EGGducation

There’s a few things that took me a while to learn about chickens and their eggs.

First off, chickens typically lay a single egg a day but on average, each year a chicken takes a little time off, 3-6 months depending on breed and weather conditions.

That’s the second thing, weather. If the weather is extreme (like a cold winter or really hot summer) then a chickens body may have to work overtime to survive. When this happens the chicken will stop laying eggs until the chickens body no longer has to work so hard. 

The other reason is that chickens molt once a year. That means they lose all their feathers and regrow new ones. Their body has to work hard to regrow feathers when this happens so they stop laying eggs. 

As a combination of the above two it is rule of thumb for chicken owners to increase calcium and crude protein in their chickens diet to assist them in recovering. (Believe it or not diet is extremely important in any living thing.)

Another thing I’ve learned is never to trust what you read about specific chicken breeds being setters and non setters. (Chickens that like to sit on eggs rather than lay them vs chickens who do not). All chickens go broody sooner or later. Some more than others of course but there’s no such thing as a non setter. *eye roll* My experience is limited to about 20 chicken breeds that I’ve owned but I’m pretty sure I’m right. 

Another way that farmers keep their chickens laying eggs in winter is by adding light in their coops. Chickens have these little sensors in their eyes that can detect light and hours of light. So when the winter comes and the days get shorter so does the chickens egg laying cycle. So farmers try to trick those sensors by providing light in the coop, typically on timers. 

By the way, the reason chickens go in at dusk to sleep is because they can’t see in the dark. 

Next is that one thing all chicken owners should have in their garden is Oregano and one thing for all chicken owners should keep in their pantry is apple cider vinegar. 

Oregano is a strong, natural antibiotic to chickens. Whether it’s fresh or dried it is always helpful when you have a chicken who isn’t  feeling well. Like any antibiotic, you should always use them sparingly so they don’t build an immunity to it. I like to put fresh oregano in their water supply about twice a year. Once in late spring/early summer and again at the end of the season just before winter. 

Apple cider vinegar is like a parasite killer or wormer for chickens. If added to their drinking water it will kill bacteria that may be making them ill. If their poop is runny or too light in color they may have parasites. This is a good time to use this. I give it to mine in the spring and mid summer when bugs are at their worst. 

I’ve also learned that “chicken math” is a common joke amongst chicken owners. It basically means that a non chicken owners idea of one chicken is like four chickens to a chicken owner. 😁

You remember that quote “If you build it, they will come”? Well, if you sell eggs, customers will come...religiously...and yell at you when you run out. 😳 So make sure you continue to re-raise new flocks each year to keep production up. 

Just an FYI: eggs will never have the potential to become baby chicks if there’s no rooster in the flock to fertilize them.  And even if there is a rooster in the flock, if you refrigerate your eggs they will never develope in any way. 

Tip: Fresh eggs do not make good hard boiled eggs unless you steam them, or let them sit in the water for a long time, or let them sit in the fridge for 2 days after boiling and before peeling. The reason is because there is a membrane just under the shell. The egg shell has pores that allow oxygen in very slowly. When the egg is very fresh there is no air helping to separate the membrane from the shell. So when you try to peel them they’ll just rip apart. 

Oh, and never wear shorts, flip flops or anything else that exposes your wiggly digits, painted toe nails or freckles because you will be an instant target to your tiny raptors. 😂

Chicken Mama

I've been raising chickens for about 3 years now. I've been buying chicks from Murray McMurray Hatchery https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/index.html since long before owning my own farm. My mother used to purchase chickens from them when I was a kid.

Anyway, I raise chickens for eggs. I sell their eggs. Upon raising several different breeds of chickens I've become a bit of a chicken addict. I love chickens!! They're easy to raise, easy to handle, easy to sell and easy to buy. They are cheap to feed and profitable if you sell their eggs.

I'm currently researching egg incubation so that I can hatch eggs and sell the chicks for an extra income.

I've had everything from standard breeds, to the best egg layers to bantams and silkies which I'm raising right now for the chicks they can produce. I have them in 2 large sister runs. Each run has it's own coop and they can be kept divided or opened and allowed to blend flocks. At the moment, I have the fence closed and I have a flock of 35 laying hens in one side and a flock of 55 plus 12 turkeys on the other side.

