In a way this post is a mild rant. Here we try to give lots of great tips on becoming more Self Sufficient and one of those ways is by keeping Chickens.
I have given tips on Chicken nesting boxes, building Chicken Coops and much more. What I am amazed at is some of the things people want you to pay for. Yep, E-Books!
While I know there are some great E-Books there are also some dodgy ones. For some reason Chickens seem to be one topic that has generated lots of them. Here we give the information we know for FREE.
A classic I came across was an E-Book that for $10 or so would tell you how to get the maximum number of Eggs from your Chicken in a year.
Want to know how to do it?
Buy A Chicken!!!!!!!!!!
then………….
Buy A Lightbulb!!!!!!!
Seriously. Don’t pay $10 for that type of information.
Chickens Not Laying?
If your Chicken is not laying then it is either too young, too old, the hours of daylight are too short, it is molting or the feed is not of sufficient nutritional value. You can only do anything about the latter two. For the best Chicken egg laying supply some artificial light to fool the Chicken in to thinking the days are still long and it will continue to lay. Make sure you feed it a correct mix with some extra goodies like Cabbage and Grass and the nutrition side should be taken care of.
If you think the info is worth $10 then feel free to send it to us!
Here are the answers to some other Questions some people want paying for:
How Many Eggs Chicken Lay?
Who knows. No one can be exact. It depends on the breed and the individual Chicken. Each Chicken is born with a predetermined number of Eggs it will lay. There is no exact number. If an average Chicken lays roughly five eggs a week for about two years you can work it out from there. Let’s just say a Chicken is well worth the initial investment.
How Many Eggs Can A Chicken Lay In A Day?
One. Chickens lay an Egg, or less, a day, when they are in their prime. As they get older this number will start to decrease. Two to three years is normally the timespan for regular laying and then it tapers off quite dramatically the older they get.
Anyway, mini rant over. If you have any chicken related questions then feel free to ask.
What? You haven’t got any Chickens yet? You are missing out!
For a more self sufficient future
Might also be worth considering that a light bulb now means fewer eggs later. But if your goal is efficiency (quick eggs, then to the stew pot), it makes sense.
One other factor that will definitely impact laying is stress. If you relocated a hen, if it suffers a traumatic event, etc., you can expect a hiatus. But they do bounce back.
So happy hens are good! 🙂
Feralchick, that’s right. The quicker you get the eggs the sooner the Chicken will have layed her quota.
Good point about stress, it will stop them laying for a while.
Yay for the Hens!
http://www.backyardchickens.com/
this is an excellent website for FREE advice from chicken owners.
http://www.backyardpoultry.com is also a great site for free info about raising chickens.
http://www.suburbanchooks.com.au also have a FAQ’s section with some good info on keeping chickens. Worth a look!
Could it be possible that adding new hens would upset the old hen and they stop laying? if they did would they start again? we had 5 hens for 6 years and this year Got 6 more hens and replaced the rooster. we only get about 5-6 eggs. could the old chickens be done laying??
Stephanie – adding new chickens to old is likely to upset both sets of hens, but usually only short-term whilst they sort out their pecking order again. In the meantime laying might be a little hit and miss.
I imagine your older birds are simply slowing down (but it would depend on the breed as some go on laying fairly regularly for far longer than others). Our local hybrid birds tend to give up on much egg production after about 3 years, but until then were laying probably around 250 eggs a year each, so stopping so young was to be expected.
But, the younger hens might simply not be up to speed yet (or none of them like your rooster much!). I’m sure they will sort themselves out in a week or two.
I have just moved my chickens to another location. Whilst there I was only getting about an egg a day. Now I’m not getting any. I have about 18 of them. They are all free range maybe it’s too large, they get lots of greens, papayas and veg scraps. The only feed here is chopped corn. Some are young about 7 months old and some older don’t know their age. I have made their coop dark and are using recycle buckets for nests. Don’t know why.
I’m Billie, I’m 7 years old, Iwant to do chickens for my future.
also Barbado sheep, Crossed with Dorpher, to create a business
around organics, My cash flow shoud start with the best in my
budget, which will be from my retired fathers soc., sec.,
I want to learn all about chicks. How can we get started soon.
I now have 8 Red Star 2 month old, 25 @ 3 Black Star, 2 turkins
2 that lay blue eggs weeks, all are 1 month old, Just received
on the 17th , Nov 12 turkins, 12 Legorns.
Business Plan to aquire 25 per month as I learn ithe in’s and outs
the up’s and downs of the chicken business.
I aquired u’r info sometime back and just today starting to read.
and reply. Please sign me up.
Be looking forward to hearing, learning you rules. Maybe I will be
your asset one day. Thanking U in advance Respectfully. Billie V.
Billy, I would recommend asking your local Tractor Supply, Co-op, or any business that focuses on farm life. In your chicken coop, place a solar light that would go in your backyard to light a path or something. The light would attract bugs for the chickens to eat, and you would not have to worry about changing the light or giving them fancy foods.
You could sell your eggs for 5 dollars per dozen, and this way you could make the money you are hoping to gain.
If you have 24 chickens, then you would get roughly 20 eggs per day. That’s 140 eggs by the end of the week. That means you would be able to sell 11 dozen. that’s 55 dollars per week easy. This brings you to roughly 220 dollars per month, and 2,640 dollars per year.
As for your sheep. I would recommend getting a few of the cross-breeds to breed them and sell their young.
Best of luck! – Katie
One chicken is in the laying box and refuses tocome out….Should we move her out to a box away from the others ?
Will it hurt to force her out?
Maureen, I would move her somewhere quiet so she can do her thang 😉
we had 8 chickens that were all laying eggs, one of them seemed to be the dominate one and would seem to peck the feathers off the others. About 3 weeks ago a skunk got in the hen house and one was left….we called her bald neck. she has not laid an egg since. Is this from trauma or what? Feed has not changed except we added 5 new baby chicks in the hen house. They are about 3mths old now. we give her oyster shell and let her free range on the grass. Not sure why she is still not laying or if she will ever?
Liz, it definitely sounds like stress to me, and a change of companions.
I have 10 hens and one rooster I get 1 egg about every other day. I just got started in the chicken bussiness about a month ago. I am not real sure what I can do to get more eggs. Does anyone have any tips
Brandon, from each hen you mean? I hope so, but good layers would lay almost every day. What kind of chickens are they and how old?
I have two layers that started laying when they were eight months old. I expected them to lay everyday but they could only lay one every 3 or 4 days. They have laid up to 40 eggs since they started laying about 6 months ago. What is the problem?