Good Article about Managing a Small Laying Flock

aart · Dec 17, 2015

Great discussion!

I've never read a chicken article that covered all the bases.
But this concept is one I actually have 'plans'(go ahead, laugh) to do the 'split the capacity flock into 3 groups' thing.

As I go into my 3rd winter, I'm seeing my winter coop capacity is good at about 15 birds, including WoodyCock.
Right now I have eight pullets and six 18 month olds. Feed and bedding costs are more than covered by egg sales, which was my goal at start up.

Rough numbers(flexibility, eh?) plan is to have seven 18 month olds, seven pullets and Woody(or another cock) next winter.
I will hatch out a couple dozen or so (using bator) from my flock in late winter.
Cockerels will be harvested/sold/traded by about 15 weeks, will keep 6-8 pullets and sell/trade 'extras'.
Oldest group of layers will be harvested before 'winter' conditions set in.

There are a few other keepers nearby to get hatching eggs from to replace/change blood and/or breed.
I use zipties to segregate age groups as they are integrated from growout coop/run into main coop/run.
Can also segregate 'other' eggs in bator and band as they go into brooder.

My goal is not total self sufficiency...IE electricity for bator and timing, buying feed and bedding
Capacity is what it is, will not increase and works well for my goals......
.....feed/bedding costs covered by egg sales, all the eggs I can eat for 'free', and some meat from responsible population management.

Mrs. K · Dec 17, 2015

I think a key part here is what is a small flock. There is quite a difference between a flock of 5-6, 10-12, 18-20. The larger flock would of course be considered small by commercial or professional breeders. The more birds you have, though drastically decreases the effect of either too many males, not enough females, unexpected deaths or genetic diversity or predators.

I believe in a multi generational flock. I am in 8th year of a continuous flock. This year I am the closest ever to the 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 flock. I have 3 pullets, 2 hens that are just a year + (hatched in October - strange broody moment) 3 two year old bird, and one very close to 3years old, and Chrome the new rooster. I have raised all but the oldest 3. I do need to identify the youngest birds, as they are more similar to my older birds, and later it will be hard to tell who is who.

Often times Ridgerunner - says what are your goals? That is a very good starting place. Here are mine.

A limited size flock - this keeps feed bills in check.
A multi-generational flock of about a dozen. (The number in the flock changes dramatically through out the year)
A few birds to eat, but I am primarily in this for the eggs, and the exercise - gets me outside.
The entertainment, the satisfaction, and the interest of breeding chickens, seeing what happens, adjusting the flock.

My focus is a healthy, active flock without tension. A flock that gets out and forages, well camouflaged feather patterns on the prairie. Eventually a closed flock... eventually I think.

Very excellent and interesting post, thanks to all who contributed, by looking at your thinking, makes me examine my own goals.

Mrs K

donrae · Dec 17, 2015

I think Mrs K makes an excellent point about the size of the flock. We also need to keep in mind many folks have regulations about how many birds they can have. Lots of backyard folks aren't set up for a self-sustaining flock. They don't have the facilities to manage a broody hen, or are not prepared to deal with excess cockerels. That's why everyone's management style is different. What works well for me won't work for someone else. And, what worked well for me 5 years ago doesn't necessarily work now. That's why we need to continually evaluate our goals and how well our current management is meeting those goals.

lazy gardener · Dec 17, 2015

I realize that I'm moving into the winter with my coop overpopulated. 10 x 12 theoretically should support 30 birds. (I have 27) However, there are 3 roos in that group. Jack easily covered 16 hens, and he managed 20. I think that covering 24 is stretching it, however, even that can be worked around by separating him out, and putting the birds that I want to breed from with him. I could easily divide my flock in half during the breeding season, and rotate him between the 2 groups. (That's assuming that I need to eliminate both of the other boys, which may or may not happen between now and spring.) I went into last season with a hugely varied gene pool (deliberate) and put as many chicks on the ground as was feasible (deliberate). I did not want to cull too many out of the flock early in the fall, and going into late fall/winter, there are no takers. Also, I don't feel right about selling the birds that I really don't think are good layers. How fair is that to a potential customer??? Nor, do I want to sell my good layers for a paltry sum of money. I'd rather feed them and sell eggs, or eat them. Moving into next breeding season, my plan will be to sell off a bunch of hens in the spring, bringing the flock down to my best layers, and hatch... and hopefully cull by selling. I do expect to have an other influx of fresh blood in the form of hatching eggs this spring. Those birds will just enter the gene pool. Long term goal is to have a flock of birds with small combs which lay multi colored eggs.

