Arizona Chickens

[BlueBaby]

Forgot to ask but are you using breeding pens? I'm in the process of building them and I'm planning to put the breeding hens in them and rotating the cock amongst them daily, that way I know which hen laid which egg so I can keep the dams straight. The pens don't need to be big. I'm making my bank of pens 4'X6'. It's a lot more efficient than building coops to accomplish the same thing since they only need to occupy the pens during the time you're breeding them. Just something to think about if you haven't already.

I want 2 breeding pens, and only want to keep certain hens with each rooster. That's why I want 2 coops, one for each rooster and his girls.

 

[ejcrist]

Thanks. Did you get anything back from the state about the form? Wondering if I'd be good to start just with the sending. Maybe I'll do a bucketful at my doctors' offices. If they'd let me. I could print up cards with my information.

I don't work due to disability & most friends bailed. The 2 who still talk to me are rare for when & live far from here. Only family here is who got me into chickens. So my word of mouth is limited. I'll definitely talk to the friends. I'm willing to setup a delivery, especially if the person would buy regularly.

I have a replace or refund per egg if there's ever an issue. Which, when I'd gotten eggs from my dad there was a few about boiled. That's part of why I got more layers. You never know somethings until you open an egg too. I replace 2 for 1. I feel bad if there's a bad egg. Needless to say I no longer get eggs from dad.

I don't do cartons unless they have them. I've been wrapping each egg in newspaper then put 4 in a bag you put vegetables in then put 3 of those into a plastic grocery bag. Cuts down on waste. I use a bucket, rolling cooler, or similar to carry & deliver them. My thought is anyone who's regular would have an Easter, Halloween, or some type of bucket. If they took home the bucket they'd bring it back to swap. Take a quarter or fifty cents off the price. I could tie a card with my information on the bucket or write it on it.

Do you think any of it would work? What about the buckets? Bad idea? Do you think I'd need to black out the store names on the bags?

Appreciate the help & information!

Yes, the state sent me a letter with my Nest Run Producer number on it which I keep in a file. Even if you only anticipate a few sales now and again I think it's a good idea to register so you're operating within the guidelines. There's no other requirements other than registering as long as you are a small producer which it sounds like you would be. The state claims they'll notify you in case any egg born illnesses crop up, and by being registered they can trace where the eggs came from which is a good thing.

As far as word of mouth, you'll get that as more people eat your eggs. Assuming they like them they'll more than likely tell their friends and that's how you can drum up a lot of business. So it doesn't matter if you don't get out much to talk to people, they'll come to you as long as you have a product they want. I also seriously underestimated the degree to which people desire quality food. Personally I've always been more pragmatic about shopping for food since money was always tight and the highest priority until I got older, and I assumed most people were like me. However I think people today have a different outlook and also have more of their basic needs met than I did, so they lean more toward wanting quality food they believe to be safe. I think there's a lot of mistrust toward big producers, and whenever people find local mom and pop producers with more personalized products they tend to gravitate toward them. And, if they find the food taste better they're very likely to come back for more. That's just what I've seen from my recent experience. And it isn't just with eggs either. My wife and I have been amateur farmers all our lives and we carried that out here to AZ when we moved from PA, so we grow quite a bit of vegetables here as well. Last year we had an over-abundance of a lot of vegetables so we did the same thing in giving some out with our label. We grew about 300 lbs of hardneck garlic and it was all gone inside a week. I've always known hardneck garlic was a whole lot better than the softneck stuff at the big box stores but I couldn't believe the demand for it was so high. So I just finished planting about 200 lbs of my favorite hardneck cloves back in November for a bigger harvest next spring and we'll see how it goes. Anyway my point is that your product will sell itself as long as you produce a good product, which it sounds like you're doing.

As far as packaging, I've always stuck with cartons because that's what people are used to seeing eggs in. Even though you'd be serving the homegrown egg niche market you don't want to make it appear too homegrown. I'm not saying wrapping in paper wouldn't work but if I were buying eggs I don't want to have to go though a lot of work to see their condition or how many I have. I think cartons work better because you can easily check what you're getting. People like to open the carton and see what home-grown eggs look like and also seem to prefer seeing different sizes - that way they know they are definitely not from the store. I had one lady ask me one time if I put any"filler" eggs (store-bought) in the carton. I said no and then she said I must have because some of the eggs were white. I explained that they were from Leghorn chickens but I don't think she believed me so I took her out to the nest boxes where I hadn't collected eggs for the day yet and showed her. After that she was ok and is a regular now. I also have an untold number of people that think brown eggs are "organic," and I'm not talking about dummies either but extremely successful people that are a lot smarter than me. I know it's funny but the majority of people don't know anything about eggs so I like to make it as easy as possible for them, and I'm pretty sure using cartons is the better way to go. If you don't do cartons you could always ask people to save their cartons for you. Or you could get a few to start and ask the customers to return them and you'll take $0.40 off their next purchase or something to that effect.

