Hi everyone. I am new to chickens. Just brought home some meat chickens today, along with some Isa browns. I have been wanting to raise my own chickens for a while and now I have the chance to do so. So I look forward to reading all the information on here.
Welcome to BYC. Will you have separate areas for the layers and meaties? Meat birds tend to stay at feeders and will push others out. They have to eat large quantities to support their very rapid growth, and have to be processed before their heart & legs give out.
Welcome to BYC. Glad you decided to join our flock. Drumstick dive has made a very good point. You should raise the Isa Browns and the Cornish cross in separate coops and runs. We always butchered our Cornish cross at 8 weeks. If you wait too far beyond that, they begin to have serious health problems due to their abnormal growth rates. If your Isa Browns don't have to compete with the Cornish cross, it will be much easier to meet their nutritional needs and they will be egg laying machines. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Good luck in getting your meat and eggs.
They do have separate brooders right now and will go into separate pens as they get older and are able to move outside. We where planning on butchering the broilers at about 7 or 8 weeks. There is quite a size difference between the broilers and the Isa's so thats why I put them in separate brooders. The original plan was to raise the isas and integrate them into the existing flock of 5 hens, my future daughter in law brought home. BUT I caught one of the hens red handed today eating an egg. I do have some oyster shell for them to eat. I don't know if the egg eatting is something that can be corrected or not. I do know I don't want the chicks learning to eat eggs. Kind of defeats the purpose of having laying hens, if I can't get any of the eggs.
Sounds like you have a good plan. I'm sorry to hear about the hen eating the egg. I don't know of any way to break an egg eating hen. I think all you can do is cull them from the flock before they start influencing the other hens to do it. I would make sure that the interiors of your nesting boxes are very dark (chickens don't peck what they can't see), and I would put a fake ceramic or wooden egg in each nesting box. Not only will it encourage the hens to lay in the nesting boxes, but it they peck the fake egg, it's hardness will discourage them from pecking other eggs.
Hello there and welcome to BYC! I have an older hen that regularly lays just plain yolks. And because of this, I had a bunch of egg eaters on my hands. I put up curtains over my nest boxes so that the boxes stayed really dark inside. This way when she laid a thin shell or even a no shell, she was the only one that knew about it and most of the time she just did her business and got out of the box not bothering this thin or no shelled egg. These curtains also make it harder for the hens to go cruising for eggs from the outside and they are not interested in going inside to find any eggs either. I have since added another layer to these curtains to make the boxes really dark inside. I also keep a fake egg in each box so if they do go looking for eggs, the only ones they are going to find are hard impenetrable eggs. (I collect often.) I have not had a single case of egg eating since... Good luck with your egg eaters. Give this a try. It might do the trick.
Hello and Welcome To BYC! Good luck with your flocks! You've gotten some good suggestions above on dealing with egg eaters, there is also a nice article in the Learning Center https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/six-tips-on-breaking-your-egg-eater
