Warning: heard a guy at the feed store say he feeds his hens nothing but scratch and kitchen scraps
I was standing in line at the feed store in Amarillo last Saturday and the guy ahead of me was buying 50 lbs of scratch and bragging that his hens eat 'mostly scraps and scratch' and they lay 'just fine'. I didn't say anything but it bugged me all week so I looked it up, and scratch is like 8 to 10 percent protein while layers need 16 to 18, so his girls are basically running on candy. Mine get one small scoop of scratch a day as a treat and a full feeder of crumble the rest of the time, and the egg shells got way harder after I switched. If his flock is molting or slowing down on eggs, that's probably why, and it can mess with their bones too. Anybody else run into people who think kitchen scraps count as a real feed?