Eggs

[husqvarna257]

But still a weasel.....
The only good weasel is a dead weasel.

I lost a bunch of chicks just in a week after they got here. a weasel pulled them out and had a kill display. I set traps but got nothing. A few weeks later my old Mine coon got him. Big snarl on the weasel's face. Good cat, still miss him.

I can't say much. We had 6 barred rock chicks and 6 Americana. I was dumb enough at tractor supply to look at the chicks. Well 6 Barred rock leftovers at$1.00 per bird. My wife said we don't need em but They were a week of from ours and they blended right in. WE still had 8 Golden comet layers so we had lots of eggs next year.

 

[muddstopper]

BIL is hatching me a few, due this weekend. I gave him 1 1/2 dozen black copper maran eggs and 1/2dozen of my free hen eggs. I only have one bc maran rooster so I am interested how the free hen chicks turn out. I lost my white leghorn hen to a injury. Went to gather eggs and she was huddled in the corner of the coop with a bad leg. Leg didnt feel broken. She managed to drag herself to the water and feed bucket so I figured she would be ok. Next morning she was dead. Down to 4 hens currently, but I did manage to get 5 eggs one day last week. Not sure how that happened, but the free hen had two eggs that day.

 

[Stonesforbrains]

A weeks worth. Turkey eggs on the left and Maren chicken eggs on the left. Would have had 5 more turkey eggs but they get stepped on by the Tom sometimes. I thought there was more chicken eggs, my wife said she gave a dozen away.

 

[sean donato]

We have 17 laying age right now. Most have finished molting and started laying again. Averaging 12-15 eggs a day. Can't even give them away fast enough. Can't wat till the new 8 start laying.

 

[muddstopper]

Has anybody noticed the price of eggs in the stores lately. . Cheapest price I have seen are $3.74 doz. and going up. My copper marans have just started laying, small eggs, but still better than store bought. Chicken layer pellets are $17 per 50lbs. I get about 3 weeks per bag of feed. Getting about 2doz eggs a week. $3.74 x 2doz is $7.48 worth of eggs. 2doz a week is 6doz per bag of feed. $3.74x6 equals $22.44. feed cost $17 bag, so my chickens are saving me about $5 just in egg production. I do mix whole corn in a seperate feeder, but they eat so little of it I dont even try to keep up with the cost. Also, Marans are not the best layers available. I could swap breeds to leghorns, golden comets, etc. and probably double my production as well as lower my feed cost even more. Are you better off now than you where 4 years ago?

 

[pdqdl]

Our duck eggs are actually paying a very nice price. Some people just gave us $40 for a couple dozen eggs.

I like the eggs a whole lot more than chicken eggs, but I'd never pay that much.

 

[sean donato]

Has anybody noticed the price of eggs in the stores lately. . Cheapest price I have seen are $3.74 doz. and going up. My copper marans have just started laying, small eggs, but still better than store bought. Chicken layer pellets are $17 per 50lbs. I get about 3 weeks per bag of feed. Getting about 2doz eggs a week. $3.74 x 2doz is $7.48 worth of eggs. 2doz a week is 6doz per bag of feed. $3.74x6 equals $22.44. feed cost $17 bag, so my chickens are saving me about $5 just in egg production. I do mix whole corn in a seperate feeder, but they eat so little of it I dont even try to keep up with the cost. Also, Marans are not the best layers available. I could swap breeds to leghorns, golden comets, etc. and probably double my production as well as lower my feed cost even more. Are you better off now than you where 4 years ago?

Feed from the mill is just over $10.00 50 lb sack. Haven't put food out nearly all summer, the chickens free range. Think we're on bag 6 since March. Just keep the feeder full. Once the weather turns well start going through more. Been getting 20-28 eggs a day. Don't know how the math works out really. They are just as much pets as they are there for eggs. We don't sell the eggs, just give them away. The neighbors have enjoyed them all summer. We did loose a few, once ti a stupid husky that got loose and then a few died out of the blue. (All from the original batch, so not sure if it was age or sickness.) Currently we don't have any plans of replacing them. 30 odd chickens are way too many for our needs. 15-20 is too much but more realistic.

