Which layers

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Bickerton

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My first bag of layers mash is about empty so will pick up another bag this weekend.

I have a few different brands available local to me including the one I'm currently using but don't known if its the "best" one available for me.

Currently using heygates layer mash. (Also their corn)

Also have available to me Spillers and BOCM.

All are about the same price, but has anyone got any experience with them all?
 
We used Heygates once and the hens absolutely hated it. But it was the pellets -binned. Don't they have any quality stuff like Dobson and Horrell, Alan and Page Smallholder, Garvo? BOCM is along the lines of Heygates but I've never used Spillers. Didn't know they did chicken feed.
 
Seems a place local stocks dobson and horrell feed, will call em tomorrow as they may just have their horse feed.
 
I have used most of them, they are nearly all the same as regards Wheat, Soya, and Vits.
I am using Countrywide now but I have used BOCM. got on fine with it. I never pay for so called premium foods
I prefer to get a bag of rolled Oats, or Oat grain, if you can get it, and supplement their feed with that. A good feed of Oats and Maize before roosting, this time of year, takes them through the night. Not forgetting liquid gold.
Kept two thirds of a 300 mixed flock, in lay through the big freeze of two years ago.
I won't buy Garvo, last time I looked, they were using GM Soya.
 
I think almost all brands use GM soya except Smallholder, Garvo only use it because the cost of non- GM is too great, it's brilliant feed in all other ways. Depends on whether it worries you, it doesn't worry me personally. I would definitely go for any of the 'quality' brands unless I had lots of hens and the cost of feed per bird was a major concern on my overheads, which it isn't for most of us with just a few pet birds. Price is probably a good guide, ie avoid anything suspiciously cheap as it's really not worth it, you only get out what you put in. A few weeks ago I was in SCATS Countrystore and saw their own brand pellets were something like £5.50 for a 20 kilo bag, which is ridiculous in relation to the price of wheat, some corners have to be being cut there I think.
I think liquid gold is Cod Liver Oil, also known as CLO to chicken keepers. Good, but be careful not to overdose as it will make the eggs smell fishy and the excess of vitamin D will be bad for the birds.
 
No need to be a food snob ! Most makes have much the same ingredients and the levels of protein don't vary that much. Firms like Heygates don't survive for all those years by selling rubbish and now sell over a very big area. Mine have been on their layers pellets for about five years now and are as cheap as I can get but also other brands have been used as well. Mine have never refused any brand and I suspect that any that do are being over fed/under exercised or plied with 'treats' so they don't want their staple diet.
 
Cheers guys, will just buy what the local stocks then, was more seeing if any were to be avoided for whatever reason.
 
Ours judged by their 'nose'. They didn't get treats to upset their pallet. Some feeds remain in the market purely on price not quality. So cheap is still bought in quantity and sadly some keepers don't give their birds the option of anything better.
 
Many 'local' makers such as Heygates and many other old established mills sell vast quantities to commercial laying flocks and all the manufacturers of feed buy in huge quantities. Many keepers need to keep an eye on costs due to the hefty rise in the price of grain, much of which goes to French farmers subsidised by the EU.
 
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