Anyone else keep track of hens and eggs?

[sophiejw]

I used to know which hens laid which egg when I only had 8 hens,then I got 4 new ones and I've lost track a bit. But I have a blackboard in my kitchen which has a number on- it started as 1750 which I'd worked out was how many eggs they'd have to lay to pay for the set up costs of their run / coop when I first started keeping chickens in October 2009. We're now down to 852 so just about half paid back (I have had more eggs than that but I count the little bantam eggs as 0.5 for this number). It's coming down quicker now, but I started another number showing the total I'd spent on them- I stopped doing that soon enough it was getting too high too quickly! I've just got a new, bigger run- I dread to think how many eggs that would take, so I'm not going to try

 

[whiteflare]

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Oh, wow! I'm exactly the same. Before, I used to have a notepad tacked to the fridge door called the 'egg tally'. Under each hen's name I'd have a tally of each time they laid, etc. I got up to 400 each before they started changing nests on me, laying together, skipping days etc. and I got so confused I gave up!

 

[BlossomSilkies]

Well, at least I'm not alone!

Mine are easy to tell who laid what because I have such a variety. You can see in my siggie what I have. But my answer to those who ask me is usually "A mother knows" ha ha! Once my 2 other EE's are laying, I'm sure there will be something that will distinguish the eggs so I can tell them apart.

I have a BO and RIR that should start laying soon, and then shortly after that my BCM. Then the babies, but that will be well into the summer I'm guessing.

And my daughter picks whose egg she wants for breakfast. Today she said "Ummm, make it a Ling-Ling egg today mom".

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Boy that really puts it into perspective, which is why I keep telling my husband, this is a HOBBY not a BUSINESS! Love the idea though!

 

[BlossomSilkies]

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Oooo! A database!

Well, you know what I will be working on for the next few hours!

 

[Fred's Hens]

Charting is educational and if you want to actually track your production vs expenses, there's no other way. This is a farm. We chart stuff.

 

[tiffanya]

My husband was actually the one who started keeping track! We just track how many brown, green, and duck eggs we get, as well as any other important info. I'm especially curious to see how many eggs my cayuga lays this year. We may be a little over the top as its our first year with chickens/ducks...

 

[nanawendy]

I keep track of how many and what color... but how do you tell who. When one starts up w/ an egg song, everyone joins in...even our roo.

 

[AinaWGSD]

Oh, me! Me! I have a little notebook and each day I write the date and, now that I've figured out who exactly among my 3 brown egg layers lays which egg, the name of the hen and how much her egg weighed that day. I also jot down a note any time something odd happens, like if I find an egg laid from the roost, or an unusually long football shaped egg. It's pretty easy for me since I only have 7 hens (and one doesn't count because her eggs are so paper thin they usually break) and each of them lays a slightly different shade or shape (one of my SS and my SLW lay the same shade of brown, but the SS egg is more oval and the SLW egg is very round). Since my back yard isn't likely to get any bigger and I think I'm about at my max (unless I don't want to use the backyard for anything but chickens) I suspect it will keep going this way for a while.

 

[whiteflare]

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That's basically why I gave up. When they each had their separate nests scattered throughout the garden, it was easy to document, but when they started laying together, kaboom. Confusion! Our hens are all the same breed and their eggs look alarmingly similar, although there are minor differences.

 

[Momagain1]

Thats what we are going to want to know..which one is laying and which are just eating...

HOW do we figure that out? We're gonna have 30 hens laying when they do...

RIR
RS
NN
BA
BR
EE'ers
Light Brahma..

...any helpful hints??