My girls will be 20 weeks on Tuesday. Standard hatchery RIR's. If they were production reds I would expect some egg laying behavior by now. No squatting, no gap in the pelvic bone and no interest in the nesting boxes yet. Here are a few pics of them showing off their newly developed combs and wattles. Snoop in the first pic, Lemon in the second and Leticia in the third. Dottie got photographed last night and she has the smallest, most pale comb of all 4 with almost no wattles so she let her sisters have the stage today. You can see Dot in the background of the second pic.
Now that the days are getting longer they should all be developing soon.
X2.Mine haven't had much ranging opportunities this winter either but they are still only eating 1/2 c. per bird and maintaining good condition. I think it has a lot to do with breed also....my breeds were chosen for feed thrift and then culled for the same, so they can maintain good conditioning on less feed than other breeds and birds. That's one aspect of saving on feeds that many just don't understand....there are breeds that over eat and store fat and then there are breeds that can't seem to hold condition without larger portions of feed.
The key is to get breeds known for maintaining good condition and laying on minimal feed input. If you really want to save money on feed and also have a healthier flock that you don't constantly have to tweak with feed ration supplements, try getting breeds and birds that have a slower metabolism, that forage actively for their feed and that produce well on forage and normal feed rations of protein/carbs.
Flock management is a broad spectrum of things that people need to wrap their minds around...it's more than adding feed to birds to get eggs. So much more.
They're not egg machines. They're various breeds of individuals that happen to produce hen fruit, some prolifically.
I don't have any forage to speak of anywhere so I've kept them in the pens they've been in for a while. It's getting back to zero at night this week so nothing's growing. I might let each flock free range on rotating days and see if they can find anything to eat. At least they'll have fun trying.
I'm hoping after next week, the weather will at least stay above freezing during the day so I don't have to carry so much water. I can also start planting forage and rotating pastures.
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