Mrs. K · Dec 17, 2015

I like the idea of small combs. I was standing in the sun this morning, thinking the same thing. Mrs K

triplepurpose · Jan 3, 2016

Ridgerunner said:
Triplepurpose, there may be a few ways to get just a few chicks every year. You’ve made a start with that mini-hatchery by looking locally. A lot of feed stores have chick days, especially in the spring. Many have minimums, but 6 is better than 15 or 25. Some feed store managers will work with you in letting you put in a special order so you can avoid some of those minimums and still get what you want by tacking on to their big order. Mine won’t but some will. You never know until you ask.

I’m not sure where you are located, but if you are in the USA check out your state thread in the ”Where am I? Where are you!” section of this forum and chat with your neighbors. They may have extra chickens or be willing to split an order.

You could get an incubator and find fertile eggs but you never know how many pullets you will get and you have to deal with the cockerels. Not a good option for a lot of people but for me a good way to bring in new blood.

Again a bit off topic but responding to other comments. I love hatching with broody hens. I’ve purposely bred my flock to go broody often. But my main laying/breeding flock is normally only one rooster and six to eight hens. I raise mine mainly for meat, not eggs. I simply cannot raise enough chickens to keep me in meat by depending on broody hens only. I have to use an incubator or buy chicks and I prefer to hatch my own most of the time. Using an incubator I can usually (this year was a challenge) spread the hatches out so I don’t have too many chickens at one time to overload my facilities. I also have limited freezer space since I freeze a lot of stuff from the garden. Some of that is freezing for the winter but a lot is seasonal, freezing tomatoes until I have enough for a canning or storing different things for soup until I have enough different things for canning a batch of soup. So I have to manage my freezer space since I’m not going to buy another freezer. We all have our own goals and different facilities (not always coops and runs), so we have to each have our own management techniques.

Thanks for the thoughts, Ridge.

I'm in Hawaii--so it is the US, but only kind of. We've actually done all these things in some fashion at one time or another over the years. I've hatched multiple generations with broodies, and I loved it too (I've posted a bit on the related threads here in past years). It was ideal in many ways, except that since we only had one and a half hens that were good at it, it was too erratic with our little flock to be the sole practical source of replacements. Also, issues with mites in the brood nest and some possibly related but more mysterious health issues with the last hatches was kind of discouraging. We've use an incubator too, but they got nasty and were finicky to set up work and we never got as good hatch rates anyway (and the good ones cost more than an awful lot of mail-order chicks).

Feed stores here do bring in chicks (of limited choice in breeds) now and again, but they sell sexed pullet chicks. I now only ever purchase straight run hatchlings since I became aware of the ugly behind-the-scenes protocols of how most hatcheries dispose of the un-wanted cockerel chicks (a disgusting waste of life any way you shake it IMO), and also because we want the cockerels ourselves, so that we can have fried and roast chicken dinners.

Part of the appeal of this little local hatchery therefore, is that they don't cull cockerel chicks at hatch: they will either sell you straight run, or sex them if requested and keep the cockerels themselves to raise for their family to eat (even go so far as to guarantee sex and take back any unwanted cockerels that pop up later on). Pretty groovy!

Good Article about Managing a Small Laying Flock

More options

aart

Chicken Juggler!

Mrs. K

Crossing the Road

donrae

Hopelessly Addicted

lazy gardener

Crossing the Road

Mrs. K

Crossing the Road

triplepurpose

Crowing

Similar threads

New posts New threads Active threads

Latest posts

Latest threads

Threads with more replies in the last 15 days