some Nutrena feather fixer and started feeding that to them yesterday. We will see what happens.
I switched from Producers Pride to Layena for the same reason. So far so good. The girls are back in action.
I doubt Tucker has ever seen an egg pop out of a vent. So he’ll believe anything. And I like the guy.
Mine were seasonally off in Mid November. Put a light on them December 1 for four hours starting at 4 am and on January 25 - bingo one by one their little engines started running again.
I think rather than saying he believed it without question, he was saying that people are reporting that they are having a problem.
I hear you about eggs, but I have never seen such seasonal shortages…..ever!
That is no conspiracy 😎