Year-'round eggs, almost...

[johno]

I want to share the two tricks I know to get lots of eggs for most of the off season.

1) Increased daylength. I hang a regular shoplight in the hen house with a timer so as to add a few hours to their day in the winter months.

2) Whole oats. Not steamed or crimped - whole, unaltered oats that you could plant. It works like a charm. Just add some to their food every day, and you'll be amazed.

I know some of you won't believe me, but at times this winter I was getting two eggs a day from each chicken!

Does anybody else know some good tricks?

[downinmyback]

Doies the who;e oats work that good I get 5 eggs in 7 days from our big hens but i only get 1 every so often from the Banty. I have heard of feeding them soybean to get the protein level up but the chicken didnot like to eat them. I use half groud corn and half laying mesh now do you think i could cut the laying mesh to 25% as it cost alot more than the corn. Would this change the flavor of the eggs as i like the full country taste i get now.

[johno]

I think the laying mash or pellets should be the main ingredient... but I'm no expert.

I feed them roughly equal parts cracked corn, layer pellets, and whole oats. Oyster shells are always available for them, too.

Is there a better ratio?

[bluelacedredhead]

Johno, I still have no idea how you get two eggs a day?? What breeds of chickens are these again??
Chickens normally lay one egg per day for the first year, then one egg every other day for the next year.. If they live beyond that (for whatever reason) it continues to decline...
Something very strange going on to make your girls produce like that..

Down, are you freeranging your laying hens?? Straight corn will just produce fat and a fat hen is not a healthy hen. Nor will a fat hen lay eggs or produce babies as well as she could..But if your girls have access to bugs and worms and greens and grit you can cut the mash from their diet. Corn does make good yellow colour in a yolk, but Pot marigolds apparently do the same, which is one reason why I am growing Pot Marigolds this year for my hens.

[johno]

I have three young Buff Orpingtons (brown eggs) and one ooold white hen (white eggs) that I think is a leghorn. She was old when I got her about 4 years ago. The two eggs a day wasn't all the time, and afterwards they stopped or slowed down for a day or two.

The only other thing that is good for them is that I leave a layer of composted straw (not stinky, composted) on the floor. Studies show that this practice keeps them healthier than without it. I guess they scratch out some micronutrients... Also, I give them vegetable scraps from the kitchen and garden.

I keep the four hens in a 15' x 15' house.

[bluelacedredhead]

I feed mine a whole grain layer ration which includes oyster shell. Pellets are far too expensive for the amount of birds we raise. They also get stale bread and kitchen scraps when possible as a treat, and during the summer most are able to range about the lawn and pastures as they wish.
I use wood shavings as bedding. We use to use Straw or hay back in the days when we had one room for 50 meat birds and one room plus a yard for a flock of layers. But it just doesn't work now that same building is subdivided into 8 breeding pens and one mixed breed pen of youngsters.

You know Johno, if you have good producers like that you should be breeding them!!

How many times a day do you actually collect the eggs? I know we've talked about this before, but I just don't see how all 4 of those birds could be laying 2 eggs a day...I think we should change your name to Josh-in, LOL

[downinmyback]

Yeah i thought getting 5 eggs in 7 days was doing good but i need some of Josh in Pullets too lol.

[johno]

I knew you wouldn't believe it... oh, well.

I check them one time a day.

By the way, since my sister-in-law started feeding her chickens whole oats, she has been getting eggs like crazy. At least there is one true believer out there...

[bluelacedredhead]

Mine get whole oats in their layer ration Johno. And that ain't it..
Must be something in the water in Arkansas

[downinmyback]

I think i have gotten JohnO secret
He hangs the butcher knife near the nest and made them think it either produce or tomorrow they will be having dinner with him but not as a guest of honor lol.

[bluelacedredhead]

I've tried that one too Down. The young ones believe it sometimes, but the old dolls are harder to convince.

We took a pic last fall of 5 cockerels that we had dressed for 'dinner' and I was going to make a caption for the pic to say "this is what happens at our house when birds don't do well at a poultry show"...Little did I realize that I'd already taken the last frame on the roll of 35mm.... The picture never came out

[downinmyback]

There is a Tyson plant about thirty miles from here . I heard it only takes them 90 days from hatching to they are big enough to kill. I know someone who works there and she say Tyson owns it own hatchery, feed mills and contract with growers to raise the chicken. I always thought they had to be something that made them get that big that fast maybe even something that human are not meant to digest. Just something else to worry about.

[bluelacedredhead]

A few years ago, a Tyson grower joined a poultry site I belonged to. He was looking for other poultry workers to chat with. But as you can imagine, those of us who free range and in my case, show a lot of my birds, had little to chat about with someone who cage raised and force fed birds to put on the table within 8 weeks.
I was aware however, of a yahoo group for commercial poultryworkers so I referred him there. He wrote me a few times to thank me for putting him in touch with people of similar interests.
I know that there is a place in this world for commercially raised birds. Otherwise KFC, Perdue and Tyson would never have got this far. Those little birds are young and much tenderer than the ones I raise here.
I have an antique poultry book with pics of what a commercial egg farm looked like back at the beginning of the 20th Century. Those lucky Leghorns had a hen yard to go outside just like your place and mine.
It's sooo sad that they can't return to that. But how does one yard raise 5 million chickens??

[flowerpower]

My birds can free range if they want. But I always leave feed available. I was doing 1/2 & 1/2, but now I do 2/3 layer and 1/3 corn. I did give them scratch grain in the winter and that said laying could be reduced if you use it. In the winter they would eat seeds from the goats hay.

I only have 6 Barred Rock Hens. But I get some nice big brown eggs. The yolks are almost orange. My BF works with a few guys from Russia that grew up on farms. They are always looking for fresh eggs and produce.

[downinmyback]

My hens have almost quit laying because of the heat. I wonder if there is anything short of cooler temp i can do.