What are the 5 Best Chicken Feeds For Laying Eggs?

Providing your chickens with the right feeds is the most important thing to do if you truly care about their well-being. Whether you are a newcomer or you have been keeping chickens for a while, finding the best chicken feeds for your layers can be a challenge. This brings us to the question, “What are the 5 best chicken feeds for laying eggs?” There are many types of feeds for laying eggs out there in the market to choose from. But it is never that easy to point out the best ones for your flock of egg-laying birds. That’s why we’ve narrowed down our research to five best feeds you will find suitable for your hens.

We’ve put together a comprehensive guide that will assist you when shopping for chicken feeds, particularly for your layers. Having considered different options, we’ve come up with a list of our top five brands of chicken feeds, hoping that you’ll find them appropriate for your hens.

Feeding Your Layers For Egg Production

The simplest and most effective way of feeding your flock of hens for egg production is to buy a complete feed intended for this purpose. Complete chicken feeds are processed to provide all essential nutrients needed by your egg-layers for better production.
Modern chickens descended from the wildfowl native to Southeastern Asia and these birds are believed to lay an average of 12 eggs in a year. This happens more often during the breeding season. Due to genetic selection, today’s chickens can lay as many as 300 eggs per year.
Also, the improved diet has contributed largely to improved production of eggs among different breeds, with some starting to lay at their tender ages. The eggs produced are of very high quality and larger compared to those produced by their jungle fowl ancestors. All these positive changes are attributed to increased feed efficiency for egg-laying birds among other factors.
Commercial feeds from reliable chicken feed stores are believed to contain all the nutrients needed by egg layers. As usual, a well-balanced diet is essential for the optimal growth of your birds and production. A good diet that contains the right proportions of nutrients needed by chickens will help improve egg production if given to your hens at the right time and in the correct amount.
Your egg layer’s daily consumption of feed is influenced by the number of essential nutrients in the diet. In most cases, chickens adjust to their daily feed intake to meet their energy needs just like other animals. When the energy content increases, chicken feed intake in different birds decreases as well.
Environmental factors such as the changes in temperatures play a crucial role in the feeding habits of many birds. For instance, chickens tend to eat more in cold weather as compared to warm weather because they need extra energy to maintain their body temperature.
However, you should increase the amount of layer feed to your hens when they start laying eggs. These feeds are formulated for layers only, especially those raised to lay table eggs. For broiler feeds, the nutrients are formulated for those hens producing hatching eggs (for breeding purposes). But these diets are all the same regardless of minor differences arising in a few nutrients.

Top 5 Chicken Feeds for Laying Eggs

Prairie’s Choice Non-GMO Backyard-Chicken Feed

If you are looking for your layers feed, then look no farther than Prairie’s Choice. This brand prides itself on the production of chemical-free processed chicken feeds in the form of non-GMO ground corn and soybean.
The key ingredients in this chicken feed include fiber, calcium, protein, phosphorus, fat, and salt. Other essential nutrients added to this high-quality chicken feed include vitamins A, B-12, D-3, folic acid and many more.
The layer formula used in the processing of these foods is meant to make your egg layers more productive in terms of egg quality. When it comes to the grower formula, you will discover that it contains a substantial amount of proteins that are not needed by egg layers.
The Prairie’s Choice Non-GMO Backyard-Chicken Feed comes in 25-lb bags for easy transportation. On top of that, it has a good mix of all essential nutrients such as vitamins and minerals among others.

Hiland-Naturals Non-GMO Chicken Grower

Here comes Hiland-Naturals Non-GMO Chicken Grower feed for your hens. This brand offers different types of chicken feed, especially for layers. Also, you can provide it to your growers and starters if you want to.
Hiland-Naturals Non-GMO Chicken Grower contains a mixture of rich foods such as corn, soybean meal, soybeans and more supplements including vitamins. As a non-GMO type of food, this brand boasts of high contents of calcium and other minerals needed by layers. I have included this one in the top 5 chicken feeds for laying eggs.
In addition to that, you will not have to give your birds any grains once you start feeding them on Hiland-Natural Non-GMO Chicken Grower. You can buy it in 10 or 50-pound bags depending on the quantity you prefer the most. In short, these layers’ feed is herbicide or pesticide-free, has no medications added to it and is rich in protein.

Kalmbach Feeds

This brand gives you the option of purchasing organic feed complete with Omega for your egg-layers.
This brand contains high amounts of Amino acids. They also are rich in calcium content which is good for a stronger egg. Calcium, in particular, is suitable for the development of eggs with strong, healthy shells.
The main ingredients making up this type of chicken feed include wheat middlings, soybean meal, grains and different types of vitamins including several supplements. You can buy this feed in 40lb bags or settle for 50lb bags depending on your budget and the type of purchase. With its large variety of essential nutrients and layered feed, this chicken feed is ideal for your flock of birds, especially layers. This is why this one should be included this one in the top 5 chicken feeds for laying eggs.

Coyote Creek Certified-Organic Feed

Coyote Creek Certified-Organic Feed comes in handy to provide your developing, starters or egg-layers with essential nutrients for their growth and quality egg production. This brand is suitable for you if you are raising layers for commercial egg production.
Coyote Creek Certified-Organic Feed contains useful ingredients for your layers which include organic milo, organic corn, roughage products, organic soybean, plenty of vitamins and useful supplements. Additionally, this brand offers a soy-free chicken feed, particularly for egg layers.
This chicken feed is 100 percent organic. You can buy it in a 20-lb bag or more depending on the quantity that your chickens need. The most important thing about this chicken feed is that it is cheaper than most other types of chicken feed you will find on the market today. With this being said is why I have included this one in the top 5 chicken feeds for laying eggs.

Scratch & Peck Feeds

Scratch & Peck Feeds is another brand of chicken feed that comes with all the right ingredients for your chickens. These ingredients include all organic feed consisting of barley, wheat, sesame, peas, a variety of supplements and vitamins.
If you check closely you will realize that it is soy and corn-free, but it contains ground oyster shell and ground limestone to help your birds with digestion. This feed is available in bags of 25lbs.

Related Questions

How much chicken feed do your egg-layers require?

All chickens are fond of eating several times daily. A standard-size hen is more likely to consume 0.25 pound of layers feed in a single day. Other types of food that your hens will find delicious include table scraps, vegetables, and scratch feed among others.

How do you know you’re buying the correct chicken feed for egg-laying?

With time and experience, it will be easy for you to know what you are buying for your egg-layers. But the most important thing to know about the layers feed is the formula of the available nutrient in each type of feed. Once you have an idea about the composition of each type of feed, it will be easy for you to know what you are about to spend your money on.

In Conclusion:

What you feed your chickens on will determine their productivity. This means you should watch out for the right egg-layers feed if you want good quality eggs. The same applies to other types of chickens under your care. That explains why we came up with the above list of five best chicken feed for egg-laying birds so you may decide which one suits your needs.