The Evolution of Atlas: A Breeding (and Chat) Thread

[speckledhen]

I can't seem to stay up or stay asleep in the morning. I take vitamins, plus extra besides the multivitamin, plus collagen powder, etc, etc, all the time, religiously. Lisa, I saw your temps and some negative night temps in there.

If it wasn't always wet outside, it might be different here, but it's rained so much this fall into winter, I'm sick, sick, SICK of it! My chickens can't even go outside, it's so miserable, too many oldsters with stiff joints. Right now, I feel like I don't want to breed chickens at all anymore, not to keep a separate breed group. I want my numbers to go down so I can have one large pen occupied with one rooster for guard duty, and it doesn't even have to be a LF rooster. I'd have another Munchkin Dictator or even two. And then, one pen with older hens who may be picked on, but that's just two pens, not six. I spend way too much $$ on feed and shavings for the eggs we get and I'd like it back in my pocket and no one is dying (I gave only Gypsy permission to live forever!). The ones laying are the older gals. Not one Brahma is laying. Even Hector's four hens are not all producing right now. So, I depend on the old gals, plus Mary Jo, Athena and Zara, Alice, Maretta, Tiny and Wendy and sometimes, Thea or Maddie or Jane, though those two have even almost quit. Little Aimee laid a couple of her teensy off-white eggs, but not the two young breeding groups.
It's no fun when you just want to go to bed and read yourself to sleep. My husband always has the history channel on, even if he has headphones on and is listening to something on the computer- that is so dull and it just drones on and on and on, it's like being back in school and having to watch a filmstrip. Terrible background noise. Not interested. Okay, enough whining. Off to bed to read just like I said, and waste the rest of the day.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Wasting your day sounds more like just down time to think and just do nothing. I like doing nothing. I would rather have frozen ground than wet ground. It had warmed up and rained for 2 days and than froze again. That's enough of that. Rain is annoying. At least snow can be pretty. Sounds like you do need a new direction with your birds. I like my little dictators. They don't over mate the big hens, nor wear the feathers off like the big boys do.

My husband likes WW2 stuff. Only so much of that I can take. It is better than the dumb movies he watches. I generally leave the room too when that stuff is on.

 

[1muttsfan]

My sister and I just had a discussion about different breeds of hens. My point was that if you're going to feed a bunch of chickens, it would be nice if they were chickens that lay lots of eggs. I love my delawares and will always have a few, but the reason I don't keep more is because they are such feed hogs.
I avoid breeds that go broody, and favor smaller hens that are more feed efficient. Even so, I am only getting one egg a day on average, so these short days really make it tough in the egg department.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

My sister and I just had a discussion about different breeds of hens. My point was that if you're going to feed a bunch of chickens, it would be nice if they were chickens that lay lots of eggs. I love my delawares and will always have a few, but the reason I don't keep more is because they are such feed hogs.
I avoid breeds that go broody, and favor smaller hens that are more feed efficient. Even so, I am only getting one egg a day on average, so these short days really make it tough in the egg department.

Funny, I'm so sick of eggs that I pick out breeds now that don't lay well. I love chickens but there's only so much I can do with all the eggs since I'm not interested is selling them. I love that chicken keeping is such a diverse hobby.

 

[1muttsfan]

We are fortunate to be able to sell every egg we don't use ourselves, and the output of a friend's farm as well (she has about 3x my birds). Really helps with the feed bill.

 

[speckledhen]

My line of Delawares were not big feed consumers, not sure why. For instance, Georgie, my last Del hen, is slower to grab for food than most hens in that group, but the others in that pen? Wendy, Atlas's sister, will beat up anyone to be first in line for food and Zara, his daughter with either Ida or Wynette, who is the biggest feed hog I have. I realize that they have some Delaware lineage, but it's a lower proportion than the heritage Rock in them. Zara is insanely piggish. She'll jump and knock a jar of grain mix out of my hand if I'm too slow. I'm almost lost fingers to that girl. Good thing she's very sweet otherwise.

My hatchery Brahmas were not big eaters, but this breeder line eats a TON. And they poop a ton, too. Naturally, the Belgian D'Anvers eat less than any other birds in the barn, poop smaller and less, but they don't lay at all with the exception of Aimee, who is now in a laying cycle for the first time in a year. Usually, when she lays, her niece, Mina, also lays a few, but not enough for me to say they really lay at all. Pocket Pet status is what they have and that's it. I mean, they are so bad that Penny did not lay past a year and a half, that I recall, and Sissy, Aimee's daughter, laid one year and quit. I think she's about 4 years old, I think. Best layers have usually been my mixes or hatchery hens, but the hatchery girls never lived very long with few exceptions, one being my Buff Brahma Caroline.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Are you against processing old hens for soup? I know a lot of people are. And, for me, since I have had so few at a time, I "know" them all pretty personally.

Now that I have more birds it might be easier since I don't know them as well.

 

[speckledhen]

Are you against processing old hens for soup? I know a lot of people are. And, for me, since I have had so few at a time, I "know" them all pretty personally.

Now that I have more birds it might be easier since I don't know them as well.

Don't think I'm being snarky or angry, please, because I'm just explaining myself here. To ask that is like asking would I eat my old dog. I mean that is how I feel about these girls. Some have lived longer than dogs I've had. They know their names and understand quite a lot of language, like "Snow, drink your water, please, c'mon Snow, drink" and she does on command most of the time. Being crippled, I can't leave her water in the cage with her or she goes swimming and it's too cold for that.

They understand so much folks just have no idea what they can learn. So, I am not against other people doing whatever they do, but I won't kill my hens unless they are suffering badly. Just because they have a few aches and pains doesn't mean they are suffering, IMO. Many have arthritic joints, but you watch limping Neela raise up and exercise her place in the flock against an underling and you see that she has a lot of life in her. My little D'Anver who was seizing constantly and she couldn't control her head to even eat was beginning to truly suffer so we euthanized her, poor sweet Carly.

 

[Leahs Mom]

I'm pretty much the same in that respect. The layers have such personalities and it's obvious to me that they have much more intelligence than folks give them credit for.

I used to think that we would just do the soup pot thing, but reality here is that the hens are more like pets. There has been an exception or 2, but otherwise...

I used to be out with them enough that I could tell who was "talking" with my back turned. But I only had 6 at that time.

I have 3 hens that will turn 7 in March. They were from my original flock. All 3 still lay, and none of them has any physical issues.

 

[getaclue]

When I hatch out, the ones that done't make the cut, I will raise until they're about 6 months old, then I cull them. Because they're a large breed, and slow to grow, they're still very tender up to that age. Any that I keep as layers, breeders, etc. Live out their lives, and don't get eaten.