Marthanoir
TB Fanatic
I don’t even know how to LOOK for “a guy.”
Hang around Starbucks in skinny jeans drinking a soy latte and one will find you
I don’t even know how to LOOK for “a guy.”
I would so love to find honest farm-fresh eggs here locally.
Great little business for her. We are not in that market. We are after enough to feed us and a few others. Nothing more.One other thing about chicken’s economic viability:
If you want to keep egg production at a maximum AND create a market for your older bids AND keep from developing your own (relatively non-productive) retirement villa all at the same time, you can do what one lady friend out in the countryside near me does.
She keeps a stock of good breeders, bringing in a fresh rooster for each variety of chicken she grows. She has a colony of dark brown egg layers (black copper marans), one of light brown egg layers (light brahmas) and blue egg layers (cream leg bars). So she brings in one new maran rooster, one new light brahma rooster, and obe cream leg bar roster each year.
She hatches new eggs twice a year for the marans and the cream leg bars, and once a year for the brahmas. (I am not sure why she only hatches one clutch of brahmas per year).
She raises them to laying age, then when they are laying for about a month, she collects their eggs to put a new clutch in the incubator. (Remember, I said, she hatches babies twice a year. She prefers new babies coming from girls who have only been laying a month or two.)
Young pullets lay the most eggs per week/month. So she collects alot of eggs from her hens from the time they hit six months old until she sells them.
Meantime, she hatches the eggs she got from them in the incubator, and then raises the baby chicks until they are old enough to lay.
When this group of baby chicks (now young pullets) gets old enough to lay, she will keep them segregated from the older hens (their mothers), and segregate their eggs too. The baby chicks are about seven or eight months younger than their mothers.
When the new group of pullets have been laying for a month, she takes some of their eggs, puts them in the incubator, and begins the hatching/chick raising process all over again.
Meantime, once the younger pullets have been laying about three months or so, she puts their mothers (now about 15 to 17 months old, and having been laying eggs for maybe 9 or 10 months now) on Craigslist, or else sells them to folks on her waiting list to get laying hens from her.
The hens she sells still have near a year’s worth of good laying time left to them, before they molt and begin to slow down their egg production.
Most of her market are first time chicken owners, or else folks who lost their flock to predators. They are not wanting to raise baby chicks. Most want eggs immediately.
This is a never eding cycle on her farm. Every six or seven months or so, she is selling a batch of laying hens. She gets what she considers to be the best time in their laying life (from the time they start until they have been laying seven or eight months). Then she sells them to a good home, and enjoys the peak laying life of the group that follows them.
Doing this, she can recoup some of the cost of feeding her not-yet-productive baby chicks, as she sells each 15 month old hen for $15 each.
And by selling the birds while they still have plenty of egg laying life in them, she gets alot of happy, repeat customers.
Finally, by selling the 15 month old girls as soon as their replacements are of productive egg laying age, she keeps from having a lot of older, lesser productive birds that eat more than they lay.
Edited to Add:
This cycle is limited to the female chicks.
The males that are hatched in this process are sent to a special “bachelor pad,” where they live with other males until they are around 14-18 weeks old.
Then they are sent to Freezer Camp.
Good news!
We now have a baker dozen of eggs......
The cost is now down to $270 per egg..... lol
Actually, we are seeing that once they all produce regularly, that we are going to be competitive with store eggs.
We also tried them this weekend. Much better tasting and filling.
The cost is now down to $270 per egg..... lol
You have to do to learn skills. No other way.Like a $3000 dollar holster I built.
Investments based upon Mother Nature often 'never' pay off... just ask any farmer that does not take government intervention to make ends meet.Good news!
We now have a baker dozen of eggs......
The cost is now down to $270 per egg..... lol
Actually, we are seeing that once they all produce regularly, that we are going to be competitive with store eggs.
We also tried them this weekend. Much better tasting and filling.
Check every place they could lay at, the young ones can be pretty canny about where they lay. They are still wild at heart and will hid their eggs.I've been checking my nesting boxes every day and imploring the pullets to start earning their keep. About twenty weeks old now and they are going through the chow ravenously and pooping copiously but so far no go. I learned the lesson the last time I had chickens. If you wonder when they are going to lay their eggs the answer is when they are da*n good and ready. LOL!!
My girls loved nettles. I would cut them off at ground level, leave them in a pile for about a half hour. The sting goes away after they are cut, takes 15 to 30 minutes . They are full of good stuff.My grandmother raised hundreds of chickens at any given time. She culled chickens maybe a month before they culled hogs. The chickens got the garden scraps for the most part. None of them got any alliums (onion, garlic, etc.) as it is bad for them. Good grief it was hysterical to watch them go after melons when they were in season. The hogs got scraps from the from any corns harvests for personal use … husks and stalks. Cobs were dried for bedding for chickens and hogs.
Grandaddy’s quail had a special diet, I forget what as I was only allowed to feed them a particular weed from the yard which they loooooved. Grandaddy had three geese that he raised from eggs and they were his pets. All he had to do was say, “C’mon babies.” And they would come running from wherever they were within the sound of his voice. They would ride on the tractor or in the combine with him too. They followed him everywhere. It was kinda funny to be honest, this big farmer of a man and these geese. Good memories and it just proved out gentle granddaddy could be because he was a tough, tough man most of the time. The farm dogs knew that to mess with those geese was a death sentence, not that those geese put up with much. Dang they could punch hard enough to leave a bruise in uncomfortable places. They were worse than the goats were.
