How Many Eggs Did You Get Today?

[Renee572]

I'm getting a little concerned when I see some of you have what I would consider a large amount of hens but only a few eggs. We have 5 chickens which we actually share with our neighbors so if we only get 1 or 2 eggs everyday then 5 hens are not gonna cut it for 2 families! :/ maybe I'm gonna have to do some chicken math!

 

[ochochicas]

I'm getting a little concerned when I see some of you have what I would consider a large amount of hens but only a few eggs. We have 5 chickens which we actually share with our neighbors so if we only get 1 or 2 eggs everyday then 5 hens are not gonna cut it for 2 families!

maybe I'm gonna have to do some chicken math!

Here is the story on my hens:
16 total
2 went broody and have chicks now
6 are around 19 weeks and not quite ready to lay yet
2 were given to me as laying hens, but have not laid a single egg the entire time I've had them. I think they are over 4 years old now and done laying.
That leaves six that are actually laying. They all laid today. One was a mini egg from a pullet, and one of them cracked after they were fighting over their next on a bale of hay. I'm hoping by the end of August the pullets and broody hens will be laying again so I'll have 10 eggs or more per day until winter hits.

 

[vehve]

And today we hit the magic number 19/19!!

Omelets for everyone!

We have a drop in numbers with Veera going broody. Hopefully I can break it soon.

 

[vehve]

I'm getting a little concerned when I see some of you have what I would consider a large amount of hens but only a few eggs. We have 5 chickens which we actually share with our neighbors so if we only get 1 or 2 eggs everyday then 5 hens are not gonna cut it for 2 families!

maybe I'm gonna have to do some chicken math!

I think you need at least 30 more. Or 40. And seven coops. And... and...

We are two people, with basically 5 layers at the moment. We get enough for our own needs, and give away some eggs occasionally, but I wouldn't count on that amount for more than maybe 3 people, especially since we're still getting pullet eggs so they're a tad smallish. Maybe 4 people once the size goes up.

 

[subhanalah]

I'm getting a little concerned when I see some of you have what I would consider a large amount of hens but only a few eggs. We have 5 chickens which we actually share with our neighbors so if we only get 1 or 2 eggs everyday then 5 hens are not gonna cut it for 2 families! :/ maybe I'm gonna have to do some chicken math!

I just sat down with my friend who was interested in getting chickens. We decided for 5 people, they needed 15 hens.

She freaked and was like, "how about three and build up from there"

Then I was like...build for what you need now so you're not doing major construction (again) to increase your flock.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I just sat down with my friend who was interested in getting chickens. We decided for 5 people, they needed 15 hens.

She freaked and was like, "how about three and build up from there"

Then I was like...build for what you need now so you're not doing major construction (again) to increase your flock.

You are so right sub.

The US govt. recommended 2 hens per family member back during war years. But we know that after the first couple years, the hens take a nice long winter break. Though they can continue to lay for 10 years. Even old birds will lay like gangbusters in spring and summer. As autumn approaches we can store eggs for the lean winter months. OR, we can do what the egg farms do and get new birds every year and send the old ones to the soup pot.

It's so much better to start the flock with as many as you can house rather than adding birds to an existing flock.

 

[woodmouse]

The US govt. recommended 2 hens per family member back during war years.

That's interesting and sounds about right. We have 6 for a family of four and are adding 2 more pullets next week. Every once in a while we'll get 6/6 but 4/6 (with the occasional 3/6 day thrown in) seems to happen more. If we had 8 and averaged 5/8 that would be ideal for our family's needs. Course it depends on the breeds, really. If our whole flock was the same as our best layer then I'd probably be seeing more 6/6 days!

Today was 5/6.

 

[Renee572]

Oh my gosh, I definitely don't have the space for 15 chickens for my family of 5 nor do I have space for 12 more for my neighbors family of 4! :/ but I'm thinking that us thinking 5 chickens was enough was really unrealistic even though we don't eat eggs as often as some people might.

Hmmm I may have to talk with my neighbor and see what she thinks! I wouldn't even know how to add more chickens at this point. We definitely made space for more as far as nesting boxes goes but I don't think they'd fit in our coop! :/

 

[ochochicas]

We have lots of space, so we are planning to keep 20 hens a one or two roosters. We just added a new run, so we can keep more, but don't really want to. I quickly found that chicks are super addicting. Two hens went broody so we hatched out some eggs as an experiment. We got nine chicks out of the hatch. We'll keep the pullets until they are laying and them probably sell a handful in the spring. With all of our existing chickens we'd be over the limit if we kept all the babies.

 

[Aronia]

My chickens haven't started laying yet.


When will they?