small time breeder - worth the effort?

[hdowden]

Quote:
It was my understanding that the OP would keep her hens seperate from her roosters except for specific matings. It looks like the only risk would be infertile eggs, not mutts.

i would keep 10 hens to 2 roosters for good fertility. on top of that your risking the roosters lives by putting them altogther after they have been exposed to the hens. i have tried that and as soon as they were in together with no hens went to fighting and its dagerous to step in the middle of fighting roosters, the only way i could get their attinion from each other was to put their hens in with them. theres nothing wrong with keeping the roosters with the hens, i think its actully better to keep them together.

 

[Countrypunk92]

I am sorry if people are sounding harsh, Just giving you what we know as poultry inthusiasts, You think the show quality birds are just bred to be pretty. No. They are bred to be EXACTLY what they was originally bred for and entered into the Standard of Profection. They are controlled. As a pair breeds and hatches out, the breeder takes the best offspring and sells the others. And breeds them, and find other reputable breeders and buys off their line to improve the coloring and such. You say you do not care for show, which is ok. That just means you are not knowledgable of the way Showing works.

Hatcheries do often have good layers. Usually the leghorns, sex-links and rhodies. But the rest are rarebreeds and special breeds. They do not care if they fit standards or lay. Just breed em and sell them. Often you will find breeds with wrong combs, size, leg color and even egg color. Starting out with hatchery birds is fine, but you want to bring in new lines from breeders, after breeding them into the standards and such, sell them. They dont have to be show quality, as long as they fit standard. People will buy them on here. I BUY off here, some pay good money to get them.
It would be easier to keep the roosters with their hens, to make sure your eggs are fertile.

Like I said before. You do not have to have Show Quality birds, but look up standards for the birds, if they are meet them, go ahead and sell them as breeder quality. If you get NPIP certified, people will be more interested in buying.

You also have to remember you arnt selling only for you, but to make the consumer happy, like going to McDonalds and ordering a bigmac, but getting a quarter lber. If you want to sell for more, then dont just breed to lay, but be pretty and look right.

 

[RAREROO]

Quote:
That is a VERY good point and that's ultimately what decide "if it is worth it" like the thread says. You have to decide who you are wanting to hatch for ( either you, people who want production, or people who want quality ) and go in the direction you decide and make it work for you.

I have an personal example based on this exact point, I don't know if youMd seen it or not, but until a few days ago, my sig. also said that I was taking orders for commisioned paintings of landscapes, waterscapes, and animals because I had several local people wanting paintings so I figured id advertise here too. But as you can see its not there anymore because I. Can never find interest in what I'm painting when I'm painting for someone else and not for myself and so that made it unenjoyable and hurts the quality of the painting when I'm not connected with it. So since I cannot accept the fact that I'm not painting for myself, but for someone on something that I personally initiated, so I decided its not worth it to me to try to market commisions and so I've quit doin it. Id rather paint what I want to paint and try sell it then, or just not sell it at all.

So it would be the same with selling birds, you've got to decide if you are breeding for what others want and what the target market is going to be, or decide if you are just going to breed what you personally want and are interested in, and offer it for sale to others and they can take it or leave it.

 

[Caprice_Acres]

Quote:
*Sigh* Once again, you didn't comprehend what I wrote. I would keep ALL roosters separate from ALL hens EXCEPT when I put them in with their rooster specifically for purebred hatching eggs.

I WOULD let the roosters out in the winter because it's much easier to feed/water them as a group in the winter. I would NOT offer hatching eggs during this time, because yes they would be mutts at that time.

Then in spring, I was planning on putting the roosters in the breeding pens for 2 weeks before putting hens back in with them. THEN 3 days later I plan on starting to collect hatching eggs from them. I've done this in the past and talked to other people who do similar. If this is not normal protocol, I'd be interested in hearing what would be normal.

For goodness sakes, I'm not trying to lie - you're just not taking the time to comprehend what I'm explaining.

 

[RAREROO]

Quote:
*Sigh* Once again, you didn't comprehend what I wrote. I would keep ALL roosters separate from ALL hens EXCEPT when I put them in with their rooster specifically for purebred hatching eggs.

I WOULD let the roosters out in the winter because it's much easier to feed/water them as a group in the winter. I would NOT offer hatching eggs during this time, because yes they would be mutts at that time.

