Farming and Homesteading Heritage Poultry

[finnfur]

The layer group gets layer pellets 24/7 but consumption goes way down when lots of forage is available. However any change can drop the production at least on a temporary basis.
Snow, Hawk kill,move coop, remove cock they all seem to alter it briefly. Creatures of habit I guess .

 

[Yellow House Farm]

"Good" egg production was much different (150 eggs a year was amazing back then, now it's considered below average). And while egg laying is genetic, nutritional science has come so far that is a big contributor.

If you want maximum production out of your birds, or indeed even what we consider "normal" these days you need to feed them a properly (professionally I might add) mixed diet and NOT rely on foraging or scraps to feed the birds. It's just that simple.

Too true, and there's no way around it.

However, most people say they want full production, but most folks don't actually need it. If you have hens giving you 150 eggs a piece, and you're just focused on your homestead, that's a lot of eggs.

Small and medium eggs were available, but so were large eggs. However, you got the eggs of the breed you had, and it didn't really matter. If you go to old cookbooks like the Joy of Cooking, etc..., in the appendices they often have egg charts that speak to equivalences. This is why the old egg-scales were so important. Recipes were written for large eggs, but many folks didn't have access to large eggs. If you or your egg-producing neighbor had Hamburgs, you had lots and lots of not large eggs. Still it's just a matter of weight. A large egg is 2-2 1/2 oz. So, if you need 4 large eggs for a given recipe, you really need approximately 9 oz. of egg. You would have just weighed out nine ounces of egg on the eggs scale, maybe five or six Hamburg eggs, and off you'd go.

I think it's a whole process of rethinking what you need and rethinking what chicken is. You're leaving Perdu; Perdu dies or it's rather "perdu" (lost). It's not just the end product but the entire rhythm. Marans are actually meat chickens. They're meat chickens that lay pretty eggs. If we're finding that their not well fleshed, that doesn't make them egg-birds; it makes them bad meat birds. However, they just need to be selected for fleshiness; it will come.

You can make due with one "dual-purpose" breed, but, if you want cheaper production, I'd keep three or four pairs of meat birds, i.e. most dual purpose breeds, and then I'd run a larger flock of egg-birds. It really is time to revive the Hamburg. Mediterranean and most Continental fowl are the way to go--honest to Pete. If you want meat birds, keep one breed and one variety of a "dual-purpose" fowl and keep three or four pairs. Breed them like rabbits, but don't keep more than 4 pairs. For your egg production keep pens of Hamburgs or Lakenvelders or Campines or Anconas or Andalusians or Buttercups. You'll drown in eggs and they'll consume 1/2 of what the same number of "dual-purpose" fowl would eat. When we were doing the egg markets, it wasn't with Dorking eggs; it was Anconas, dozens and dozens of Anconas. They just shell them out.

For homesteading, keep four pairs of dual-purpose and four sextets of egg-birds. You're set for life.

 

[Arielle]

Quote: Having taken a few feeds classes and worked on making formulations as classrooom exercises, starting with the forage is the best place. Foraging is often meant as "find what ever you can" and it also means eating the greens that are purposefully planted and maintained by the "farmer" for the domestic animal to eat. Based on what the content of the forage is ( protein, minerals, vitamins are the top items calculated) then a grain based feed is created to balance out the diet for high production. I love visiting with my grain delivery driver-- he owns the company.

A medium egg a day from a hen requires a known amount of calcium consummed a day; a jumbo egg required much more. ALso the amount of protein a hen needs to eat a day is well documented. Commercial egg production depends on this data to run an economically efficent facility.

Protein can be via a number of sources animal or vegetable. I have been looking at sources of clover and alfalfa to plant. I suspect that reducing the load on the land and allowing the insect population to florish in balance with the chickens may also work to add some animal protein.

THe bottom line is that a hen bred to produce 7 eggs a week that is ex-large- jumbo must also be fed the higher volume of cal, prot, vit and min that sustains that level of production.

"Scraps" are given a negative connotation which is unfortunate. Scraps simply mean leftovers; my dogs ate all our leftovers, and they ate better than most people. lol

I was at a dinner a few weeks ago and I mentioned I was going to throw the leftovers to the chickens. IN this particular case, it was the dessert. THe man beside me made a face and said "is that healthy for them?" I looked at him and said, "well . . you just ate it." My point was if it is good enough for a person to eat, why waste the leftovers, toss them to a chicken ( or a dog.)

I feed lots of leftovers: peanut butter sandwhiches, pea soup, over cooked granola, weeds from the garden, old eggs, leftover pizza and more. Having been in our schools in recent years, my chickens eat better than most kids.

I'm glad my birds can forage off my land, too. We don't use pesticides and never have. No fertilizers other than the horses and sheep, and now the chickens. Lots of shrubs, earthworms, grasses, and compost piles to turn over. The yolks are very thick, and dark orange for most of the hens. I know who is foraging and who is not. I noticed they love to go looking for good food and harass me looking for scraps and by- pass the bagged grain whenever given a choice.

In my opinion scraps can be fed, just know what those scraps need to be balanced with.

 

[colburg]

Quote:
Interesting. I tried to give you a thumbs up for your post, but something funky's going on with BYC or my comp. Birds for meat, and birds for eggs is something I've thought of doing, but I don't know that we could just jump in and responsibly breed 2 breeds right now. We'd like to get a handle on one breed first, then possibly get a second breed later. Thanks to everyone contributing. I find the old way of farm life(food management) fascinating, challenging, and a great goal, and your input is great.

