I've just heard from Edwin Dysinger of Bountiful Blessings Farm in Williamsport, TN, and it looks as though we've made our first connection with a regular CSA. Currently, Bountiful Blessings is providing a full winter CSA and I will be delivering eggs to their weekly pick-up points. Be sure to check out their website, and think about all those robust winter veggies!
Right now the hens are on the far side of the pasture, laying between 5 and 6 dozen a day. Below, Ozark and I attempt to calculate the number of eggs per day versus the amount of grain 144 laying hens and 4 roosters eat per day. The numbers are difficult folks, even excluding the value of my labor. But Ozark figures there are things I have yet to account for.
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Hi, I am with Ozark............ You have to also take into account the replacement cost of the hens when they stop laying. Also how can you tell which hens are not laying ?
ReplyDeleteDoes Ozark have any idea of his cost ?
Looking forward to our trip in January.
Have a good Christmas, Patrick.
Hey Patrick. Thanks for your comments, and I'm glad your enjoying the blog. First, perhaps Ozark thinks the best things about the chickens and other animals are things we've yet to consider at all. Things that only a poodle thinks are cool.
ReplyDeleteSecond, and this gets to your other post as well, these chickens are not even a year old yet, and so have yet to even come into a full production cycle. Hens typically lay at peak performance until they're two years old, or after two molts. They've yet to molt once. So, we've got a while before those accounting considerations are necessary. That said, I'm not sure how you can tell which hens are not laying well, and so how to mark the performance of individual birds. People consistently talk about doing it though; perhaps lipstick on a narrowed range of nests? Or nests with trapdoors?
hey there...you can tell if a hen is laying by a couple different clues..comb color should be bright red and cloaca should be moist and flexible. A hens skin will also bleach out, in a certain sequence. Not quite positive to the sequence though ...hope Rambo and yall got back to TN safely!
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