Anyway, all of this is just my opinion based on my experiences so your mileage might vary. I think you could easily generate income with egg sales even if you just have a small amount of eggs to sell. I think after you sell your first couple of dozen people will see how delicious fresh eggs are and they'll be back for more. Good luck.

 

[ejcrist]

I want 2 breeding pens, and only want to keep certain hens with each rooster. That's why I want 2 coops, one for each rooster and his girls.

So you're not planning on breeding the hens individually so you know both the mother and the father? The reason I'm asking is because it'll be a lot easier to avoid inbreeding issues if you know both parents, and you can breed the cock to his daughters and the hen to her sons for several generations which isn't too close. If you use the spiral method where you rotate cocks between clans of hens, which it sort of sounds like you're doing, you'll need more room since your breeding populations (clans) would likely be higher because you'd probably want to work from at least three clans of females. Plus with spiral breeding I'd think it would take longer to produce the qualities you're after.

This is all book knowledge on my part by the way - I don't have any real world experience using these methods I read about yet. I do have a mentor that's given me the benefit of his experience which has been a huge help but up to this point I'm just a breeder in training.

 

[BlueBaby]

So you're not planning on breeding the hens individually so you know both the mother and the father? The reason I'm asking is because it'll be a lot easier to avoid inbreeding issues if you know both parents, and you can breed the cock to his daughters and the hen to her sons for several generations which isn't too close. If you use the spiral method where you rotate cocks between clans of hens, which it sort of sounds like you're doing, you'll need more room since your breeding populations (clans) would likely be higher because you'd probably want to work from at least three clans of females. Plus with spiral breeding I'd think it would take longer to produce the qualities you're after.

This is all book knowledge on my part by the way - I don't have any real world experience using these methods I read about yet. I do have a mentor that's given me the benefit of his experience which has been a huge help but up to this point I'm just a breeder in training.

So, you are saying that each hen must be kept in a separate breeding pen, and then the rooster just thrown in with them for a day?

 

[ejcrist]

So, you are saying that each hen must be kept in a separate breeding pen, and then the rooster just thrown in with them for a day?

Yep. The pen doesn't have to be big and can even be a temporary, portable pen that you set up during breeding season only. It's good to have a couple set up for the number of hens you plan to breed.

 

[BlueBaby]

Yep. The pen doesn't have to be big and can even be a temporary, portable pen that you set up during breeding season only. It's good to have a couple set up for the number of hens you plan to breed.

What kind of portable pen? I would need it to fit into my chicken run that is 8' x 16'. Right now my hens have the run of it.

 

[MagicChicken]

Quote:

Chickens are flock animals. The hens are likely to do better if there is another hen or two with them. If your hens do not lay identical eggs you can keep two or three together and still have a good idea whose eggs are which. So you might not need to keep the hens isolated from each other if you can figure out who lays which egg.

4' x 6' is not very big if you have large fowl. I made a bank of three 4x6 breeding pens and wish I had made them 6 x 6 or better yet, 6 x 8. I eventually took the middle wall out of one pair of pens to make a 6 x 8' pen. They far prefer the larger configuration.

Pay attention to compass direction and sun angle when you build your pens. Make sure the pens are deep enough that the birds can get out of the sun. My breeding pens face south. The six foot deep pens are marginal for shade at certain times of year. I had to put a lot of shade cloth on them. That is one reason why I would have preferred 8' deep pens - the back of the south-facing pens would stay shaded all year. The taller the pen the deeper it needs to be to provide shade. Mine are 6.5'-7' tall. Being able to walk in makes life a whole lot easier.

During breeding season the birds are going to be in those pens for a couple of months or more. The more room you can give them the better. The hens have to be isolated from any roosters (except the one you want to pair the hen with) for at least two and preferably four weeks prior to actually collecting eggs for hatching. Hens can store sperm. For a long time. So you have to wait long enough after isolating the hen from unwanted roosters before you can be relatively certain that the preferred rooster was the sire of the eggs. And then if you want any quantity of eggs to set, you have to patiently collect your one egg/day (if you're lucky) or 3-4 eggs a week (if you're not so lucky). Which means it can take another couple of weeks to collect enough eggs from a particular pair to set. In the meantime the hens are stuck in those little pens. Some won't mind. Others will revolt. If you can give each pen its own run everyone will be much happier. (I didn't do this and wish I had. My pens share a run on a rotational basis. It's a pain.)

If you are making a bank of breeding pens, I highly recommend designing them so you can remove partitions and expand or shrink the pens as necessary. It will give you flex space during breeding season, and also during grow-out season.

Good luck!