 

[sean donato]

Guess, I should add to that. Whole corn doesn't do the birds any favors. It's harder for them to digest, and in general they don't seem to like it. We did find a "grain mix" we were getting as a treat. One scoop a day more or less. It's gotten pretty expensive, so switching back to rolled corn when we're out. (The whole corn was a screw up at the mill, I didn't notice it till I went to refill the bin.)
Also, another thought. Pine bedding cost has increased a good but recently. Was ~$5.00 for 3 cubic feet now it's $7.49. Straw is up close to $10.00 bake now too. Give or take, in a years time we go through 2 bags of bedding a month and about a bake of straw every 3 months. That adds some cost too. I don't count that, since it all goes on the compost pile, but it does add some extra cost. Supplements add up too. Wife was giving them an electrolyte and pro biotic when it got really hot out. I can't say I ever noticed a difference. She claims they seemed to be doing a lot better in the heat when she put it out. (One scoop per gallon, she'd mix a fresh gallon daily. Was a pain, as we had to keep the dogs out of it. Would make them sick or huve them the runs or something like that )
Last thought on over all cost, cost of housing/ making a run. Since I tore the old wood shed down. we're going to be moving the coop and putting up a proper/ larger semi covered run for them. Any cost savings we would have had from money saved vs buying eggs (and I can't stand store bought eggs anymore.) Would get burned up in materials for building/ moving the coop and run.
Really it just comes down to (for me) we like having the fresh eggs, less bugs and they are quite entertaining, ie just as much pets as "farm" animals.
Side note, the 2 roosters didn't make it the summer either. I could only take crowing at 3am so many days in a row and they got awful ballsy when they got bigger. They met an early demise.

 

[pdqdl]

Yes, but were they good with noodles and veggies?

I've heard that roosters were better stewed than fried.

 

[muddstopper]

Yes, but were they good with noodles and veggies?

I've heard that roosters were better stewed than fried.

Roosters are better in dumplings. Other dishes include baking and using the meat in sandwiches. Soups are good too. We fry young roos and use mostly in sandwiches.

I use this kind of feeder to keep food available,

I got sheet rock buckets for free and bought some of those screw on lid kits to keep the feed clean. I have two feeders buckets, one for layer mash and one for corn. Chickens dont seem to like plain corn to much and a bucket full will last for several months as long as I keep layer feed available.

Forget those cheap water nipples. I fixed a 5 gal bucket with them, but the plastic is so cheap that my bird kept breaking them off and all the water would leak out. I use this kind of waterer now.

I can fill the feeder and the water full once a week and not have to do anything but gather eggs when I go to the coop. I keep the feeders and the waterer hanging with a rope in the rafters about 3 or 4 inches off the ground and this keeps the waterer clean. In the nest, I use pine wood chips. This seems to help keep the eggs clean and when the nest material gets dirty, I just rake it out to the floor of the coop. when the coop floor gets to dirty with poop, I shovel it out and put it in the garden beds. The pine chips really help with smells and flies and the birds really seem ot like scratching around and keeping the poop and chips mixed together. I just bought a bale of pine chips and cant remember how long its been since I bought the last bale. A bale seems to last a long time just keeping the nest full and clean. I use a little shovel to flick out any poop piles which makes the bedding last a lot longer. I probably shovel out the coop about twice a year.

 

[JRM]

Depending on the roof size of your coop you can install gutters and collect rain water. I ran 1" pvc from a small barrel into the coop and installed a handful of auto waterers. Every so often I'll drain it right before a rain so that it fills up with fresh water. At least during the non freezing months I never have to worry about watering them. Kinda nice being the coop is about 100 yards from the house with no running water.

 

[muddstopper]

Depending on the roof size of your coop you can install gutters and collect rain water. I ran 1" pvc from a small barrel into the coop and installed a handful of auto waterers. Every so often I'll drain it right before a rain so that it fills up with fresh water. At least during the non freezing months I never have to worry about watering them. Kinda nice being the coop is about 100 yards from the house with no running water.

I have considered doing something similar. My coop is behind and below my house. The gutter off the house is about 25 or 30 ft from the coop. The coop itself also has a metal roof and it would be very easy to add a gutter to it and catch the water in a tote. I guess the only reason I havent done it is because I have a water hose ran right up to the door of the coop.

 

[dandan111]

Depends on breed also. We always had heritage breeds. We’d get an egg a day per hen pretty regularly until cold weather or molt. We’d show pullets and hens and kept them fresh. Always layer feed, all in one. Never needed shells or grit.

