newbie production question please

[navasima]

On the breed chart, it gives production levels. What do they mean? I guess I'm wondering how many eggs a week (month?) let's say, qualifies as high, med., low?
Thanks in advance!

 

[LovinChicknFarmn]

In a week. A high producer would lay 6 or 7 a week. Medium maybe 4 or 5. Low 1-3. Don't be a slave to those numbers. I have a "medium layer" who is one of my best layers, laying 6 eggs a week. In my experience, the happier the chicken, the more eggs she lays. A lot also depends on the particular chicken. So, just use that as a baseline and take all of the things you're looking for into consideration too. We just picked ones we thought were pretty! haha!

 

[Fred's Hens]

I've seen this expressed a couple of ways. 4 eggs a week = "good", 5 eggs a week = "excellent" and so forth.

One must keep in mind that chickens sluff during the winter, during times of stress, times of molt, if going broody, extremely hot periods, etc. They simply do not lay anywhere near what some of those "charts" claim, on a year round basis, only when they are in full lay mode. A really good, traditional large fowl bird might average 240-250 eggs her pullet year, when meticulous records are actually kept. Of course, they don't lay at all until they are 20+ weeks of age, which is virtually half the first year of life.

The exceptions are those particular, specialized highly specialized commercial strains which do much better, if they only do so for a couple of years. These would be the Leghorns, Red Sex Links, particularly the ISA Brown. These strains will legitimately lay over 300 eggs their pullet year. Hope that helps.

 

[navasima]

Thank you very much!