Ordinarily, we are disinclined to have young birds in the fall, but, this year, circumstances forced us to reconsider the matter.
Our coop is divided into an 11’x11’ side and an 11’x4’ side. The larger side is where the hens and our single rooster live, cage-free. The external door opens to the smaller side of the coop, which holds feed, some equipment, and the brooder table, and has an internal door to the larger side.
As a matter of course, when we bring the hens indoors in preparation for the winter, there is a temporary drop in egg production. For most of the hens it is a mini-molt: they shed a few feathers, take a couple weeks of vacation from laying, then regrow their feathers and get back to work. This year, however, many of the hens grew unaccountably obstinate and did not resume laying, even after a month. I suspect they have realized the weather has grown too unpleasantly cold for butchering spent hens and now intend to enjoy the winter in a warm coop with plenty of feed, without paying for their room and board.
Even though it will cost us some money for electric heat, we have resolved to raise a group of chicks into maturity during the winter so they will begin laying in the spring. If we were to delay until spring, when the weather will be warmer, the chicks wouldn’t be mature until the fall of 2026 and we would spend almost a year with minimal egg revenue. The economic realities of our business dictate that we remedy the shortfall much sooner than that! So it was that we placed an order for 15 Rhode Island Red pullets, based on the circumstance that that type was the only reputable laying breed conveniently available.
Thankfully, we received the 15 chicks and a surprise chick in good condition. In just days they have developed wing feathers. The surprise chick is currently white with a black fleck on one wing. We’ll have to wait for better clues before attempting to guess its breed.
The rooster and hens immediately recognized the peeping of the chicks and have reacted quickly. Our diminutive rooster, appropriately named “Farquaad,” has begun crowing more and seems to be attempting to strut. Some of the hens may have realized that the first warm days of the spring will bring a hard reckoning of their accounts. They are still falling short of the summer production rate, but have increased production to an average of one dozen eggs per day.
One of Melissa’s favorite books is “Good Omens.” She convinced me to read it, and I enjoyed the part about Crowley stimulating his plants to grow. She teases me about adapting the technique to the hens. Hmm….
A dozen eggs a day seems like quite a lot. What amount would be normal?
A chicken lays eggs on a cycle of ~25 hours.
So, a good layer will lay 2 eggs in 3 days.
Great layers will lay 1 egg per day.
So, from a flock of ~30, it would be reasonable to expect ~20 eggs per day.
We were getting that before they came back inside.