OT - New Ladies

Eoin

New arrivals today. It's changeover time at the local free range egg place, these are 2 years old and heading for the factory to make pies, dog food etc. A few get rescued to live on .......

kl8ton

How many do you have?  How many eggs per day do you get?

I have some very lazy chickens.  I am getting about 6 eggs a day out of 70-80 hens.  (they move around so much, I can't count them).  34 of them are not of age yet and a few are roosters, but give me a break!  At this point, each egg is costing me $20.  Kidding aside, I am looking forward to full production and selling eggs to the locals again.  They are funny animals.  

Eoin

We have 7 brown hens from previous escapes, some are probably 5 years old now. 1 very old hen as well (they have an easy life as long as they dodge the occasional fox raid), one rooster and one youngster not yet laying. The 7 'laying' hens have been down at about 2 - 3 eggs a day, so we have plenty of freeloaders here as well. The new batch (8 hens) will do one a day for the next year or so.

Although these are 2 years old when we get them, they cost nothing, the trade off being that they run out of laying time sooner.

These are the old lot feeding.



And the new lot hiding in the corner.

kl8ton

Do you clip their wings?  My hens get over my 6 foot tall fence.  

I have hawk raids.

Eoin

We clip one wing, they tip over if they try and fly.

You can see our fence in the picture, 4 foot high, not even wired to the top.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

kl8ton said:

Do you clip their wings?  My hens get over my 6 foot tall fence.  

I have hawk raids.

If you have 70 hens, you need more hawks

kl8ton

Eoin said:

We clip one wing, they tip over if they try and fly.

You can see our fence in the picture, 4 foot high, not even wired to the top.

I saw that. 

A. 4 foot fence is cheaper
B. My kids can reach over to put table scraps in
C. Looks like some wing clipping is in order today if I have time.  I have a few loose ones that spent the night in dense wetland area last night as I could not catch them.  I also have little ones that can get out easily.  They still fit through the fence and will do so when the bigger ones chase them.  They are not very nice to each other.  

Eoin

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

kl8ton said:

Do you clip their wings?  My hens get over my 6 foot tall fence.  

I have hawk raids.

If you have 70 hens, you need more hawks

Preferably selective hawks that pick out the non-layers.

Gulfcoastguy

"No eggs? Meet the Egg!". 

shtgunal3

I've got 5 hens and get about 3 eggs per day. One of the hens is an old girl that don't lay anymore.