 

[BlueBaby]

Chickens are flock animals. The hens are likely to do better if there is another hen or two with them. If your hens do not lay identical eggs you can keep two or three together and still have a good idea whose eggs are which. So you might not need to keep the hens isolated from each other if you can figure out who lays which egg.

4' x 6' is not very big if you have large fowl. I made a bank of three 4x6 breeding pens and wish I had made them 6 x 6 or better yet, 6 x 8. I eventually took the middle wall out of one pair of pens to make a 6 x 8' pen. They far prefer the larger configuration.

Pay attention to compass direction and sun angle when you build your pens. Make sure the pens are deep enough that the birds can get out of the sun. My breeding pens face south. The six foot deep pens are marginal for shade at certain times of year. I had to put a lot of shade cloth on them. That is one reason why I would have preferred 8' deep pens - the back of the south-facing pens would stay shaded all year. The taller the pen the deeper it needs to be to provide shade. Mine are 6.5'-7' tall. Being able to walk in makes life a whole lot easier.

During breeding season the birds are going to be in those pens for a couple of months or more. The more room you can give them the better. The hens have to be isolated from any roosters (except the one you want to pair the hen with) for at least two and preferably four weeks prior to actually collecting eggs for hatching. Hens can store sperm. For a long time. So you have to wait long enough after isolating the hen from unwanted roosters before you can be relatively certain that the preferred rooster was the sire of the eggs. And then if you want any quantity of eggs to set, you have to patiently collect your one egg/day (if you're lucky) or 3-4 eggs a week (if you're not so lucky). Which means it can take another couple of weeks to collect enough eggs from a particular pair to set. In the meantime the hens are stuck in those little pens. Some won't mind. Others will revolt. If you can give each pen its own run everyone will be much happier. (I didn't do this and wish I had. My pens share a run on a rotational basis. It's a pain.)

If you are making a bank of breeding pens, I highly recommend designing them so you can remove partitions and expand or shrink the pens as necessary. It will give you flex space during breeding season, and also during grow-out season.

Good luck!

All of my flock are Australorps and they all lay the same eggs, some may be a shade difference, but not by much. I know about isolating the hens from any rooster for I think it is 3 weeks for any other roosters sperm to be out. I think I would wait for a month though. That is why I wanted a 2nd coop. One rooster per coop, and they will only get the hens that I put in there with them. No question to who the daddy is then. It seems that to separate each of the hens into their own pen will make them lonely, as they prefer being together as a flock.

 

[ejcrist]

What kind of portable pen? I would need it to fit into my chicken run that is 8' x 16'. Right now my hens have the run of it.

Any kind that works for your setup. MagicChicken has good points. Personally I wouldn't put the pen in the run you have unless there's plenty of space. I'm building mine similar to a mini coop (not mini cooper) in that they'll be a single unit, sort of like row houses, with a plywood floor sitting on a base frame of 2X8's, with walls covered in hardware cloth and a slanted corrugated metal roof. I'm figuring on having 10-12 in a line that'll face east because the afternoon sun from the west is the worst when temperatures are up there - like MagicChicken said, shade is critical.

True they are flock animals, but they'll be right next door to each other with only wire between them so it won't be like they're totally alone. I'm sure they'd prefer being close together but unless you're going to use trap nests, or can ID their individual eggs, I don't know how else you could keep track of each mother's eggs. I wouldn't recommend using trap nests unless you can release the mother shortly after she lays because the spring temps here can get high.

 

[ejcrist]

All of my flock are Australorps and they all lay the same eggs, some may be a shade difference, but not by much. I know about isolating the hens from any rooster for I think it is 3 weeks for any other roosters sperm to be out. I think I would wait for a month though. That is why I wanted a 2nd coop. One rooster per coop, and they will only get the hens that I put in there with them. No question to who the daddy is then. It seems that to separate each of the hens into their own pen will make them lonely, as they prefer being together as a flock.

BlueBaby - I've had my morning coffee now so my brain has finally booted up. The breeding pens idea is something I got from talking to breeders about how they do it but it's certainly not the only way to do it. I had, and still have a lot of questions about breeding birds, and one of the most difficult was which method to use and then how to implement it while keeping the space and cost requirements reasonable. After looking over several different methods I settled on the "individual hen" breeding method because I believe it'll enable me to reach my goals the fastest and not require more space and cost to maintain than methods requiring me to raise bigger populations of hatchlings. So that's what I'm planning to do but that may or may not work best for you. I don't know if you get out to the shows, but if not I highly recommend going and talking to the breeders. It pays to network with them, exchange contact information, and join the club that centers around the breeds you're interested in. Also if you're not a member already, maybe consider joining the APA and/or Livestock Conservancy. These clubs are all valuable resources for learning and getting ideas. I read a lot of books on breeding that were published from the early 20th century up to present. and they have a lot of great info, but I think I learned a lot more just by talking to breeders. Anyway I just wanted to put that out there in case you haven't considered it.