–FRANCINE RAYMOND, THE BIG BOOK OF GARDEN HENS, 2001.
5
Keeping Chickens for Eggs
Keeping chickens for eggs is one of my earliest childhood memories. Chantecler the rooster and his two hens Penelope and Hortense, three regal Rhode Island Reds, strutted proudly around our chicken yard. Then came Bright Eyes, Fern, Lily, Funny Face, and countless other big red hens. Scattered among them were Wyandottes, Brahmas, Golden Comets, Black Sex-Links, Mille-Fleurs, Ameraucanas, and Australorps. As kids, my sisters and I would wait eagerly for the hens to lay their eggs and quickly snatch them up, scraping our names into the wet bloom. After they had dried, the names would magically stand out on the shell, like an Easter egg that has been waxed with a message before coloring.
We kept laying hens to provide us with eggs, but I really think my parents kept them as a way to teach us responsibility and self-sustenance. Laying hens are easily integrated into any small family operation that also has a small garden and cans or freezes zucchini and tomatoes to feed themselves in the winter. Chickens are easy enough to keep without becoming overwhelming, and anyone who has volunteered to feed the cats while you’re away on vacation is usually willing to throw grain to a few chickens in the pen, especially if fresh eggs are part of the deal (they carry a lot more bargaining power than zucchini).
Keeping Laying Hens
Laying hens in a larger enterprise employ similar husbandry practices to those used by the backyard poultry keeper. Differences between small- and large-scale flocks might be in the breed of hen chosen, the feed they are given, and their living quarters.
WHICH LAYING HEN BREED SHOULD I CHOOSE? Each breed of chicken has a different rate of lay based on body type, ability to perform under certain environmental conditions, ability to convert feed efficiently to egg production, and other factors. The Chicken Breed Chart outlines many of these characteristics. Generally speaking, commercially developed hybrids produce more eggs. Most of these have been developed using the Leghorn, a breed in the Mediterranean class of chickens. They are flighty, small-framed birds that convert feed more efficiently to eggs than other breeds. Leghorns are not the best to choose if a dual-purpose bird is what you’re after. The carcass of a Leghorn can’t compare to that of a Rhode Island Red or a Plymouth Rock when it comes time to cull them from the laying flock due to poor laying performance.
Whitey, a White Plymouth Rock, wanders amongst the bushes at Carol Steingress’s and Rick Schluntz’s home. The couple have been keeping 5 to 6 laying hens in their small intown yard for the past 10 years. “I think they’re so interesting and curious,” Steingress said. “We’re hooked.”
Egg color may also factor into your decision. It took us years for our customers to accept our white eggs. To this day, people still ask us if they are nutritionally equal to brown eggs. Now, we mix our cartons, so that each one contains white, brown, and green eggs.
Generally, the color of a chicken’s earlobe indicates the color of egg it will lay; white earlobed hens lay white eggs, white red earlobes indicate a brown egg layer. This rule runs into trouble when you have Silkies, whose earlobes are a robin’s-egg blue.
Chicken Scratch
Are white eggs as nutritious as brown eggs?
The poultry demographic is clearly segregated. In New England, there are more brown eggs in the supermarkets, while in the Grain Belt and the South, white egg layers are more popular. The New England adage, “Brown eggs are local eggs, and local eggs are fresh” was true when the white eggs bought at the store were shipped from farther away. With modern-day transportation, this no longer applies, and on your farmstead all eggs, be they brown, white, or green, will share the same quality. There is no difference in the cholesterol content in brown versus white eggs, but free-range chickens (i.e., pastured, and allowed to forage at will) will produce eggs higher in omega-3 fatty acids than confined breeds. Confined birds can, however, be given feed supplements to increase omega-3s in their eggs.
