Best ways to tell who's laying and who is not?

[lazy gardener]

I cooked a chicken last week. When I butchered them, I cut them up, and tossed each piece into the ice water as I went along. So, when packaged, some packages contained parts of Phred, and parts of Henry. Interestingly, there was a HUGE difference in meat quality between Phred and Henry. The first night, we had tender chicken. When I put the rest away, it was incredibly tough. I couldn't even cut through the skin. I returned it to the crock pot and let it simmer for an other round, and it fell off the bone after that. And yes, I did give the birds 3 days of fridge time before freezing them.

 

[aart]

Quote: Must be deep into the coq a vino.

 

[cavemanrich]

@aart
I think I will try these recipes, but not on this ole girl.. Anything to get a variation on the flavor of one of my favorite meats. BTW, when we cook chicken, we always remove the fat and skin and cook it up separately for the lil devilz in my avatar.

 

[Butterfield]

Knit some different color chicken sweaters.
Dress up the girls.
Place an infrared critter camera (no flash) viewing the nesting boxes.
Review the camera cards for activity and identification.
Cheers!!

 

[maryluker]

Now THAT is a creative solution!! do you put the food dye on when they are first sitting on the nest??

 

[Bowleggedcowboy]

Not sure if this should be in the laying section, meat section, or here, but anyway:

What in your opinion is the best way to tell who is laying (and ideally how well), and who is not, for the purposes of culling the flock in the fall?

I know some people just get new birds on a regular basis and rotate out all the oldest ones, keeping track with bands or separate enclosures and just culling by age. This is what we tend to do, and overall it tends to average out in our favor. But what if you have an older hen who is still laying decently, or a younger one who never lays well at all?

We also have a bit of a bottle neck this fall because we have too many older hens and not enough pullets. We need to keep ourselves in as many eggs as we can for the next few months until we can raise a new crop, but prefer not to waste money on feed through the slower months.

I have tried to learn something by looking at rears to see if the vents were "large and moist" vs "small and dry" looking, but so far have only been able to cull one obvious non-layer (which a later "necropsy," as it were, during slaughter, proved an accurate assessment)--all the rest looked various degrees of "large and moist" to me. Yet we are only getting between 3 and 6 eggs a day from 12 layers at present. Maybe I just don't know well enough what to look for?

I have tried constructing trapnests as a project years ago, but had a hard time building anything that could work properly, and besides it's more of a project than I can take on right now anyway.

I plan to build a small chicken tractor that could be used to raise young birds in the spring and possibily to separate older hens in the fall for "testing" (putting a couple hens in the tractor, seeing what they lay for a week or two, then culling or making notes and returning to the coop, etc). But that is a rough workaround and doesn't give us very quick answers on the whole flock either.

Anyone have any tips on ways to divine egg laying activities accurately?

I think using a trail or deer camera in the coop would be the best way to tell which chickens are laying and which ones aren't..

 

[cyclones452]

I always got told that white legs mean their laying and yellow legs means their not.

 

[aart]

I think using a trail or deer camera in the coop would be the best way to tell which chickens are laying and which ones aren't..

Not really...even with continuous video running all day and ample time to scroll thru and review.....birds go in and out of nests without laying, sometimes so fast you can't be sure which bird might have laid the egg you might be able to see in the nest. I know, I've tried it.

I always got told that white legs mean their laying and yellow legs means their not.

It's true that leg pigment can change during the laying cycle....
.....but it can be tricky, different breeds will present differently because of different skin color.
Would take a plethora of knowledge and experience to be accurate....which is beyond most backyarders capabilities.

 

[TeeMom]

I have 6 hens and 19 pullets. Only one of the pullets is currently laying, but most of them were hatched in June and are just now reaching point of lay, so I'm not expecting much from them until spring. My older hens I know exactly who is laying and who isn't, but I have them all banded and make it a point to visit the coop once or twice midday to see who is doing what. I don't go by comb color because I have 2 who are pale right now, but otherwise look great and are laying well. I band with zip ties and aside from losing a few bands when I initially banded younger chicks and they slipped off, I have yet to lose one. They have been on the older hens for over a year now and the pullets have all been banded since late summer.