 

[muddstopper]

Depends on breed also. We always had heritage breeds. We’d get an egg a day per hen pretty regularly until cold weather or molt. We’d show pullets and hens and kept them fresh. Always layer feed, all in one. Never needed shells or grit.

I used to fool with heritage breeds only, but back then I sold a lot of hatching eggs. I found that heritage breeds sold better and brought more money. I had my NPIP certification and shipped eggs all over the country. I never did any shows, I didnt have the time to do the traveling, but I bought my stock from show winners and I kept good quality birds. Now days, I buy stock from locals and back yard flocks. My Marans where given to me and have poor egg coloring as well as poor production, altho the eggs eat very well, which is all I am after. My best layers where Black Australopes, a egg a day, everyday, but I would swap out the hens at first molt. I had a incubator and plenty of eggs so the keeping of the most egg producing age birds was easy to do. Birds laying where also easy to sale and brought the most money. I did well saleing eggs and layers, but I got tired of the post office destroying my packages. They, (the Post Office) I felt where deliberate in mishandleing the eggs and they would not pay up on their insurance claims. I watched them toss a package of eggs across the room into their totes and the package was clearly marked, fragile, handle with care, on all 6 sides. When I asked the postal worker if they could read they just shrugged their shoulders and walked off. I actually had better luck shipping in unmarked packages then I did putting lables and stickers all over the boxes. UPS and Fedex wont even ship eggs. Several times I thought about shipping a bunch of rotten eggs just thrown in a box just so the P.O. would have to clean up their mess.

 

[dandan111]

My kids were in 4h. That was the extent of showing. Did get grand champion hens one year with a set of leghorn. My favorite were white rocks. Big pretty birds but nothing out produced the leghorns.

 

[muddstopper]

I am looking for some White rocks. White birds, good layers and they lay brown eggs. I guess probably my best show quality birds where my Buckeyes. I got them straight from Chris McCary the year his birds placed 1st,2nd,3rd at the Ohio Nationals. While I never showed any of my birds, I did have them judged. My NPIP State inspector was also a judge for state shows. He tried to get me to show my birds several times. He said my birds had the potential to win every show I put them in. I found that the everyday chicken buyers didnt care about show quality. I could advertise my birds and sell them as far away as California, but my local buyer just wasnt going to pay the premium prices those birds would bring. Most of my roosters when to the local livestock auctions. Funny in how sales worked out. I could get more for hatching eggs than I could get for live chicks.. I was working out of town during the week back then and my MIL took a bad health turn so My wife was having to take care of her and we sort of just let the chicken business go. My wife started letting the birds free range and foxes killed every rooster I had, as well as many hens. I am just now getting back into raising chickens but I dont look toward keeping flocks for sale. Just want enough to keep me in eggs and maybe a few extras just to give away.

 

[husqvarna257]

I collect rain water off of a 10 - 10 coop roof into a plastic 40 gallon barrel. It goes to 2 coops with nipple water'rs. WE got 6 golden comets this year to go with barred rocks and americanas. I have had the golden comets before and they are the best layers we have, new comets just started laying, and its almost an egg per bird per day. We had preditor problems this year so I put up a solar fence and an automatic coop door. The fence hits hard, first the dog found out then it was me finally my wife. This is a hobby for us, we love fresh eggs and the chickens will eat any kitchen scraps.

 

[sean donato]

Yes, but were they good with noodles and veggies?

I've heard that roosters were better stewed than fried.

They went in the pot and got boiled off, meat shreaded, about half went in the freezer and the other half got made into a chicken BBQ by my wife. Even just being a coupple months old birds, it was pretty tough vs a hen of the same age.

 

[husqvarna257]

Company picnic this week and they had 10 lb of leftover watermelon so I took it home for the birds. New golden comets are laying an egg per day. Good laying birds but they have a mean streak, they will beat any newcomer birds and if any birds are sick they gang up and kill them.

 

[wampum]

Company picnic this week and they had 10 lb of leftover watermelon so I took it home for the birds. New golden comets are laying an egg per day. Good laying birds but they have a mean streak, they will beat any newcomer birds and if any birds are sick they gang up and kill them.
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I am pretty sure those golden comets go by different names like red star. You are correct they are mean little rascals. Last spring We decided to try the French Breese chicken. We got them in late June. When these go to my main coop, the red stars are going bye bye. We are canning a lot right now, freeze drying and freezing veggies. The yard birds are getting a lot of scraps they normally do not get.