Washingtonians

[Chickielady]

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My hens are laying like gangbusters, ever since I switched feed.
The are getting Del's Basic Poultry and layer (16%)
I have also noticed a huge increase in egg size, so much so that I CANNOT fit the eggs in a large egg carton!

You may need to worm?

As soon as I noticed more than one Wheaten pullet laying, they ALL stopped!!! All have started molting like crazy. Havnt collected a single egg all week...

Oh for crying out loud!
Seriously?
Did you set any eggs?
The one egg I had (out of 8) that was fertile, hatched right on schedule yesterday..a blue.
And so all alone.
I will have more chicks in a week, for for a whole long week, this one baby will be so lonely...

 

[Ogress]

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Well, I'm SOL then, cuz that ain't gonna happen!

We have so many people ordering eggs ahead of time, like the woman today to pick up 2 doz...that we have had to buy store eggs a few times....

But at least we had a coupon for up to 4 doz for 99 cents each!

And then sell our free range multicolored eggs for $3.50.

I'm running into the same issue - too many pre-orders. I took them because my young birds are starting to lay now. For two weeks I was meeting all orders and now my old girls are molting and slowing things down. I won't eat the nasty store-bought eggs anymore, every time I'm tempted to buy the cheap eggs, I go to You-tube and watch a video of commercial layers. I have added eggs to my Smith Brothers order though so I can sell mine that I normally would have eaten. I only do that if the customer has pre-paid me (I have 2 who pre-pay for a full month of 2 dozen eggs per week). I also charge $3.50 per dozen. I have one customer who thinks this is too much - as soon as she discounts Olivia's harp lessons, I will discount her eggs. I don't think she wants to lose her $50 per hour.

I do have at least 4 six month old EE's who have not yet given me their first eggs. I bought these at the Issaquah Grange, they are much lareger, prettier and fluffier than the EE's I bought from MPC, but the MPC EE's are my very best layers of ALL my birds they will usually give me an egg per day for 3 weeks straight no matter what the weather and and no matter how short the day, no heat, no artificial light. If the birds from the grange don't start laying soon, they may end up in my freezer. (or 2 in mine and 2 in the freezer of whomever will kill and process them for me).

 

[Chickielady]

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OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have not laughed & cried at the same time since I cannot even remember!!!!!!!!!
How awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Beautiful!
Perfect song!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[cheryl98117]

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Oh that was so sweet. made me cry.

 

[VelvettFog]

Cheryl

That blue/black pullet is at it again. And she's recruited a partner! The splash is her accomplice

 

[TheReidHomestead]

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That was amazing!!!! Thanks for sharing!

 

[cheryl98117]

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As soon as I noticed more than one Wheaten pullet laying, they ALL stopped!!! All have started molting like crazy. Havnt collected a single egg all week...

Oh for crying out loud!
Seriously?
Did you set any eggs?
The one egg I had (out of 8) that was fertile, hatched right on schedule yesterday..a blue.
And so all alone.
I will have more chicks in a week, for for a whole long week, this one baby will be so lonely...

I set 8 out of 10 that I collected. I randomly grabbed 2 and cracked them open to check for the bullseye, both had it. So I set the rest, along with a couple brown eggs for giggles. So I have 10 eggs cooking away on day 5. Nothing is stinking yet, so I'm hopefull.

 

[Chickielady]

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A month or 6 wks ago I was getting 12 to 16 eggs a day from about 20 pullets. Production dropped over a two week period to a point where I was getting just 2 or maybe 4 a day. I put lights in the coops. I'm back to 10 or so a day. I only have a few birds molting.

I have heard that they don't get their first molt until ~50 wks of age -- any truth to that?

They will first do a juvenile moult, it is argued but around 6-8 months or anywhere in between depending on breed & weather.
I have had 6 mo old Cuckoo Marans go almost bald in December at 20 degree temps!
Bald for 2 weeks or more!
The adult moults seem to be 12 -18 mo.
Birds need a minimum of 14 hrs a day of light to lay.
Mine come on at 6, and off by 4:30 so the birds have some daylight left in which to find a roosting spot.

 

[Chickielady]

Heather, we are all crying, until I saw the poop squeezing out the leg of the diaper..oh that brought back memories!
Awesome!

 

[Kaneke]

not sure if mine are slowing down, but maybe a little

got four eggs yesterday, one so far today (thank you DH for checking, but he only checked the one nest box in the coop, not the one in the run yet, he doesn't like it either, when the roo jumps at him)

usually by this time of the day, there are four eggs in the coop nest box ...

I suppose I could string a light out on the run (I have lots of leftover Christmas tree lights

) but I'm not sure that would do much ... normally my chickens stay in the run all day unless it is really windy and raining sideways .. or unless DH is willing to sit out with them while they freerange

actually that may be the problem, he was gone for five days, and because of the new dog, I wasn't available to sit out with them, so they stayed run-bound (I did go pick a bunch of weeds and threw those in every few hours ... it worked okay to gather greens while the dog did her business in the yard)