Chickens for 10-20 years or more? Pull up a rockin' chair and lay some wisdom on us!

[al6517]

Quote:
It all sounds great .......... so let me ask you how many X's do you think you can raise in that coop/run.

 

[Cass]

WHOO HOOO I made it through all 177 pages. (It was only 170 when I started reading.)


A heartfelt thank you to all the Old timers who have been telling us "like it is" and in turn, telling me (and possibly others) that trusting our gut based on what is happening in our flock is the best way to raise our birds.

I still over feed the treats, but the beg me soooo sweetly, how can I refuse?

 

[Fred's Hens]

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In this context, the I.S.A. Brown. A particular strain of commercial hen. Holder of most of the world's records for brown egg laying.
http://www.isapoultry.com/

records are meant to be broken as in this case last year it was shattered by a new super egg layer called the Sil-Go, it to is an sex linked layer breed. It was bred in MS by some scientist and the new record set by them is a jumbo lrg egg every day for 428 day's straight. They have also bred the new layer called the ........get this........... super egg laying machine #365. As far as I know there are only 2 hatcheries in MS that sell them.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&...tjxRm0&sig=AHIEtbQ2eSOWulHLIMmci702iFqAvINiHw

Here's link to the birds mentioned by Al. The "Super #365" is obviously a leghorn cross of some kind. The Sil Go means Silver Gold, of course.

 

[al6517]

Yeah Fred that's it, Marti Hatchery.................... I hatched 300 of them last month, a friend gave me all the fertile eggs for $8.00. I sold them 3 day's out of the brooder for $3.45 ea at a local auction, all I had to do was give him 3 of the rooster chicks. You are also right about them having a ton of leghorn in them but then again all layers do. You should have seen the size of these monster eggs, what I didn't like about the eggs were they were too rounded and with almost no pointed end, so it was hard to place in the turners without candling for the air sack. But they hatched like clockwork all within 8hrs of the 1st pip, and never lost a one. I plan to hatch more of his eggs this coming spring, at those turn around prices I can't wrong.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Al, to be honest, I've grown a bit weary of the commercial hybrids. For an egg business, they're hard to beat. In fact, they're probably indispensable economically. That is why we've had them over the years.

I've more interest in our own breeding program, frankly. No way we have the expertise or resources of the big genetics groups that are producing these "super hens #380", but we are enjoying what we're doing. We are getting a great layer that lays as many eggs, albeit not quite as jumbo, but that's the point. These little light weight super layers lay such a large egg it scares me, to be honest. I prefer our regular, nicely shaped Large we're getting, thank you. Our birds are heavier, which we think is a plus for longevity. Calmer. Really good scratchers and searchers too. At some point, we may just forget the Sex-links and the commercial strains, even if it means more consistent, large eggs per year rather than all the jumbos.

We'll see how it goes.

 

[Oregon Blues]

If I wanted a sustainable flock of chickens (which I don't) I wouldn't mess around with dual purpose birds. They provide meat and eggs but don't do either job very well.

Here is what I would do:

Figure out how many eggs I would need and get that many hens of a breed that lays like the dickens and doesn't use much feed to do it. If the birds must reproduce that leaves the Leghorn, and I like the looks of the brown ones better. So, how ever many brown leghorn hens and 1-2 quality brown leghorn roosters and then never, and I mean never hatch a single egg until it was time to replace the hens. Then how ever many hens I wanted as replacements, times 2 and I would kill all the rooster chicks as day olds. They aren't worth the money to raise them. Only eggs, no meat coming from the leghorn flock.

Then I would keep a trio or a quad of a heavy meat producing breed. Probably Dorkings. They aren't great layers. Perhaps 100-150 eggs per year per hen. So keep the incubators running, hatch every egg, and each hen will produce for me 100-150 eating chickens every year. 2-3 hens are plenty. Then every couple of years, pick out some replacement hens and put the old girls into the stew pot.

I like the term freezer camp. I think it is amusing. There are no young children around here with sensitive ears that I am protecting. I just like the term.

 

[al6517]

Fred's Hens :

Al, to be honest, I've grown a bit weary of the commercial hybrids. For an egg business, they're hard to beat. In fact, they're probably indispensable economically. That is why we've had them over the years.

I've more interest in our own breeding program, frankly. No way we have the expertise or resources of the big genetics groups that are producing these "super hens #380", but we are enjoying what we're doing. We are getting a great layer that lays as many eggs, albeit not quite as jumbo, but that's the point. These little light weight super layers lay such a large egg it scares me, to be honest. I prefer our regular, nicely shaped Large we're getting, thank you. Our birds are heavier, which we think is a plus for longevity. Calmer. Really good scratchers and searchers too. At some point, we may just forget the Sex-links and the commercial strains, even if it means more consistent, large eggs per year rather than all the jumbos.

We'll see how it goes.

Oh yeah I hear ya on that Fred................ I wouldn't have them either, just not my thing but the egg-a-holics love em. Like you and Oregon Blue have mentioned going with a better real type strain of our own breed making combination makes more sense to us. I am not one of those kinda folks who is tied to the egg prison, I get enough from eggs I don't hatch to keep me in more than I need.​

 

[jvls1942]

Hi all, Al, I am assuming that you do not have a small incubator.. I incubate over 1000 assorted eggs per year.. In fact, I just had my first Sebastopol goose (for this season) hatch last night. I have just about 50 eggs in the incubator.. All staggered hatches.. I have a mixture of Toulouse and Seb eggs going..

for a couple of springs, a local guy brought me a couple batches of 300 hundred, of black star eggs to hatch for him.. He was not going for replenishing his egg layers.. He wanted black chickens for selling to his clients for meat.. I never saw any of these chickens after they left here as day olds, so I can't report how large (or small) they grew to be.. He sold all of them at about 8 weeks old.. In 2011 he did not come with eggs, I heard he gave up on his venture..

I have noticed a few concerns about the wear and tear on the commercial hens and their large/jumbo eggs.. In my opinion, a quail lays the largest egg per body size of any bird. If a chicken layed a proportionate sized egg it would be as large as an Emu egg..,

..........jiminwisc.........

 

[navasima]

al : I'm thinking to start with a dozen, process half at 3-4 weeks and the other half at 8-10 weeks. My thinking is that depending on which age I prefer the meat ( texture/taste), I'll then have to adjust the enclosure based on number and desired final size.

The other factor here - may sound silly to some - is that I'm kinda small. This is only relevant because this means , for me, small hands. I need two hands to hold a Coturnix securely. I also have a lovely bit of rheumatoid arthritis, so I may simply prefer to process more, smaller birds more frequently.... This will truly only be determined by experimentation.

 

[al6517]

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No I don't it's a homemade job I built a few years ago and it only holds about 380 eggs. I hatch almost all year round doing staggered hatches all in the same bator at the same time, just rotating and churning them out. I only incubate my SQ stuff but I was tweeking the bator and needed a large hatch so I just did that layer deal. The cost worked out to $1035.00 profit minus the $8.00 I paid for the eggs, so I can live with that.