Our Pal Catturd further buries the career of Krista Noem
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You know, this is exactly it. There are people of all sides voicing opinion in this who have ZERO knowledge of farm/ranch life. Not a fucking clue. It takes mega effort to raise hens to the laying stage. 6 months. Thats 6 months of feed, flock management, predator management. Then you have 6-12 months peak egg production. If a dog attacks and kills production birds, That farmer/rancher is out all of that investment, and potential return. A production hen can lay 300 eggs a year. One bird. That is 25 dozen eggs from one bird. How much are farm fresh free range eggs? One bird and the farmer is out at least a few hundred dollars. That sounds crazy, but I raise chickens as a hobby. Its a big deal to lose several. That is why all raccoons need to be eradicated from existence.
My chickens are laying a lot further than 6-12 months. Do you mean free grazers that die due to predators? An egg layer should get you at a minimum of 3 yrs. An average of 4, and close to 5yrs. If your only getting good egg production for 6-12 months. Something is wrong.
Or - they are eating the chickens for food after a year of egg production. At some point that is probably a good idea, but I would wait until year 3 or 4 at least as long as you have an overlap in time for new egg-layers.
You could just raised the chickens to eat. There are some for egg laying and some for harvesting. Of course, all could be eaten. It’s just buying egg layers and eating them in 6-12 months doesn’t make much sense at all. But hey, to each their own.
100% agreed.
Not what I said at all. PEAK Egg production is from 6-12 months age. All layers lay for 5-6 years. You need to study up. Egg production for ALL hens, regardless of breed changes over time. PEAK production is in the first 12 months of production. Read before you comment
I don’t have to read, I know from experience. A chicken won’t lay more than 1 egg a day…that’s peak production. My current batch are going on 3 years and give as much now as they did at 6-8 months. I expect this to keep going till, as usual, 5 yrs…then it will taper off. That’s when I introduced them to the back 60. Be free little chicken! Let nature take its course. So if you have 25 chickens, you should be getting around 20-25 a day. That’s peak. If you have 10, you should be around 8-10 a day. I’m down to 6 currently and I get 5-6 a day. I don’t like introducing new chicks with older hens of I don’t have to. It gets brutal sometimes. But if I lose anymore, may have to. Of course these numbers are outside of molting and any situations where they get freaked out.
I have no idea about any of this, and I love to learn new things.
Here is my question.
Does the time of year affect egg laying? Say you are in a northern climate with cold winters. Do the egg layers slow down in the winter because it's so cold out? And then do they produce more in warm summer months?
Thanks in advance!
Time of year absolutely. When mine “molt” their egg production goes down like 75%. Also things like thunderstorms, random events like predators(dogs) disturbing them affects egg production. Basically, happy chickens give the best results. Now I’m in Tennessee, so my chicken coop is more designed for warm months. If you’re up north, you would need to invest in a more cold design. Chickens don’t need much tho. They can handle cold weather a lot better than warm weather. And in most situations, heat kills chickens much more than cold weather. Their basic body temperature is like 105 degrees. But if you’re in sub degree temperatures, might need some covered insulated designs, wind blocking openings, etc, and anything that can keep their water from freezing. Low 30’s is fantastic for winter temperatures. They love it. Keeping a chicken acclimated to its environment is important. You don’t want a 50 degree coop, in a 2 degree outside weather. They won’t come out. So if your those kinds temperatures on a regular basis, even 30 degrees may be to high. Go with low 20’s maybe. But keep a fish tank heater in the water. Windows and openings are ok, but be mindful of location. If they are around the egg nest, seeing leaves drop or bugs flying around will disturb them and could hurt production. That’s their alone time. 😁
Awesome! Thanks so much for all this advice!