How long does a layer 'last'

[Davaroo]

Quote:
For starters go back and read this thread and the links given. These spell out the principles in a nut shell.
In it's simplest form, you decide what you want and then breed only from birds that come closest to it.

For example, lets say you want a chicken that gives 200 eggs per year**. We've already seen that the prime considerations for layer selection are:

- Early sexual maturity
- Persistence in laying
- Non-broodiness
- Good rate of lay

Lets say you start with 10 hens. You monitor these hens and record what they do.
Those that start laying soonest are recorded as early maturing. Then you keep an eye on total egg output - per chicken. From this you learn that about 8 of ten are laying every other day (180 eggs/year), which is good. The 20% that don't measure up to these 8 go to freezer camp.

Now you observe that one of the remaining 8 goes broody often, working you overtime to keep her off the nest. She was an early layer and lays good when she is at it, but she is always gathering and trying to set eggs on the nest. During this time she is unapproachable, a feathered demon that lays nothing. Its the freezer for her.

Finally you watch the remaining 7 and learn that 1 of them molts with the rest - but stays in the molt long after the others. And when she does finally come out, she is slow to start laying again. You guessed it, shes "invited" to Sunday dinner.

By the end of the first season you are left with 6 hens that mature early, lay at a good rate, are reluctant brooders and are persistent at their work. These are the hens you will breed from into next season.

You can see, that if the 'culls' were simply left to breed on, their undesirable traits would be bred into the flocks' genetic pool as a whole. In time this takes hold and spoils the flock. By removing hens that perform poorly over several seasons, the flock will lay better, more consistently, and will show development towards your goal of 200 eggs per year/bird.

** Notice I don't use the "egg a day" measurement we all love so much. That is an inconsistent measure. Egg laying is seasonal, it can be momentarily disrupted by environmental or biological factors, and evidence studied over long test periods is more accurate than transitory "egg a day" standards.
The record egg laying hen, Australorp No. 21, gave 364 eggs in one year. That sounds like one egg per day and for that one hen, in that one competition, it was.
It should also be noted that her extreme production was bred into her line over many years, selection of that line based on annual laying figures.
I've read the documentation behind that competition. That is how they did it then and how successful breeders do it still.

 

[Xanatos]

So how do I tell which chicken does what=p they are all the same looking

 

[Davaroo]

Quote:
One of the reasons most people don't invest a lot of effort into flock improvement is that it requires their constant presence and vigilance. I'll wager that most chickeneers are casual or hobbyist poultry wranglers, and just "have some chickens." But they also have jobs or school or other facets of life to contend with. This is why most rely on someone else to do the breeding for them.
If you are to do it yourself, then you must first be there and paying attention to your flock.

If you can overcome that important hurdle, then marking the hens and keeping good written records is your answer to the question, "How do I tell which chicken does what?"

Some people use a dot of paint: red for one trait, blue for another and so on. Some use colored legbands, which are probably more common. When a bird is found to be "guilty" of one of the bad traits, it gets marked with that color.
One color for late egg laying, one for broodiness, etc. When the hens begin accumulating "colors," you know which are the culls.

Egg laying is going to be the stickiest situation, though. Ideally you use trap nests, so you know which hens are using the nests to actually lay eggs. This doesn't tell you about broodiness, as much, but it does get you along the way towards that. However, there is little substitute for the trap nest if you are to precisely account for the chickens' lying ability. This precision will give you the fastest, tangible results possible. The sole drawback to trap nests is that you must release the hen and collect her egg...meaning you 'aint gonna leave home too much.

If you can watch them closely all the time, then it may not be necessary, but that is probably going to be impractical, too, and less precise. The best alternative is probably the semi-trap nest, one that releases the hen into a "holding area" for later release into the yard. This wont tell you which hens laid which eggs, just that they went into the nest and were released into the holding yard. (Obviously, those that stay in the nest and get puffed-up and demon crazed are broody prone - problem solved there.)
Counting the eggs after everyone has "done their business" then tells you how many of the holdee's did lay, and is a fair compromise. Trap nests of either kind are also darkened and tend to eliminate egg-eating among the hens, since chickens wont eat if they cannot see.

This assumes egg laying improvement is your goal, if you recall. But that is just one hypothetical situation. Other than obvious weight gain among meat birds, egg laying is the chickens only other purpose so it is the one most often studied (we can discount manure production, since few people keep them solely for their poo).

To keep this more practical, and less hypothetical, if you only focused on the easier of the three attributes, i.e., early sexual maturity, persistence in laying/short molt periods and non-broodiness, you would go a long way to improving your flock. For most people this is going to be the most practical solution.

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FINAL NOTE: All of this may seem a lot of trouble, and it likely is for most. It's far simpler to just feed them and buy replacements each season, allowing someone else to do the breeding work. And that's okay; the methods I describe come from a time when that wasn't always an option.

Surprisingly, the hatchery industry we take for granted today didn't always exist. It was strictly localized in the past, and that not too long ago. Our ability to choose from among many sources and/or have the chicks mailed to us is a major boon.
But things change, not the least of which are laws - soon you won't be able to legally own Muscovy ducks. Did you know that change was coming March 31, 2010?

Suppose they next outlaw the shipping of live chicks or the unregulated transfer of stock among private individuals... as a means to combat bio-terrorism, for example? It is already being discussed, in case you weren't aware of it.

If that occurred, you should probably know how this is done, eh?