Hi all friends

[babul]

I am from Bihar I am currently staying in our provincial capital Patna for educational purpose.My family is a typical Indian farmer family we keep few cows, water buffaloes, goats and chickens.
Our hens are poor layers laying only about 150 brown eggs anually they are also very flighty. But they are excellent mothers. Their meat is of superior quality.
We provide them with almost no additional food because they are very good foragers. Currently my family is having 22 birds including 4 roosters. Our flock requires almost no capital investment.
Of the qualified breeds only Leghorn is available locally.I was planning to add a few Leghorn chiks to my flock thats why I was doing Google research. In that process I luckily found you good people and applied for membership.

Please advice me on Leghorns and pardon me for my rotten English.

thaks a thousand times.

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

Hi Bihar

Glad you could join us here! Your English is fine, nothing to worry about at all
Have you checked out the learning centre? Lots of great articles there, here is the link ~https://www.backyardchickens.com/atype/1/Learning_Center
I've not kept leghorns before but please do drop by the breed section for reviews on them ~ https://www.backyardchickens.com/products/category/chicken-breeds

Also if you type leghorns into the search box above many threads should come up on them.

Good luck for the future and enjoy BYC

 

[Pork Pie]

Hi there and welcome to byc - great to have you join us. Interesting that your choice of commercial chickens is limited to leghorns. I live in Kenya and apparently a lot of our commercial breeds are sourced in India! I actually have some examples in my flock.

What I would say is for commercial breeds to lay at their best, you may need to consider commercial feed. No reason why you should not give some a try with your other hens in terms of foraging and see how they go, in fact I'd be interested to hear how they lay.

All best

Ct

 

[babul]

thanks Ken and Yorkshire coop,
Actually my birds performe good if you consider the investment. The main problem with them is that after laying regularly for about 20-25 day they will go broody.
I never new that chickens are outsourced from India.But I knew that some Indian blood flows in commercial breeds.
It is only a few days ago when I came to know about a nearby hatchery who hatch mainly boiler chicks and some Leghorn layers.
However currently we buy chicks from trible tradesmen for about ₹250(4.85 dollars) or 15kg of rice for a dozen chickes. As for free ranging they get agitated if they are not allowed out early in the morning. Also the commercial feed sold here are for boiler purpose I am not sure weather it will be safe to give them that feed.
please advise me wise friends.

 

[babul]

thanks Ken and Yorkshire coop,
Actually my birds performe good if you consider the investment. The main problem with them is that after laying regularly for about 20-25 day they will go broody.
I never new that chickens are outsourced from India.But I knew that some Indian blood flows in commercial breeds.
It is only a few days ago when I came to know about a nearby hatchery who hatch mainly boiler chicks and some Leghorn layers.
However currently we buy chicks from trible tradesmen for about ₹250(4.85 dollars) or 15kg of rice for a dozen chickes. As for free ranging they get agitated if they are not allowed out early in the morning. Also the commercial feed sold here are for boiler purpose I am not sure weather it will be safe to give them that feed.
please advise me wise friends.

 

[babul]

thanks Ken and Yorkshire coop,
Actually my birds performe good if you consider the investment. The main problem with them is that after laying regularly for about 20-25 day they will go broody.
I never new that chickens are outsourced from India.But I knew that some Indian blood flows in commercial breeds.
It is only a few days ago when I came to know about a nearby hatchery who hatch mainly boiler chicks and some Leghorn layers.
However currently we buy chicks from trible tradesmen for about ₹250(4.85 dollars) or 15kg of rice for a dozen chickes. As for free ranging they get agitated if they are not allowed out early in the morning. Also the commercial feed sold here are for boiler purpose I am not sure weather it will be safe to give them that feed.
please advise me wise friends.

 

[babul]

thanks Ken and Yorkshire coop,
Actually my birds performe good if you consider the investment. The main problem with them is that after laying regularly for about 20-25 day they will go broody.
I never new that chickens are outsourced from India.But I knew that some Indian blood flows in commercial breeds.
It is only a few days ago when I came to know about a nearby hatchery who hatch mainly boiler chicks and some Leghorn layers.
However currently we buy chicks from trible tradesmen for about ₹250(4.85 dollars) or 15kg of rice for a dozen chickes. As for free ranging they get agitated if they are not allowed out early in the morning. Also the commercial feed sold here are for boiler purpose I am not sure weather it will be safe to give them that feed.
please advise me wise friends.

 

[Pork Pie]

Firstly, you are most welcome. I'd suggest getting a couple of leghorns and see how they get on - if they lay 5-6 eggs a week without commercial feed then that's great. If they don't lay as you would expect then commercial growers food is "ok" as long as you can find a source of calcium also (they need this for egg production). Not sure what your options could be - maybe bonemeal, crushed limestone or anything else you can lay your hands on. I'd honestly try them with your other chickens and see how they go - who knows, they may lay well, and perhaps more importantly will be less likely to go broody and thus give you a boost in overall production. Even if they only lay 4 eggs per week on foraged food but don't go broody then that's a good result without the expense of commercial food.

Good luck and feel free to keep asking!

Ct

 

[BantamFan4Life]

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

 

[babul]

well I have ordered for Leghorn chicks today, hope they will do good. thanks BantamFan