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It’s a chickenspiracy!

Okay, here’s one of the stranger conspiracy theories on offer. The woman in the video at the beginning of this thread says she’s been keeping chickens for thirty years and her chickens have never completely stopped laying in Winter. But this year, she didn’t get a single egg after October.

Until she switched from commercial chicken food to a mixture of corn, sunflower seeds and commercial goat food. Now they’re laying again.

But that’s backed up by tweet after tweet down-thread and some reposted Facebook threads saying the same thing. Lots of backyard chicken keepers say their hens stopped laying in September/October this year while eating commercial layers pellets. Not enough protein, some speculate.

A few years ago, one of our neighbors gave up keeping a few pigs for market. The government had mandated that commercial pigs be raised on commercial pig food. No more kitchen scraps. That was a red flag for me at the time, because it meant the government effectively controlled the price of pork.

It didn’t occur to me it also gave them an avenue to put something in the feed and hence the food supply. You know, tell the manufacturers that thus an such a chemical was a required de-wormer. Like something to make pork taste less awesome, or statins or a vaccine or an anti-fertility drug.

Okay, okay…I’m getting carried away. But who puts anything past the bastards now?

My chickens? My fancy little hens never lay from October to March, though they did stop earlier then usual this year. I’d be surprised if the conspiracy hopped the pond and contaminated a good old British brand like Marriages.

Comments


Comment from Syracuse1989
Time: January 23, 2023, 9:22 pm

Without going through all of the thread that you link, I’d hope that someone thought to send the feed out for chemical analysis.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: January 23, 2023, 9:25 pm

No, they didn’t. They didn’t even take a snapshot of the ingredients list. It’s Twitter.

You can believe I’ll be checking mine out in daylight.


Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: January 23, 2023, 10:09 pm

Oh Boy! The old confusing correlation for causation game!

One of my favorites!

The best is the inverse relationship between global temperature and the number of pirates!

https://churchoftheflyingspaghettimonsteraustralia.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/pchart1.jpg


Comment from RimrockR
Time: January 24, 2023, 12:12 am

We were having an awful time this summer with feather loss on our chooks despite feeding them feather fixer food. I picked up some COB (corn, oats,barley) and fed as a mash and the problem went away. COB I think is fed to horses etc. I am mighty suspicious about commercial food at this point. I’m gathering up ingredients to create a mix for them.


Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: January 24, 2023, 2:18 am

Silly, the bugs chickens eat are being saved for you.

And you will like it.


Comment from dissent555
Time: January 24, 2023, 4:15 am

Hah! No eggs for YOU, peasants!

Come to think of it,no more chickenz either!!

Now eat your gruel and wait your turn at the Soylent Mill like a good little one.


Comment from tomfrompv
Time: January 24, 2023, 5:35 am

How did the UK govt enforce the rule against feeding pigs table scraps? Farmers usually do as they like, so I’m having a tough time imagining they would just say “OK” and change centuries old habits.

Are there Brits being paid to watch pigs eat? And if a table scrap is found, they rat out the farmer?

Times are too weird.


Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: January 24, 2023, 10:15 am

I recommend we feed pigs and chickens transgender chocolate candies laced with heavy metal to prevent catastrophic global climate change.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: January 24, 2023, 7:41 pm

I don’t know, tomfrompv, but DEFRA can be pretty heavy. They have also outlawed feeding kitchen scraps to chickens (!) – even backyard hobby flocks – and they supposedly monitor discussion forums and harass the moderators if the topic is discussed. So the moderators say.

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