How Eggs Are Laid
When a female chick is hatched, she is equipped with two ovaries. The development of the right ovary stops in order to accommodate space for development of her eggs. Hens are hatched with the capacity to produce more than 4,000 eggs in a lifetime, but even the hardiest of hens, like the Leghorn, will lay just under 300 eggs in her first year of life, and then just over 200 eggs the year after. A pullet’s first eggs will start out small, but by 30 weeks of age, they will reach their normal size. As a hen ages, her eggs will grow larger. Hens can lay eggs for more than a decade, but most are culled from commercial laying flocks after 11 to 24 months, when production decreases substantially.
A Golden Comet hen sits in one of the nesting boxes of a portable coop at Back Beyond Farm. The coop has five nesting boxes—farmer Ray Williams said there should be one nesting box for every five laying hens.
Inside the hen’s body, attached midway along her backbone, is the ovary and its cluster of undeveloped ova (the yolks). When the hen reaches maturity, each yolk comes to full size, and the follicle encapsulating it ruptures, expelling it from the ovary into the funnel of the oviduct. The yolk travels to the infundibulum, where fertilization takes place if a rooster has run with her. The chalazae, two twisted white cords that hold the yolk centered in the egg, are then formed, and the majority of the albumen (egg white) is added as the yolk twists its way through the passageway to the magnum. In the isthmus, the shell membranes are formed. In the uterus (or shell gland), the shell itself is formed, a process that takes about 20 hours to complete. Afterwards, the egg moves into the vagina, where it rotates from small end to large end facing out. A lubricating fluid, called the cuticle or bloom, coats the egg and eases it out of the vent. This quickly dries and seals bacteria and dirt out of the egg.
The hen will lay her egg one hour later each day until dusk is reached. Then she’ll wait until morning to restart her cycle again. In their first year, most hens will not stop laying unless they become broody, they begin to molt, or the number of daylight hours decreases to less than 13 hours per day.
Raising Pullets
Believe it or not, rushing laying hens to maturity by feeding them a commercial ration designed to grow birds quickly like that fed to meat chickens can result in birds that lay smaller eggs throughout their life, have less vigor, and may molt their feathers too soon and cease laying prematurely. Pullets that are pushed to lay too quickly may also suffer from egg binding or prolapse. Eggs that are too large for the pullet’s reproductive tract can get lodged (egg binding), which, unless removed, can result in the death of the bird. A large egg can also force the tender, pink skin just inside the vent to balloon out (prolapse). Since chickens are attracted to the color red, they will pick at the site, causing it to bleed and become infected. If the bird is not separated from the rest of the flock, it will be cannibalized by the other birds attracted to the blood and open wound and will very likely die from infection.
Chicken Scratch
Omega-3s
We sell our eggs at a farmer’s market in an affluent town. One customer approached us, well dressed and well educated, inquiring about our eggs. Our chickens run, pell-mell, wreaking havoc in my sparse perennial beds, in the neighbor’s yard, dodging the school bus, gobbling up fresh greens, insects, arthropods, even baby mice if they find them (chickens are truly omnivores). She asked us what we give our chickens to increase the omega-3 fatty acids in the eggs. I said that we gave them nothing, that they obtained these nutrients naturally, foraging on pasture. Nonplussed, she left, in search of artificially supplemented omega-3 fatty acid–infused eggs. In fact, hens raised on pasture have higher levels of omega-3s as well as vitamins E, A, and beta-carotene than hens raised in confinement.
It is best to raise laying pullets separate from cockerels or pullets intended for meat. The stress of constant harassment from cockerels or competition for food from the faster-maturing meat birds can delay the laying pullet’s ability to reach maturity.
A Barred Plymouth Rock pullet warms herself in the sun in the doorway of the “Mini Coop” designed by Alex Cherington. The coop, with insulated floor space of about 12 square feet, is intentionally small to keep a small flock warm in the winter.
Access to pasture with fresh greens and sunlight will enhance a pullet’s vigor. As the pullet reaches maturity, her rate of growth will decrease, and protein from a commercial ration should be decreased while the carbohydrate portion should increase to allow her to build a reserve fat layer.