I also have a small coop within my largest coop specifically for breeding pairs. My current flock of 55 will be ready to start laying eggs in September. I chose a large blend of breeds for the different color eggs they lay. So I'll have a beautiful rainbow of eggs by then to sell to my customers.

The reason I want to begin hatching/raising my own chicks is for three reasons: One is that it can be rather expensive to continuously purchase layer flocks every year. Also, I could potentially make money off the chicks. The last reason is to kind of right a wrong I committed as a child.

My siblings and I used to play a game called "Who's the Rotten Egg". We would go down to the barn and collect eggs. If we happened to find an old nest we would begin the egg fight and whoever got nailed with the stinky rotten egg was the loser. Well, one day I threw an egg at my sister and I missed. It went flying past her and broke on the ground. To my horror, there was a nearly fully developed baby chick inside, then dead because of me. So now, I'd like to bring some chicks back into the world, perhaps replace the ones I so carelessly killed as a child.

The breeds I will be focusing on will be White Silkies and Mille Fleur D'Uccles. Both are bantam breeds. I will begin the breeding practice in the spring of 2019!

Turkey Poults: First year observations.

This is my first year raising turkey poults. My purpose for this is to sell them for food and raise money for my farm, so I chose Broad Breasted breeds of Whites and Bronze Breasted turkeys. I chose these breeds because they were specifically bred to grow muscles rapidly making them large enough to slaughter at around 20-25 weeks of age at approximately 20’ish pounds.

So, upon arrival 1 died immediately. Within 4 days 3 more died. I began with 16. It has been a VERY cold April so far and shipping took several days so the poor little things were freezing. 

Once they got warmed up I had to teach them how to eat and drink. Not as easy a task as chicks. So I used 3 of the 50 chicks I also purchased at that time to teach the turkeys to eat and drink. That worked well but I still had to encourage the turkeys to eat by digging in their food, dipping my fingers in their water and touching their beaks with it. Not to mention I added other foods to catch their curiosity like, venison, lettuce, strawberries and apples all put through the food processor. 

When I lost the fourth turkey poult I was surprised. They had been doing well just an hour prior to me vacuuming the front porch (AKA the chick brooder). I later learned that turkey poults are so sensitive that even being startled can put them into shock and kill them within mere hours. 👀 

It was then that I got some helpful advise from some other turkey farmers. Turkeys don’t like rain, loud noises, sudden changes of any kind and they need you like they need their mom (unlike chicks). When they go into shock, they’ll drop/collapse. If this happens and they don’t seem to be active as they were before or interested in food or anything, you have to massage them. Circular motions all over to get their circulation going again. Do this several times taking small breaks in between. You should see signs of improvement within 20 minutes to an hour. Then all should be well.

So, as a result of the shock factor from the vacuum, I was no longer able to vacuum the porch. The dander from all the chicks was over powering. I had to keep opening the windows and ventilating with a window fan facing outside. Like the dander wasn't bad enough, the turkeys learned how to fly at only 2 WEEKS!! I was shocked! No one prepared me for that. The chicks usually take a month. Well, they immediately took over the entire porch, which is quite large. And they do not have fear like chickens do. Nope, they saw me as Mom, not the lady with food. So every time they saw me they'd come running looking for food and comfort. When I just sat with them they would open up a bit, start strutting, run laps on the porch back and forth and just sit on my lap and nap. So I guess you could say, its kind of like having a puppy.

At 5 weeks of age, they had completely ruined the rug on my porch. Oh yes, the poop. Poop machines!! My gosh. The dander was totally out of control. I was dusting sometimes twice a day and frankly, I was having a very hard time getting anything done out there without being totally bombarded by the turkeys. So I got some advise from other turkey farmers who said, "Put them out!" So I did.

I have been consistently letting them out all day and forcing them back into the coop at night to sleep. Every morning I open the door they come running out and drop at my feet in the sunshine. They stretch out a leg and a wing and take a brief nap. It was pretty funny. They were sun bathing, probably because they'd been cold overnight.

After about 5 days, I added the chicks to the coop. I picked a time when it was going to be cold and rainy. This way, the chicks would be forced to stay inside the coop for the day, maybe longer and develop a sense of "home" so that when I did let them out to explore their run for the first time, they'd know to return to the coop for safety and food.

All in all, I've decided that raising turkeys is much more challenging than raising chickens. I hope they're lucrative.