6. What about commercial hybrid layers? The commercial hybrid birds vary quite a bit. Most of the breeds used by the commercial egg industry are quite small, but their eggs are full-sized. Many of the brown-egg strains are docile toward humans, but have a pronounced tendency toward feather-picking and cannibalism among themselves. Others have a tendency to lay enormous eggs as they get older, which is a nuisance if you want the eggs to fit into a carton. http://www.plamondon.com/faq_breeds.html
Interesting read, and thanks for sharing it. I was just reading about the California Gray last night wanting more info on them, just out of curiosity. I have a hybrid Leghorn who is calm and docile, just a bit noisy. She doesn't spook easily either. She does not feather pick or cannibalize the other chickens. I think that is only a problem if you keep chickens in a close confined area and they get bored.
My ISA Browns never have picked or scrached in the nest or ate eggs. They are a joy to raise. My oldest 3 hens laid 928 eggs in 2009. Still laying about 60% at 19 months old. Have 25 pullets that are 26 weeks that laid 23 eggs today.
Quote:Mahonri, "hybrid layers" is just commercial sexlinks. Red star, black sexlink, ISA brown, all that kind of thing, you just know them under different names is all Note that Bob Plamondon is talking about raising chickens under intensive-production type conditions (albeit a fairly humane version compared to battery farms); that does not necessarily say much about how they behave under typical backyard chicken keeping conditions; also AFAIK he is just comparing them to commercial leghorns, not to other ('real') chicken breeds Pat
I think you should check out first how long they live. The impression I get is 3 to four years is normal. One of mine just died at that age. Immunity problem maybe. Mine were not given medicated feed when chicks so that is partially to blame. Reason is I wanted to sell organic. I would not do that again. Still organic probably if medicated when young before laying. They are docile and curious like cats. Jumped on the shovel when I was trying to dig worms for them. Hilarious right!
I thought this was a thread about breeding multiple good layer breeds into a laying flock. I'm subscribing to get the great info I'm reading here. Thanks for making this thread!!! =) (even if it wasn't what I originally thought) ;-)
