Washingtonians

[KMHunter]

I'mmmmmmmm  Baaaaaaaaaack!
OMG, my chile turned out really good and I PIGGED out. (burp) Now I'm stuffed and a tad uncomfortable, but heck I'll suffer.

Here's a question, I have (supposedly) 9 hens a laying, but I usually get only 6 to 7 eggs and 7 is a rare occasion  and never more then that. How does that stack up with the rest of you that have been doing this a lot longer them me. (nubie) ?

LOL!!  That's ok, I have 15 and I have been getting only one egg every other day if I'm lucky!! 

I'm down to 2 a day.  That bragging about 3 out of 3 each day bit me in the butt.  It's gonna take a lot longer to get those gifts out to neighbors.  Esp. since Caunnie's eggs are embarrassingly long and skinny.  Bleh.  They are single yolk eggs - just long and skinny and sit funny in the carton.

You just need to put a light on them, there was someone else on here, oh I think jess,
they need aprox 14 hours of light to maintain egg production, if you put a timer light on them, to make up those hours, they should continue to lay through winter, I did it a few years ago, and I need to move my hens back to the main coop where I have power cause that's what I'm gonna do!!   Problem is most of my girls are very young and just at POL so if I don't they won't probably lay till spring!

My issue is that they've dramatically dropped off egg production even WITH the lighting I have in the coop. It's a 40 watt bulb in a 35s/f coop; should be adequate! Right now it goes on at 4:30am, and sunset is 6:27pm still, so this should be fine. I was getting 7-8 eggs a day and now I'm getting 5-7. Princess and Willow haven't laid eggs in over a week; I only got 5 from Willow before she quit again. My 4 brown egg layers are still laying every day for the most part, and everyone else is around every other, to every third day

Unfortunately there is no controlling their laying completely. The added light just helps. They are going to slow down. Unless you have all production hens. Sorry. I gave up trying to control things when it comes to chickens. They just don't follow the rules very well.

 

[itsren]

OK, this is just ridiculous. Neiman Marcus sells $100K coops!!!

http://www.neimanmarcus.com/christm...asy+Gifts&pageName=Beau+Coop&icid=CBF12_O5415

The funniest part to me is that the "consultant" chooses your hens for you. Call me crazy, but I thought much of the joy of raising chickens is learning about all the breeds and choosing which one(s) you want that will suit your environment and purposes. I guess some people have so much money they forget that some things are actually fun to do yourself.

I'd just live to see all that fancy furniture covered in chicken poop!

I saw that the other day. I was actually a bit put off by it. I'd hate for people to get chickens because they suddenly think it was the "in" thing to do. I really don't like fads and how people will jump on the fad wagon and jump right back off because they discovered the fad wasn't as fun as they thought.

I was trying to figure out how much I could build that thing for... maybe 3K? I don't know how much the windows cost. But $100K - and they only donate 3K to charity?

 

[FirewifeJess]

Quote:
That was my first thought when I saw it last week too. Quite miffed by the whole thing. What those people have isn't more money than time, it's more money than brains.

 

[itsren]

But you also have to realize that not all breeds lay the same amount of eggs per year.
Few lay anywhere close to 365 a year.

I agree, which is why I don't panic when mine slow down. I knew when I bought her, that Rhodie would be my egg layer. Which is also why, even though she can really tick me off with her attitude, she's sticking around. She's my only consistent laying every day for a while, takes one day off, then lays every day again.

When I bought Caunnie and Drama, I knew I wouldn't get anywhere near as many out of them. They are my every-other-dayers right now.

I don't know if these numbers are correct. Just approx. from what I've read:

Rhode Island Reds ... 250 - 300 per year for the first two years
EE's ... 225 per year
Light Brahma ... 200 eggs per year. Supposedly Brahmas are consistent layers through the winter.

Are these about right for my girls?

 

[UrbanEnthusiast]

I agree, which is why I don't panic when mine slow down. I knew when I bought her, that Rhodie would be my egg layer. Which is also why, even though she can really tick me off with her attitude, she's sticking around. She's my only consistent laying every day for a while, takes one day off, then lays every day again.

When I bought Caunnie and Drama, I knew I wouldn't get anywhere near as many out of them. They are my every-other-dayers right now.

I don't know if these numbers are correct. Just approx. from what I've read:

Rhode Island Reds ... 250 - 300 per year for the first two years
EE's ... 225 per year
Light Brahma ... 200 eggs per year. Supposedly Brahmas are consistent layers through the winter.

Are these about right for my girls?

