For those who don't know I read everything about chickens, I really do need to catalog what and where.
Anyhow my new read is "Minnie Rose Lovgreens RECIPE FOR RAISING CHICKENS". Minnie Rose 1888 -1975
Here is and excerpt on broody hens and I would like your thoughts to this advice.
" I found out that so long as hens eat the egg mash, they don't become broody. They fill up on it, and I try to make them fill up on it, becuase I want more eggs.
But the bantam eggs dont sell very well anyway because they' re so small. That's another reason people use bantams for mothers.
For instance, suppose you had a flock of 25 bantam hens. At least 23 of them would get broody in spring and want to be mothers. With a flock of 25 regular hens, you might get only 3 or 4 to be broody.
We used to say, "the egg maker feed really takes the broodiness right out of them." Before the egg- maker came out, the non-bantam hens used to want to be mothers also.
But with egg maker available now, the bantams naturally still try hard to eat more grain. They'll go to no end of trouble to find grain. They'll dig seeds out of the little weeds and such that come along
so they can become mothers. "
Now I doubt anyone was around when layer mash was first introduced. But perhaps someone here has both bantam and standards running around your yard and may have noticed a difference in who and when and how many times your hens go broody.
I have only one bantam friz hen and she has gone broody twice to once for my standards. I've had 1 bo, 1 del, 3 cm's go broody to Frenchy's twice. I did have one non friz bantam and she went broody too. Both bantams went broody before the others.
Thanks for your thoughts and observations
Rancher
Anyhow my new read is "Minnie Rose Lovgreens RECIPE FOR RAISING CHICKENS". Minnie Rose 1888 -1975
Here is and excerpt on broody hens and I would like your thoughts to this advice.
" I found out that so long as hens eat the egg mash, they don't become broody. They fill up on it, and I try to make them fill up on it, becuase I want more eggs.
But the bantam eggs dont sell very well anyway because they' re so small. That's another reason people use bantams for mothers.
For instance, suppose you had a flock of 25 bantam hens. At least 23 of them would get broody in spring and want to be mothers. With a flock of 25 regular hens, you might get only 3 or 4 to be broody.
We used to say, "the egg maker feed really takes the broodiness right out of them." Before the egg- maker came out, the non-bantam hens used to want to be mothers also.
But with egg maker available now, the bantams naturally still try hard to eat more grain. They'll go to no end of trouble to find grain. They'll dig seeds out of the little weeds and such that come along
so they can become mothers. "
Now I doubt anyone was around when layer mash was first introduced. But perhaps someone here has both bantam and standards running around your yard and may have noticed a difference in who and when and how many times your hens go broody.
I have only one bantam friz hen and she has gone broody twice to once for my standards. I've had 1 bo, 1 del, 3 cm's go broody to Frenchy's twice. I did have one non friz bantam and she went broody too. Both bantams went broody before the others.
Thanks for your thoughts and observations
Rancher
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