Pullets will begin laying sometime between 18 and 24 weeks of age, depending on the breed. They will lay small, often blood-stained eggs at first, perhaps once every three or four days. By their second month of production, they should lay two normal sized eggs every three days. Pullets are best raised at a time of at least 8 to 10 hours of daylight, so chicks hatched in March and April will fare the best. As light diminishes, egg production will decrease unless a total of 13 to 14 hours of light per day is furnished. Pullets and hens will also lay best at temperatures between 45 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
Problems with Eggs
Abnormal Shells
SOFT OR NO SHELL. Indicates a problem with the shell gland. Stress can cause the egg to be laid before the shell has been formed; lack of vitamin D and lack of calcium can also cause the shell to improperly form. This problem is often seen in hens whose calcium needs are greater than in younger birds.
WRINKLED. Can indicate rough handling of hens, causing a second yolk to be prematurely released and bump up against the first egg forming. Wrinkled shells can also be an indicator of a respiratory infection.
A Cuckoo Marans hen, left, and Rhode Island Red hen roost in front of a nesting box at Fat Rooster Farm. The farm has 15 varieties of chickens, with 50 laying hens.
BUMPY OR EXTREMELY CHALKY. Improper shell formation, sometimes seen in hens that have just begun laying or in old hens, is also an indication of excess vitamin D. Don’t use these eggs in the incubator–their uneven porosity won’t allow the developing embryo to hatch (they’re perfectly fine to eat, though).
Abnormal Egg Yolks
ORANGE OR DARK YELLOW–Most likely the result of the hen’s diet. Leafy greens, carrots, marigolds, calendula flowers, whole corn, etc., can all affect yolk color.
BLACKISH-GREEN, OLIVE GREEN, OR REDDISH–Most likely diet-related. Green grass, acorns, and other green forages can cause these color changes.
PALE YELLOW–Lack of free-range forages and/or corn in feed.
BLOOD OR “LIVER” SPOTS IN YOLK–These are often confused with a developing embryo. In reality, an egg that has been partially incubated will look more like it is crisscrossed with a network of thin red lines. Blood spots or liver spots occur when blood or a small piece of tissue is released in the hen’s reproductive tract before the shell has been formed. It can be an indication of vitamin A deficiency or a genetic defect that is inherited. While the eggs are perfectly safe to eat, they are unappealing. If a vitamin deficiency is not the problem, you may want to cull the culprit rather than risk putting off potential egg customers (or save the eggs for your own consumption).
DOUBLE YOLKS–Heavy-breed hens and older hens sometimes lay eggs containing two yolks. Rather than progressing normally through the ovary, the yolk combines with another yolk, and a shell is formed around both.
NO YOLKS–This is most common in pullets that have just made their first laying attempt. The egg contains no yolk and sometimes a speck of brownish or grayish tissue that the bird’s reproductive glands have been tricked into treating as a completed egg.
When a pullet reaches the end of her first year of life, she is considered a hen for exhibition purposes, but many people refer to female chickens as hens if they regularly lay eggs even if they are less than a year old.
The care of hens is similar to that of pullets, except that their bodies have stopped developing, and their vitality and vigor need to be maintained so that they continue to lay eggs. Laying hens on pasture will eat far less than those kept in confinement, and hens will eat less grain in the summer than the winter, when they need to keep themselves warm.
By the time hens have reached maturity, they will have worked out a distinct pecking order. Throughout their younger days together, this social organization governs how roosters relate to each other, how hens relate to each other, and how roosters and hens interact with one another. Maintaining a pecking order reduces stress within the flock. It is important to observe these social hierarchies to see that all of your chickens have access to drinking water, food, and a good place to roost away from danger. Setting up different feeding stations in the coop will allow even the most timid birds the opportunity for adequate food and water.
A Black Sex-Link hen roams the pasture at Back Beyond Farm. To add visual variety to their flock of Golden Comets, Ray Williams and Liz York added the breed. While they lay a lot of eggs, Williams feels Sex-Links can be protective while trying to remove eggs from the nesting box.
