- Feb 18, 2014
- 2
- 3
- 60
I have been using Back Yard Chickens for research on poultry for a few years and never join, however had to join to send a message to someone who has Copper Marans.
I have 28 hens: 6 - Golden Comets, 3 - Reds, 2- Dark Brahmas, 5 - Welsummers, 7- Black Giants, 2 - Silver Spitz, 1 - Sicilian Buttercup, 1 - Barred Rock, 1 - Cuckoo Maran, a chocolate male turkey and a female Royal palm turkey in my free range, snow filled pasture. We had roosters but they have all gone into the freezer. We also raised a Silver Slate Turkey and two big breasted bronze turkeys (the male weighed in at 43 pounds before butchering and 35 pounds before putting in the roaster - ok he didn't fit in the roaster, he over flowed it.)
Forgot to mention that I am currently getting an average of 20 eggs a day some days I get 22 eggs and other days only 17, but those are days that are rare.
I should say that my chicken raising began back on the dairy farm I grew up on. But restarted a couple years back when a friend wanted to raise chickens and needed some help. This lead to me getting free eggs, but then one of his birds got caught up in fish line that was found in a hay bale we had given to the birds to scratch thru. We didn't see that she had a problem right a way, and when we did see her walking funny we couldn't catch her right a way. So the fish line became so bound up with her struggling movements that it cut into her leg and foot. We performed fish line ectomy, with lots of snipping and blue coating. Then we placed her in a large dog crate for her to heal. Before she got tangled in the fish line she was on the lower side of the pecking order and the other chickens chased her a lot and pecked her and removed a lot of her feathers. She molted early that year while in the dog crate hospital. She healed and was all feathered out and laying again in under 2 months so we put her back with the other chickens, she had a limp and her foot was mildly crippled but she moved really well. Well in a week the other chickens had pecked her and she was bleeding and had a lot of feathers removed. So back to the Dog crate hospital, where she spent the rest of the winter in the basement with outside trips as weather and time permitted. So at my house me and my partner had decided to bring the outcast gimpy bird aka Plucky (was what I had named her) over to our house. We built her a large Chicken coop, got some baby chicks and she ruled the roost. In a few months we went from Plucky and 3 chicks to Plucky and 49 chicks and 6 turkeys. So our rescued chicken - Plucky, still rules the roost, lays an egg a day in the summer with one day off each week, she rules the turkeys too. Plucky loves dried meal worms, sunflower seeds, stale bread-crackers-cereal-chips and fresh apples off the apple trees, and any vegetable scraps we throw out to her. She shares well with the other birds but they all back down to her if she comes up for a scrap on the ground.
So now I am in a dilemma, wanting more chickens and currently being overrun with eggs with all my young birds coming online at the same time. So going by best practices, and having offset laying cycles means replacing birds every year. I plan on getting new birds every year so that I don't have any down time with egg production but the downside is always having a spring surplus when the older molting birds come back online. I looked at many different birds, and decided that Marans were the way to go. They lay less eggs, are a dual purpose bird, eggs or meat, and they have those wonderful chocolate colored eggs. Eventually, over the next couple of years I expect to have the right balance and have a steady out put of eggs that has fewer highs and lows in the egg production cycle. I will always have a menagerie of different breeds, one to see how other birds are personality and egg wise and two because I will probably be rescuing birds from time to time. And I still have to get this years turkeys as well, heritage birds early on and the big breasted variety later on.
Guess this was a long intro.......
Connie
I have 28 hens: 6 - Golden Comets, 3 - Reds, 2- Dark Brahmas, 5 - Welsummers, 7- Black Giants, 2 - Silver Spitz, 1 - Sicilian Buttercup, 1 - Barred Rock, 1 - Cuckoo Maran, a chocolate male turkey and a female Royal palm turkey in my free range, snow filled pasture. We had roosters but they have all gone into the freezer. We also raised a Silver Slate Turkey and two big breasted bronze turkeys (the male weighed in at 43 pounds before butchering and 35 pounds before putting in the roaster - ok he didn't fit in the roaster, he over flowed it.)
Forgot to mention that I am currently getting an average of 20 eggs a day some days I get 22 eggs and other days only 17, but those are days that are rare.
I should say that my chicken raising began back on the dairy farm I grew up on. But restarted a couple years back when a friend wanted to raise chickens and needed some help. This lead to me getting free eggs, but then one of his birds got caught up in fish line that was found in a hay bale we had given to the birds to scratch thru. We didn't see that she had a problem right a way, and when we did see her walking funny we couldn't catch her right a way. So the fish line became so bound up with her struggling movements that it cut into her leg and foot. We performed fish line ectomy, with lots of snipping and blue coating. Then we placed her in a large dog crate for her to heal. Before she got tangled in the fish line she was on the lower side of the pecking order and the other chickens chased her a lot and pecked her and removed a lot of her feathers. She molted early that year while in the dog crate hospital. She healed and was all feathered out and laying again in under 2 months so we put her back with the other chickens, she had a limp and her foot was mildly crippled but she moved really well. Well in a week the other chickens had pecked her and she was bleeding and had a lot of feathers removed. So back to the Dog crate hospital, where she spent the rest of the winter in the basement with outside trips as weather and time permitted. So at my house me and my partner had decided to bring the outcast gimpy bird aka Plucky (was what I had named her) over to our house. We built her a large Chicken coop, got some baby chicks and she ruled the roost. In a few months we went from Plucky and 3 chicks to Plucky and 49 chicks and 6 turkeys. So our rescued chicken - Plucky, still rules the roost, lays an egg a day in the summer with one day off each week, she rules the turkeys too. Plucky loves dried meal worms, sunflower seeds, stale bread-crackers-cereal-chips and fresh apples off the apple trees, and any vegetable scraps we throw out to her. She shares well with the other birds but they all back down to her if she comes up for a scrap on the ground.
So now I am in a dilemma, wanting more chickens and currently being overrun with eggs with all my young birds coming online at the same time. So going by best practices, and having offset laying cycles means replacing birds every year. I plan on getting new birds every year so that I don't have any down time with egg production but the downside is always having a spring surplus when the older molting birds come back online. I looked at many different birds, and decided that Marans were the way to go. They lay less eggs, are a dual purpose bird, eggs or meat, and they have those wonderful chocolate colored eggs. Eventually, over the next couple of years I expect to have the right balance and have a steady out put of eggs that has fewer highs and lows in the egg production cycle. I will always have a menagerie of different breeds, one to see how other birds are personality and egg wise and two because I will probably be rescuing birds from time to time. And I still have to get this years turkeys as well, heritage birds early on and the big breasted variety later on.
Guess this was a long intro.......
Connie
and Welcome To BYC!