Then in spring, I was planning on putting the roosters in the breeding pens for 2 weeks before putting hens back in with them. THEN 3 days later I plan on starting to collect hatching eggs from them. I've done this in the past and talked to other people who do similar. If this is not normal protocol, I'd be interested in hearing what would be normal.

For goodness sakes, I'm not trying to lie - you're just not taking the time to comprehend what I'm explaining.

So are you meaning you will keep all roosters in one group of the winter and all the hens in a separate group with no roosters ? And then when breeding season comes around you would put a certain breed of hens (which at this point shouldn't have anymore viable sperm stored) in a breeding pen and then pull a rooster of the same breed from the rooster pen.

Am I understanding that correctly ? If so that should work fine and I've though about doing the same thing before, but I would say give them a few more than 3 days to make sure they have enough time to be fertile. And that would also give the hens a good break from the roos over the winter and when are aren't needing fertile eggs if you are planning to have a hen only and rooster only pen.

 

[Moonlight Piano]

Hey

I had to put my two cents in

. The way I do it to make it somewhat profitable is I have a pen of nothing but laying hens. They usually lay enough eggs to pay for the feeds costs for all of the chickens. Then I have my breeders that I use to make money. I used almost %100 recycled material, so I have very little costs in housing. I raise very few chicks exept for the breeds that I wish to improve or get more stock of ( currently partridge rocks, and birchen marans). I feed alot of natural grown feed; mainly clover, and sorgum. I would also recomend trying you luck at finding a feed supplier that will give dicounts for bulk buy. Overall, find your biggest money pits ( Food, shelter, and chick raising ) and do your darndest to fill them as completely as possible. Good luck with everything

.
God bless,
Tyler.

 

[Moonlight Piano]

For some reason I feel my comment is completely off topic

oh well

maybe someone can use it.

.

 

[Caprice_Acres]

No, during the winter (when I'm NOT collecting hatching eggs) the roosters/hens would range together - much easier to water one big group. Then in spring, I would pull the roosters and put them in the individual breeding pens. 2 weeks later I would put hens in with the roosters of choice (who, in the interim, were NOT exposed to ANY roosters). If 3 days isn't long enough for fertile eggs, then I'd wait a week if that is adequate. As I said, this is what I've done in the past for my own hatches and had success in getting purebreds. This was done on the advice of talking to other chicken raisers on another forum. If 2 week separation isn't long enough to "guarantee" purebred eggs, then I'd be interested in knowing what would be adequate separation timeframes.

Man, I wish we could make money on eggs for consumption. We already buy chicken feed by the ton or half ton, depending on the numbers of birds we have at the time. We sell eggs for 2.00/dozen for chicken eggs, 3.00/dozen for duck eggs... but we're pretty sure we're not making a profit. I'd have to check recent feed prices, but they certainly haven't gone DOWN.

Of course, we had a LOT of muscovies up until recently that were just KILLING us in the feed bill department. Thankfully, they sell better butchered than they do live, but are likely not 'profitable' when you consider feed input and then effort invovled in butchering them. ugh.

Chickenfarmer, I'm interested to hear that you raise certain breeds for 'improvement' and then keep others for egg production. Perhaps I'll jump on the bandwagon if it's profitable... why not? The higher quality birds would by far be the smaller number of birds on the farm, and I could still keep/produce 'ol reliable egg producers as well if I wanted. Little bit more start-up costs but it would allow me to get some of the prettier breeds that I like, especially Blue Andalusians and several of the different Leghorn breeds.

Much to be decided, you've all definetely given me a lot to think over.

 

[RAREROO]

Ok I gotcha, I think that method should work fine too.

 

[heritagebirds]

Thank you all for the information. I've been hesitant to get going with the business side of the birds, but if I'm already spending the money, and I can make some of it back, then why not? All of the birds that I've gotten, minus one pen, have been from small, or at least smallish breeders. Due to predation, I would need to sell 1/2 dozens for hatching at first, but this is the year that I expand the flocks. I will hatch out what I can, choose the breeders per the Standard, and use the rest as layers, or send them to freezer camp. Due to the economy, they need to provide utility this year like no other. I'm not looking to get rich, by any means, but any little bit will help.