How to Determine Who Is Laying Eggs
A well-managed laying flock must include the removal of birds from the flock that are unhealthy or inadequate producers. Eliminating or culling these birds will reduce the cost of feed, improve your flock’s production, allow more feed, water, and space for productive birds, and reduce the chance of disease spreading to healthy chickens. Observation and hands-on inspection can identify a good laying bird and assist you in choosing which hens to cull from the flock.
First, hens that are actively laying eggs should look like they’ve been working, not spending their days at the chicken salon. Their feathers may be broken or worn, because their energy has been put into feeding themselves and producing eggs, not preening sleek, shiny feathers all day. Their wattles and combs should be large, plump, bright, and waxy, not purplish or gray, wizened, and shrunken (Silkies are the color exception, with mulberry-colored combs as the norm). They should be active and alert, constantly scratching and picking for food, with sparkling eyes, often showing a very talkative demeanor. When you enter the henhouse, their eyes should be on you, wondering what treat you have brought them. Hens that are huddled, motionless, in a corner should be suspect.
Aside from observation at a distance, it is helpful to capture your hens and inspect them closely. There are numerous ways to catch chickens. If the hens are tame, simply scoop them up, keeping their wings closely pinned to their body to avoid harm to them and to your face.
A simple tool that is useful in catching timid hens is a catching hook, made up of a piece of sturdy wire that is hooked at the end. These are available from poultry supply outlets, or you can make one from Number 3–gauge wire. A length of 5 to 6 feet is ideal, with a sharply bent hook at the end. The chicken is caught by hooking her by the leg and quickly scooping her up. After she has been caught, hold her for a few moments before examining her to calm her and get her used to handling.
Another handy tool is a fishing scoop net. As long as the mesh in the net is fine enough so that a chicken can’t escape, these work well for scooping up feisty fowl.
Clipping the hen’s wings will also render them more easily caught. The primary flight feathers on one wing can be cut so that the bird becomes off-balance when trying to fly. Use scissors to cut the first 10 feathers on the wing, starting from the outside of the wing and moving toward the body of the bird. Wing clipping will only last until the new feathers grow in during the next molt.
Trap nests can also be used to capture hens for inspection. These nests have specially designed doors that close after the hen has entered to lay her egg. Trap nests are also a useful way to track each bird’s production. Peruse poultry supply catalogs for nesting boxes equipped with trap doors, or use Appendix Four to find trap nest plans you can construct at home.
The vent of a hen who is laying eggs is moist; a molting chicken’s is dry.
The vent of a molting hen is dry and is not laying eggs.
Three physiological characteristics will help you determine whether your hen is laying. The first is the appearance of her vent, where the egg exits her body. Tip the hen up so that her head is facing toward the ground, her wings held against your body and the arm you are holding her in. Her tail will naturally tip forward. Part the feathers near her vent with your free hand. The vent should be swollen, full, moist, and pink, not dry, puckered, or purplish.
Next, place your thumb and middle fingers of your free hand on either side of her vent. Feel for two sharp bones on either side–these are her pelvic bones (these are different from the keel bone, which lies midline along the breast). They should be flexible and wide on a hen that is laying. If they are firm and almost joined just below the vent, she is most likely not laying.
Finally, a laying hen with yellow skin will lose pigmentation from her body in an orderly fashion, called bleaching. Bleaching occurs when the carotenoid pigment called xanthophyll is diverted from the hen’s body to her egg yolks. The more eggs she lays, the more this pigment is depleted, resulting in her body parts becoming paler and paler. Her body will lose its color in order from her vent, to her eye ring, to her earlobe. Then will follow her beak, her feet, and her shanks. By the time her shanks show signs of bleaching, she will have laid upwards of 180 eggs. Bleaching will not be a good diagnostic tool to detect laying in hens whose skin is black (like Silkies) or white (like many of the Asian and Continental class breeds), or in hens who have not been fed a diet that contains corn or rich, leafy greens, where xanthophyll is found.
