Does anyone keep egg laying records?

[Dances with Ducks]

I have heard quite a range of what each breed of duck can lay. Does anyone else keep track of this? My hens are all of different breeds and each one lays a different looking egg so I can usually tell who laid what.

All my hens were born last April. I bought three runners at the ranch store, two turned out to be drakes. I bought my Campbell and Welsh Harlequin from different 4H participants at our county fair in the beginning of August, each had gotten them as ducklings from Holderreads.

My Chocolate Runner was the first to start laying at the end of August.

Aretha laid about eight eggs the first month, then towards the end of August she was doing an egg almost every day till the middle of November when she stopped. She lays the largest eggs and they are light green.

My Khaki Campbell, Yacky, started September 23 and has laid an egg a day right up through today except for four days. She's amazing!

Holderread claims to be the only Khaki Campbell breeder that keeps laying records in order to breed high laying strains. Yacky lays a light pinkish brown egg which is just a little smaller than the Aretha's, although they seem to be getting smaller maybe due to the cold temperatures?

Bridgett, my Welsh Harlequin went into a molt after I brought her home in August. She didn't start laying untill October 20, laying an egg a day untill December 1, and only two since then. Bridgett's eggs are almost white and are smaller than the others.

I had this wonderful stretch for two weeks where they were giving three eggs a day.

Then it got cold.

The temperatures around here have been usually dropping to around 20 each night for a few weeks.

Anybody else?

 

[Mahonri]

My 14 year old son writes the number of eggs we get each and everyday on the calendar.

Our high week so far is 84 eggs!

Woot!

 

[snowydiamonds]

I kept a daily journal last year on my 8 Rhode Island Red hens on a Microsoft file but this year I had mostly young ones and so many that I only recently began counting mentally and I'm getting 28-30 eggs a day from 65 birds while about 15 of those are too young to lay. And, my plan is changing and quicker than I thought its already happening! I decided to switch over to bantams except for one flock of EE's and may change over those, if I find the bantams of those. Every time I go out to the coops lately, I find another young cockerel...

 

[Dill]

No, my ducks very rarely lay eggs, thankfully, since I don't want them to have egg binding andother egg laying problems. it is kind of nice though when they do lay because then i can give them to my animals.

 

[Fudgie]

no I don't but that is an awesome idea!

 

[Dances with Ducks]

Mahonri - 84 eggs!

You must sell eggs, right?
how many hens do you have and what breed are they? Also where are you located?

Snowydiamonds - So from 40 Rhode Island Red hens you are getting about 30 eggs a day, aren't you up North somewhere where it's really cold and not many hours of daylight this time of year?

Of course chickens are better layers than ducks, except sometimes they say Khaki Campbell ducks out perform all chickens. I always wondered about that. So although I wasn't expecting to hear about chickens, I'm actually finding it pretty interesting to make this comparison.

I know at least with ducks what the best breeds for laying are according to the literature, but the ranges of eggs/year that are given vary a lot even within a breed. I was hoping to get people's actual real life experiences on which breeds are laying the best, or not so best right now. Also does anyone have this information from past years.

I hope to hear from other duck owners, even those with just a few hens. Does anyone else have Welsh Harlequins?

 

[sunbury chick]

Personally, I don't keep egg laying records.They aren't much fun to dance to,no beat....

 

[Dances with Ducks]

Well, personally I do beat mine, the eggs, not the records.

 

[Dances with Ducks]

Uhmm, that was dumb, sorry!

 

[sunbury chick]

too funny...