How Many Eggs Did You Get Today?

[JimWWhite]

19 Today from our 24 BSL's. Rainy, cold day here in central NC. Supposed to be nicer tomorrow. Hope so.

 

[twinzmom]

Last 3 days we gotten 7 eggs each day. Before that we were getting 8 & 9 a day.
I'm sure it's only a matter of time before they kick back in high laying gear

 

[lahowardjr]

I only got three from fourteen hens today. The weather has been poor and so is the egg production.

 

[Gifa]

Four from fourteen. I feed 2 cups of Purina 16% "Fresh Recipe" layer pellets and a hand full of corn.

For 14 hens, you should be setting out no less than 3 lbs. of layer feed a day. They should each be consuming about a fifth of a pound (.2 lbs) to a quarter pound (.25 lbs) of feed per day... each. After that, a hand full of corn every other day is alright. 2 cups of layer feed and a handful of corn is barely enough to feed 3 chickens... This explains your flock's performance. In addition to the low number of eggs your getting... by feeding them so little, you're likely to induce a hard molt in your entire flock which means no eggs... From what I understand, restricting feed to induce a hard molt is a common practice in the big industrial egg farms so they can control and stagger molt times and ensure they don't have any mass cessation of egg production that causes any kind of shortage from the consumer's prospective.

I've created a custom scratch blend... here are the ratios if you are interested.

1 parts Cracked Corn
2 parts Whole Oats
2 parts Milo (a.k.a. Sorghum)
1 parts BOSS

And I think I threw in a few cups of some rolled oats into this batch too. But that was mostly to free up another container.

This is what the blend looks like:




Values are approximate, but you can see how little corn is in there... and again, I only throw out a cup every other day or so for them... and occasionally, on exceptionally cold mornings or nights, I'll mix a half a cup of this into a cup of warm oatmeal, prepared with a half cup of their layer feed, and a dollop of plain yogurt...

But for the most part, there's enough corn in their layer crumble as is and they don't need the extra fat.

 

[hennotrooster]

4 yesterday from 5 girls, they have 2 nest boxes, but only one time have I seen an egg in the other side, they all prefer the left side...hmmm curious

We have 6 nest boxes and they all want to lay in the very last one or the very front one. They are funny to watch too. They will stand outside the nest and wait till the hen inside drops her egg then try to climb on top of her to push her out so that the intruding hen can lay. On the rare occasion I will find an egg in 3 different nests.

 

[twinzmom]

That's funny because our girls also prefer the left side of our community nest box, it's rare for us to fing eggs on the right side. Right this minute I have one hen standing over another whi,e she is laying and the one standing seems to be telling her to hurry the heck up! I don't know why she doesn't just turn around and use the other side!?

 

[bruceha2000]

That's funny because our girls also prefer the left side of our community nest box, it's rare for us to fing eggs on the right side. Right this minute I have one hen standing over another while,e she is laying and the one standing seems to be telling her to hurry the heck up! I don't know why she doesn't just turn around and use the other side!?

With their little pea sized brains you would think they wouldn't have much available to be so persnickety

Mine do the same thing. Still haven't gotten a box to break the broodies and they are locking up two of the three "open" boxes. Some girls just HAVE to have one of those. Sometimes they just fuss about a long time (when I've seen that, I pull the broodie) and sometimes they decide they "gotta go now" and try to make space in the box WITH the broodie. They are only 12x12, not too much extra room. I put the plastic egg back in the community box so maybe some of them will go back to that one. Of the 4 eggs I've gotten today (all by 10 AM, 2 were with the plastic egg on the left side, on on the right side and one in the empty "open" box.

I think I last posted on Feb 18th (been busy) so:
Feb 19th 6
Feb 20th 6
Feb 21th 5
Feb 22nd 5
Feb 23rd 7
Feb 24th 4 (so far)

Bruce

 

[hennotrooster]

Wow had not thought of it but mine lay in the nests all the way to the left of the coop or once in awhile all the way to the right. They very seldom lay in the center nests but always to the left and that is the nest they stand in line for.

 

[twinzmom]

The buff that was on the left moved to the right and then back to the left...when I went back out to check on them again no one was in the box and there were 3 eggs all on the left....they sure weren't there earlier! Funny birds! And they move the golf ball around with them!
That leaves me with 9 eggs from 11 girls!

 

[Greyfox Farm]

It seems tat the girls are conscious of the change in the light levels as we progress through winter. The temperature here still isn't above freezing during the day, and I don't add extra light. My totals for each of the last three weeks are 14/22/35. We just got another 14" of snow today so we're at about 36" snow-pack and there's another 3"-6" coming Tuesday, with another storm for the weekend. The poor girls will NEVER see the ground before Memorial Day!