How many chickens?

[Keepitathome]

We're planning dual purpose birds. I read somewhere that layers generally have 3 really good years, so their suggestion was that you cull a 1/3 of the flock each year to give you a 3yr rotation.... Sounds good to me but then we started doing the math. We originally thought we'd need about 30 chickens since there are 10 of us and we eat a lot of eggs. But then if we eat 2 chickens a week that's 104 chickens to cull each year!! So how do we do this?? Our goal is self sufficiency. We'll have cows we're raising for meat and milk and the chickens will free range, but I can't imagine having 300 chickens!! We don't eat that many eggs!

 

[CochinBrahmaLover]

Best way to do it is find a few different breeds that are meaty, egg layers, and tend to be mellow tempered. Raise about 15 of those, and make your own little breed. You can breed for meaty Roos, good laying hens, and whatever trait you want. Crest. Blue eggs. Crazy colors. It's quite fun, since so long as you have meaty birds for butcher and good layers for around 3 years, then you just get to play however you want.

Granite if you don't feel like have seperate breeding pens and such, then again find a few different breeds you like, and buy 30 one year, hatch (self sufficient, right?! ) 30 or more next year, etc. just each year hatch out around 30-ish, give or take however many you want, so come third year you'll have 2nd year layers and 1st year layers, so you just butcher the ones who have stopped laying, and you should have a batch in the bator or brooder ready to fill a spot next year. So really you'll be killing around 30 chickens every year.
Hope that made sense. I don't get how killing 1/3 of your flock will change the ages or anything of the other hens?? I don't know, I didn't get your math! Sorry

 

[CochinBrahmaLover]

Oh and if you want to butcher more hens then just up your amount of chickens and get some cockerel runs (hatcheries breed for egg production, so I'd order from a hatchery unless you want show quality hens and such.)

 

[Keepitathome]

Best way to do it is find a few different breeds that are meaty, egg layers, and tend to be mellow tempered. Raise about 15 of those, and make your own little breed. You can breed for meaty Roos, good laying hens, and whatever trait you want. Crest. Blue eggs. Crazy colors. It's quite fun, since so long as you have meaty birds for butcher and good layers for around 3 years, then you just get to play however you want.

Granite if you don't feel like have seperate breeding pens and such, then again find a few different breeds you like, and buy 30 one year, hatch (self sufficient, right?!

) 30 or more next year, etc. just each year hatch out around 30-ish, give or take however many you want, so come third year you'll have 2nd year layers and 1st year layers, so you just butcher the ones who have stopped laying, and you should have a batch in the bator or brooder ready to fill a spot next year. So really you'll be killing around 30 chickens every year.
Hope that made sense. I don't get how killing 1/3 of your flock will change the ages or anything of the other hens?? I don't know, I didn't get your math! Sorry

I think the general idea is like you stated you start out with the number of chickens you'll butcher in a year, then the following year you add the same number of chicks, 3rd year you add the same number of chicks and then you butcher your first set of hens and repeat the process. The problem I'm coming up with is A: housing 200-300 chickens and B; 200 chickens laying eggs!

We currently go through about 90 eggs a week and I'm sure that will increase as the boys get older (I have 7 boys 13yrs and under, we're expecting to go through a lot of food) but still even if only half of the layers are laying each day that's 100 eggs A DAY! What on earth am I going to do with that many eggs?

I don't think I'm interested in trying to keep 3 different breeds separate, but I also don't mind having 3 different breeds intermingle if they all have qualities we like. It could be quite interesting actually. We have no intentions of showing, we're wanting food, pest control and manure movers; they'll go through the pastures behind the cows so they can scratch in the manure. Which is another question, if we do end up with 300 chickens, how much land do they need for foraging? We want to give as little feed as possible and expect the birds to be self sufficient most of the year.