Greetings from SC

[CooperCarolina]

We live on a large farm where peaches and strawberries have been our traditional cash crop for generations, but climate change has meant several years of damaged or decreased production (or even total crop loss, like this year) and so we are looking into investing in more chickens for egg production as an alternative.

Quick question: Chickens don't bloom prematurely in early March if we hit a streak of 70 degree weather do they?

Seriously, though, we have had a small coop and several birds for our own egg production for a while now so we are not inexperienced when it comes to chickens, but as we slowly expand our operation, we will be bound to have questions and we are eager to learn from the experiences of others.

BTW, the handle "Cooper" actually refers to our Great Pyrenees/Newfie mutt... the best guard dog and friend to chickens anyone could ever ask for! (He was actually born in a rooster pen!)

 

[Cynthia12]

To answer one question...serious here.. Chickens mature at different times. Different breeds, different times. All of the sex links, and the leghorn, and a few more, tend to mature and lay early. Other breeds as the Ameraucanas and EE's tend to lay later. As early as 4 months for the sex links, as late as 10 months for the Am. and EE's..although usually around 5 to 7 months. My experience here, and talking to others. Some may have experienced different.
Love love dogs! Used to foster and rescue, never had the chance to foster a Pyrenees. Would have loved to.
My favorite breed..have had three now..the Golden R. I have my first female right now. She's a love, and I trust her with my chickens!

 

[drumstick diva]

Welcome to Backyard chickens.

Sorry I wouldn't know what to recommend. Raising animals/poultry etc. is probably as fraught with peril as raising crops. Aside from aberrant weather conditions - chickens for example (especially commercial endeavors) have been badly hit by the avian virus with millions being euthanized (!). mereks disease is everywhere - survivors are carriers for life etc. Some respiratory diseases are extremely contagious and wipe out flocks. All this is bad for egg /chick sales etc

Probably diversity is the way to go Hopefully other responders will have positive comments to add. Some do have thriving egg business.

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

Hi

Glad you could join the flock! You have received some great advice from the above posters so I will just say Hi and welcome.

Wishing you the very best of luck with your future endeavours.
Enjoy BYC and all the chicken chat

 

[Michael OShay]

Welcome to BYC. Glad you decided to join our flock. I'm sorry to hear about the loss in peach and strawberry production. I don't know what breeds you have, but if high egg production is a priority, I would recommend getting either White Leghorns (for white eggs) or Sex Links (for brown eggs). These are the hens that laying houses use for commercial purposes as they are laying machines, consistently churning out more than 300 large eggs per hen per year. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Good luck with your egg production.

 

[N F C]

Welcome to BYC!

It would be fun to see a photo of your Cooper, he must be a big guy with those 2 breeds going into him! I'm sorry about your peaches and strawberry crops.

In addition to the egg production side of poultry (excellent suggestions by Michael O'Shay on Leghorns and Sex Links), have you considered raising meat birds? That could be one more thing to offer your customers. There's an excellent article by a member on his method for raising them healthy and large: https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/raising-large-table-birds

Wish you good luck! Thanks for joining us.

 

[BantamFan4Life]

Welcome to BYC! I'm glad you joined us!

 

[CooperCarolina]

Welcome to BYC!

It would be fun to see a photo of your Cooper, he must be a big guy with those 2 breeds going into him! I'm sorry about your peaches and strawberry crops.

It took me a while to get around to it, but I finally posted a picture of the big guy before he became such a big guy. My avatar is a picture of Cooper at about 7 months and he is STILL growing!

 

[trailrider330]

Welcome to the BYC flock! We are glad you joined us!

 

[N F C]

It took me a while to get around to it, but I finally posted a picture of the big guy before he became such a big guy. My avatar is a picture of Cooper at about 7 months and he is STILL growing!

What a great looking dog Cooper is! That is going to be one big guy.

Thanks for sharing the picture!