Well, I'm no expert, so take this with a grain of salt, but that seems a bit high for what I've read about RIRs. Apparently there is something called a "production Red" which I'm assume lays more, probably in the 250-300 range I would guess. My guess would also be that most EEs don't lay quite that much, either. My suspicion is that EEs can vary widely in egg size and quantity because they are all hybrids and could have almost any breeds in their background. And most folks on BYC seem to report that none of their breeds lay quite as much as the estimates that float around the web would suggest.

Another thing BYCers don't seem to take into account is feed conversion. If money's no issue, that's fine. I've noticed that while our Wyandotte lays a bloody ton of extra large eggs (she has only missed one day since she started laying regularly back in the spring, and one day she even laid two), she also eats a bloody ton of feed. She spends way more time in the coop chowing down than any of our other four hens. And, this is reflected in the quality of her eggs. They're better than store-bought but her yolks are not nearly as dark and delicious as our other hens' eggs who get more of their diet from foraging. Her shells seem about the same as the others.

 

[FirewifeJess]

Woohoo! Finally a good day. For the first time in a week I got more than 6 eggs. 8 eggs already! I don't know why Princess and Willow stopped laying but they both frequent the nest boxes regularly. I think they're wondering why their bodies aren't cooperating just like me!

So basically that 8/8 layers today.

2 have quit for the fall, 2 haven't started. I wonder who the shell-less egg was from. Had to have been one of those 4.

We've been very busy, but in a fantastic awesome kinda way. William is almost 100% daytime potty trained with minimal work on my part. He's simply doing what he needs to do without a fuss, which is simply out of character for his strong, stubborn, contrary personality. I'm gonna stop talking and go with it. I don't need to worry about diapers anymore.

Jeanine has regressed because of her little brother so we're also training her. She's not happy about it. There are rewards and consequences and she simply doesn't care for the rewards, no matter what they are. She wants to be the baby and wear diapers. At 4. Ugh.

John is doing amazing in school. His handwriting is improving by leaps and bound, as is his reading. Today he read to me for 45 minutes! He's 6. That's crazy for a 6 year old! He is constantly amazing me with what he's picking up even though school might not have gone as planned. Yesterday on the way to AWANA he told me that Elijah, Noah, the Bible, and AWANA are all proper nouns. I was like "Wow! Yes they are! Good job!" LOL He then said that everyone we know including our chickens are proper nouns because they're special to us and have names.

He gets it! This week we've done so much reading aloud my voice is hoarse; we had 22 library books to pull from this week and we read them each at least 3 times. I just wish William would sit with us and read instead of flush the toilet 22 times and destroy his room during school.

OK so that's why I've not been around all that much. Chickens are doing well. Kids are doing well. Hubby is stressed because he's finally going back to work and re-training stuff he already knows is stressful and boring. We'll finally get him back on 48 hour shifts with 4 days off, instead of M-F day shift, which we all despise. I can't wait for stuff to slow down!

 

[Hinotori]

Quote:
I'd think those numbers would be only optimal egg laying conditions and with the perfect bird. I don't think most of my EEs layed that much in the first year. I do have a couple who did their best to 6-7 days a week. They even layed through molt, though they slowed down.

The rocks I have are pretty good layers. Usually 6 eggs a week out of them. They had just started laying last fall, so they layed very well for me through that winter. The two light brahmas I had start laying last fall averaged 5-6 eggs a week, depending on the week. The one I have left has chicks right now and really needs to molt. I'm waiting for the teenagers to grow up.

 

[UrbanEnthusiast]

The hunt for my Exchequer eggs has been put on the back burner since the raccoon attack last Friday, but my boyfriend just found these in Salma's nesting spot between a tree and the fence. Obviously Salma isn't laying right now, but clearly one or both of my Exchequers are! I thought for sure we'd start finding Exchequer eggs in the coop since we've been leaving them in there for most of each morning, and that's where they were laying before this whole raccoon-attack/coop-expansion anyway, but chickens are truly unpredictable creatures.

 

[FirewifeJess]

The hunt for my Exchequer eggs has been put on the back burner since the raccoon attack last Friday, but my boyfriend just found these in Salma's nesting spot between a tree and the fence. Obviously Salma isn't laying right now, but clearly one or both of my Exchequers are! I thought for sure we'd start finding Exchequer eggs in the coop since we've been leaving them in there for most of each morning, and that's where they were laying before this whole raccoon-attack/coop-expansion anyway, but chickens are truly unpredictable creatures.

A good egg day for both of us then!

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Invader Chickens!

(Ian and Sylvia are not amused)

(Quinta and Gingy are offended)

(The splash roos are unwilling to come in the yard with Griz; they'll basically walk under my feet).

It's always just these four, even when the others are over in the orchard; I strongly suspect it's because they're the youngest of the flock and fit through the pasture wire.