Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
ALMOST BEEKEEPING - RELATED TOPICS => FARMING & COUNTRY LIFE => Topic started by: GSF on November 17, 2014, 10:30:40 pm
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I know I can, I know I can, I know I can..,
Okay, so I have about 18-20 laying hens. I'm getting about 5 eggs a day. A couple of days ago I extended their daylight hours by running a cord to the chicken house and putting a drop light inside. I cut it on around 4:45am till daylight then dusk to around 8pm. The first day I did that I got 3 eggs, that's right 3 stinking eggs! I cleaned their house out and I got a whopping 9. Next day 5 or 6 which is the norm.
Now they are going through a molt and we have cold weather. Plenty food, water, and free range most all day in the woods. (what does the fox say? Yum!) They turn a year old last spring. Is this normal behavior? Any advice?
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it is normal. they will start to pick up again toward the end of February when the days begin to lengthen. you can get more out of them by doing the light thing. i don't. i figure there is a reason they take a break, so i let them.
if you are going to leave the lights on be sure the give some oyster shell or some other calcium source besides the regular feed.
i have about the same number of hens and get from 3 to 6 eggs a day.
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Gary,
My wife has about 35 chickens and we are getting between 3 to 4 dozen a week. During the summer we were getting as many as 11 to 12 dozen a week.
Jim
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Jim
some how or 'nuther, Cathy's post makes me feel better about my efforts :)
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Jim
some how or 'nuther, Cathy's post makes me feel better about my efforts :)
Gary,
If you do the math, I am getting less eggs per chicken than you are.
Jim
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One of these days I'll pay attention before I post something..,
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One of these days I'll pay attention before I post something..,
:)
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some of my chickens are kind of old so i'm not sure you should feel better. I think i still have 2 from the original flock and they would be over 4 years old. the rest are between 6 months and 3 years old.
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Let chickens be chickens. They'll come around in the spring.
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gary,
shorter days and molting will slow them down. my marans haven't put out in a couple of weeks but my dominiques, easter eggers and ameraucanas are still laying. i have maybe 15 hens and 7 roosters (it changes from day to day, sometimes they visit the neighbors and sometimes his stay with mine) and i let them free range and feed them once a day. i combine laying mash, scratching grains and oyster shell (sometimes they get sunflower seeds) and right now i'm averaging 4 eggs a day and some of my older birds are molting so they are probably not laying either. in the fall i was getting 2-3 dozen a week from these birds consisently,now it's about 1-2 dozen.
what kind of birds do you have?
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I (my wife) have/has;
White leggons, silver laced wings, barred rock, Rhode Island reds, and another I can't think of the name. It has a light red color.
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Okay, they scored again. About two days ago I took the light out. We went from 3 to 5 eggs to 10. It could have very well been the sunflower seeds we started feeding them. We were told it would help them through their molt better because of the protein boost.
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keep the calcium up. i was mixing scratch with the layer because we got so cold, but i'd run out of oyster shell. when i got more and added it back, the production went up right away.
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We always feed their egg shells back to them. Probably don't feed enough ground oyster shells though.
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i put my shells and my coffee grinds into my compost pile. oyster shell is cheap and a back lasts a long time. it definitely seems to make a difference.
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Big score, we got 12 eggs yesterday. I think the feed we were giving them was lacking in protein. We fed them a ton of turkey scraps the day before and I figure they may have got a protein boast from that.
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oyster shell is cheap and a back lasts a long time.
I get it in 50lb bags and just mix a handful in feed every few days. i don't do it every day. maybe 3 to 4 times a week.
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kathy, i was mixing in a handful a day and i've cut back recently because there is plenty of it scattered around the feeder. once i started using it my production definitely went up.