 

[bnjrob]

We get everything from the occasional small to mostly medium through x-large eggs from our Javas - depending on which one laid it and what day it is. And we are drowning in eggs. Even when I hold back eggs for incubating, the food-laying hens still keep us in a surplus of what we can eat with eggs - that's with 5 food-egg hens and 6 breeding hens.

The only thing that we don't have enough of is meat and I doubt we would ever be able to raise enough chickens to meet our usual needs, since we do not eat pork and rarely eat beef, making chicken and ground turkey our main source of meat.

Our chickens have access at all times to a 24% chick crumble feed in addition to being pastured. Right now we have a zillion grasshoppers that the chickens are going after. Still working on getting better forage growing in our pasture, but we do have a lot of dock, dandelions, and a few other edible "weeds" growing naturally. Trying to dig up more cactus out of the pasture so we can seed it for better forage. I love being able to clean out the refrigerator and throw leftovers to the chickens and they like it too. I've been really bad lately about remembering to save the produce scraps for the chickens though.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Interesting. I tried to give you a thumbs up for your post, but something funky's going on with BYC or my comp. Birds for meat, and birds for eggs is something I've thought of doing, but I don't know that we could just jump in and responsibly breed 2 breeds right now. We'd like to get a handle on one breed first, then possibly get a second breed later. Thanks to everyone contributing. I find the old way of farm life(food management) fascinating, challenging, and a great goal, and your input is great.

Well, what will it be? Meat with some eggs or eggs with some meat?

 

[Arielle]

EIther way, they are delicious!!!

 

[gjensen]

You get what you give. Every output requires an input. You will never profit without investing. If you cut back on your investment, then you scale back your return.

Some breeds/strains might fare better under more rugged conditions than others. A lot of that is how much bird there is to mantain. It requires alot of protein to mantain the extra feather and flesh. Body maintenance comes first.

Good range is as benificial to poultry health as anything I know. A dark moist poultry house is as detrimental to poultry health as anything I know. That said good range doesn't necessarily fill the egg baskets.

We speak alot of grass concerning range, but if you really watch them. They are looking for insects, weed seeds, weed sprouts, and new tender growth as much as anything. Of course they will eat grass but they prefer the others. Chickens are not ruminants, and do not thrive on especially high fiber diets like ruminants. We speak alot of protein, and it may be the largest limiting factor, but what the birds need more of anything is energy. That is where the importance of cheap grains come in.

It is more economical to balance the range than for the range to balance the ration. Estimate the aproximate protein % of the range, feed a more nutritionally dense feed and throw them some extra whole grain as a management treat. Keep oyster shells and charcoal free choice in front of the birds, and you and the birds will benefit from the range and you will not see a drop in the egg basket.

Otherwise go to breeds that do not need as much concerning maintainence of flesh and feather and settle on your expectations. Grain has been cheap in this country for long time, but I suspect that trend is being reversed. It might be worth considering this when we select our birds for a homestead like enterprise.

 

[Yellow House Farm]

Amen. For many, I think it's time to move beyond birds that are "nice" and "roo's" that are sweet to chickens that are real chickens. In short, there's a lot to be said for birds that lay white eggs. That's all we have, and I'm a fan.

 

[Arielle]

You get what you give. Every output requires an input. You will never profit without investing. If you cut back on your investment, then you scale back your return.

Some breeds/strains might fare better under more rugged conditions than others. A lot of that is how much bird there is to mantain. It requires alot of protein to mantain the extra feather and flesh. Body maintenance comes first.

Good range is as benificial to poultry health as anything I know. A dark moist poultry house is as detrimental to poultry health as anything I know. That said good range doesn't necessarily fill the egg baskets.

We speak alot of grass concerning range, but if you really watch them. They are looking for insects, weed seeds, weed sprouts, and new tender growth as much as anything. Of course they will eat grass but they prefer the others. Chickens are not ruminants, and do not thrive on especially high fiber diets like ruminants. We speak alot of protein, and it may be the largest limiting factor, but what the birds need more of anything is energy. That is where the importance of cheap grains come in.

It is more economical to balance the range than for the range to balance the ration. Estimate the aproximate protein % of the range, feed a more nutritionally dense feed and throw them some extra whole grain as a management treat. Keep oyster shells and charcoal free choice in front of the birds, and you and the birds will benefit from the range and you will not see a drop in the egg basket.

Otherwise go to breeds that do not need as much concerning maintainence of flesh and feather and settle on your expectations. Grain has been cheap in this country for long time, but I suspect that trend is being reversed. It might be worth considering this when we select our birds for a homestead like enterprise.

In regard to grasses, the chickens do prefer the soft tender grasses. They eat my lawn all winter long and loved the lawn in the spring. I suspect it was heaviy foraged because there were no insects/worms to find at that time. Now the lawn in much higher and I have had to put the sheep out there to keep the lawn mowed. THe chickens like the shorter grasses to nibble on. I will see a group out in the late afternoon eating.

On the other hand, my speckled sussex are in te woods and they stay up in that area. Boy they move a lot of leaves in a day. Under the old fall leaves must be many goodies as they move all the leaves every day. THey forage over about 1/4 acre of wooded area and a small shady pasture.

WHat I am seeing is a need for several types of farmyard animals to complement each others eating needs. Sheep take down the taller stuff, but if it is too tall they leave it. CHickens like the shorter, early growth before it matures stuff. THis still leaves some grasses not eaten. WHich reminds me that years ago on a flat pastureland I still had to mow a few times a summer to knock down the weeds and tall growth the sheep ignored. Kinda hard to do when the land is rocky and full of trees and bushes.

YEllow House, how do you manage your land to provide optimal feed for the chickens?