How in the heck do you keep track of egg production with multiple hens on pasture??

[countrygoddess]

I have 5 old layers and 9 new pullets who will start laying this fall. I'll be starting a breeding program with my Dorkings next year and will need to keep track of egg production in order to choose breeders, but I'm wondering just how I am supposed to do this? My birds are all out on pasture with a hoop coop they can retreat to in the heat, at night, and to lay. When I go out in the morning and the nesting boxes have eggs in them, how am I supposed to know who layed them? The only thing I'll know for sure is which eggs belong to my EEs and which are my banties'.

And in a similar vein, I'm going to use broody girls to hatch eggs, not an incubator. I'll collect the hatching eggs as if for an incubator and then use a broody girl to hatch them. Each clutch will stay in its own "house" (I will have 3 separate "houses" for my 3 clans for use ONLY during mating/brooding) and each "house" will start with 2 hens the first year. I think I'll probably only keep as many as 4 breeders at a time because I just don't have the space for more than that. So if I'm collecting eggs from up to 4 girls per "house", then setting them all under a broody or two (again, keeping them in their own "house"), how will I know which baby came from which egg, even if I marked the eggs?

I'm reading so much information on breeding, but things like this just aren't addressed.

 

[LizzieJ]

I think you may be asking the impossible! If only chickens stamped their eggs with a makers mark as they are laid! the only way to know is to segregate them and monitor them individually. im afraid its the luck of the draw!

 

[countrygoddess]

I suppose when some of the authors I'm reading are talking about counting how many eggs each chickens lays, they're assuming a more factory-like setting. But one of the publications I read is from The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, and I thought they were all about pasturing heritage breeds. Maybe I could write to the authors.

Harvey Ussery discusses collecting the eggs and then setting them under a girl or two after marking them. Maybe somehow I can write to him to ask him how HE knows which baby belongs to which mommy?? LOL

 

[LizzieJ]

LOL its worth a try but it sounds like an awful lot of work to me! ....................personally i would just let nature do its thing.
Good luck!!!

 

[countrygoddess]

LOL its worth a try but it sounds like an awful lot of work to me! ....................personally i would just let nature do its thing.
Good luck!!!

LOL Thanks! I would, too, but for conservation and improvement purposes I have to. *sigh* I'll figure something out...