My girls loved nettles. I would cut them off at ground level, leave them in a pile for about a half hour. The sting goes away after they are cut, takes 15 to 30 minutes . They are full of good stuff.
Dachshunds and chickens,The payoff comes when two huge buff Orpingtons race to sit on your lap. One on one leg, one on the other leg. One of those girls loved to hide her head under whatever loose shirt I had on. They would just sit there, content in the fact that I loved them. They liked getting petted. Not all of them are like that, but some....
I miss my chickens.
Those little pullet eggs are so cute. Wait til you see your first "rubber egg", and egg laid without a shellWith just under $3k for a level 5 prison to be built.
With about $300 to acquire inmates
With on going monthly costs of $80 to maintain the inmate in good health
We have our first 2 eggs......small green ones....
As they say priceless
I could never do that one. The cats would climb the wall and attach the chickens. Also, the raccoons would reach through to grab them..... nice though.View attachment 362042
My chickens aren't very happy. Got my fence sections delivered yesterday and put it up early this morning before I opened the door to the coop. Chicken jail.
With just under $3k for a level 5 prison to be built.
With about $300 to acquire inmates
With on going monthly costs of $80 to maintain the inmate in good health
We have our first 2 eggs......small green ones....
As t
Yup. Your product is seen as superior.Perhaps someone can explain the willingness to pay above market prices for eggs????
Perhaps someone can explain the willingness to pay above market prices for eggs????
My Lucky rescue English Shepherd started out just herding the chickens. Then he started herding them out of the garden. Soon, he decided they belonged in the barn... all day. If we wanted to catch one, he'd chase it until it froze, then put one big paw on its back and hold it for us.The eggs really do taste better, and people notice. Also, there's the mystique of farm fresh/home raised which drives the market on organic/pasture raised/free range/grass-fed/ad nauseum. People are willing to pay stupid money for food they think is healthier/more nutritious.
Laughing about your escapee. I just got one semi-feral one collared before I locked down outside access for my flock for the winter. This new Lab pup is the best chicken catcher ever! Has been that way since she was a little sprout, and wrangled this latest renegade for me a couple days ago. She'll drive it into a fence corner or the deep brush tangle where it can't move, and when it gives up and freezes, holds it there until I come and take it. Doesn't seem to have the instinct to grab it or kill it, but more herd and hold on a live bird. No idea what she'd do with a dead grouse I shot. Maybe find out next year.
No idea. All I know is that they taste better and are much more filling.Yup. Your product is seen as superior.
"Fresher."
If the feed you use does not have soy, that could also be a factor. Got a friend who cannot tolerate eggs from chickens with soy based feed.
They DO taste much better.No idea. All I know is that they taste better and are much more filling.
$3,500 and two eggs. Soon you'll be cost averaging them.With just under $3k for a level 5 prison to be built.
With about $300 to acquire inmates
With on going monthly costs of $80 to maintain the inmate in good health
We have our first 2 eggs......small green ones....
As they say priceless
The wife has been counting. I am down to double digit dollars per egg.....lol$3,500 and two eggs. Soon you'll be cost averaging them.
When will you have enough to build a pyramid puzzle where we have to guess how many?
The only problem being you'll get chicks which aren't identical to the hybrid Comets. They'll still lay well, though...I have 3 Golden Comets. They are a white leghorn / Rode Island Red Cross. They aren't as flighty as the Leghorns and they are smaller than the Reds. I have never had such good layers ! I keep them in a roofed over dog kennel with a cement floor. Totally Mongoose proof.
I bought an incubator and will crank it up when I find a suitable rooster.
What if I get a Golden Comet rooster ?The only problem being you'll get chicks which aren't identical to the hybrid Comets. They'll still lay well, though...
Summerthyme
He's still going to be a hybrid... the chicks will be a genetic assortment, with some looking/functioning like one of the breeds, and some the other. 2nd generations from hybrids are a craps shoot.What if I get a Golden Comet rooster ?
Really! 10x10. I bet my neighbor behind me is doing just that. I know he has a LOT of chickens and his shed doubled in size this summer. Huh! I have to figure that one out for us.Congrats!
Some thoughts to consider, now that, that project is done.
Back in the day, like 1800's day.
Chickens free ranged, and mostly did ok with the occasional predator. Back in those days (early 1800's) we have panthers, bobcats, and even bears, not to mention the run of the mill 'coon, and hawks. So lots of predators.
Mention that as back ground for: And mostly all they got was bugs, grass, and table scrapes, with some corn thrown in. Corn was raised for: hogs, horses, mules and cows.
So consider raising some corn too.
In addition most farmers/homesteaders/pioneers also raised hogs instead of cows. You can raise a hog in a small maybe 10 X 10, or so, enclosure. Which can be fed table scraps and corn.
So chickens, hogs and corn and you're almost self sufficient. Having a garden is a given.
So only a few more projects. LOL
Have really enjoyed the thread about you building your coop.