Ready to be gathered, eggs rest in a nesting box at Luna Bleu Farm. The chickens’ foraging in summertime pasture benefits in better-tasting eggs. “People are fighting over our eggs,” said farmer Suzanne Long.
In the 1940s, broody hens in commercial laying strains were far more common than they are now. G. T. Klein in Starting Right with Poultry noted that the strain of layers he began with as an extension poultryman at the Massachusetts State College in Amherst (now the University of Massachusetts–Amherst) went from 100% broody to just 3% broody 25 years later.
Heritage breed hens tend toward broodiness more than commercial strains of Leghorns, Black Sex-Links, or other laying breeds that have been selected and managed to enhance their non-broody characteristics. If you don’t wish for your hens to stay broody and set on eggs, they should be “broken up.” Otherwise, a great deal of egg production will be lost while the hen thinks she is “incubating” her imaginary clutch of eggs (remember, hens do not lay eggs while they are broody).
A molting White Leghorn hen; While it is in the process of molting old feathers to grow new ones, a chicken’s egg production slows down. The comb and wattles also become dull and shrunken.
There are two techniques that are usually effective in breaking up a broody hen. Both rely on the hen’s instinct to give up on a lost clutch of eggs so that she will live another day to start fresh. The first is to remove her from her nest and put her in a different coop. The change in scenery is sometimes enough to shock her out of broodiness.
Another method is to place her in a broody coop. This is a hanging cage with a wire floor. Usually three or four days is all it takes to get her hen brain off any thought of setting on eggs. Food and water can be provided to her throughout her time in the broody coop.
The sooner you break up a broody hen, the more quickly she will return to laying eggs. If she is prone to broodiness, you may want to consider her culling her, unless you’re interested in hatching your own chicks.
FORCING THE ANNUAL MOLT
Hens will cease laying when they begin molting their feathers. When day length begins to shorten, it will trigger the hens to molt their worn plumage and replace it with sturdy feathers in preparation for winter migration (even though chickens have long since stopped migrating like their wild cousins, their bodies are still programmed to molt with winter’s onset). The best laying hens will molt later in the season, taking nearly four months to replace all of their feathers. During molting, hens divert the energy used to produce eggs into feather production and stop laying for about two months; commercial layers will slow their production, but rarely cease egg-laying entirely.
A White Leghorn in “full lay.” The comb and wattles of a laying bird will be bright and plump.
Chickens will molt in a specific sequence, beginning with the head, to the neck, back, and breast, with the tail and wings being molted last. Some hens will appear almost naked, molting their feathers all at once.
Poultry keepers who find it more economical to keep their mature layers rather than sending them to slaughter in exchange for fresh pullets will sometimes force their birds into an early molt. This practice requires great skill, as it essentially creates enough stress on the bird to force it to lose its feathers. Great care must be taken so that the conditions the birds are kept in do not cause mortality and a complete cessation of laying.
Older poultry management manuals suggest feeding laying hens forced into molt grain only, and then, after a period of eight weeks, returning them to a layer ration. All-night lighting is also required after the hens have been returned to their regular ration.
Alternatively, hens can be confined in a coop that is well ventilated and restricted to just eight hours of light a day. During this time, only free-choice water and oats and ½ pound of scratch feed for every 12 hens should be given. In two or three weeks, layer ration should be reintroduced, and light should be increased gradually to 15 hours per day.
CULLING LAYING HENS
In small flocks, where birds will certainly take on individual personalities, culling can be hard to follow through with. The decision to cull birds is purely management based. If you have decided that your flock serves more purpose as companionship than as a means of providing eggs profitably, then culling would only be necessary to eliminate unhealthy and diseased birds from the otherwise healthy flock. Normally, hens kept for the purpose of producing eggs are culled at the peak of production if they’re not laying as they should (30 to 40 weeks of age, depending on the breed) and again at the end of their first year of production.
Introducing New Birds to Your Flock
Like the new kids starting school three or four months into the year, the arrival of new chickens, be they hens or roosters, to the laying flock will create a fair amount of waves. The established pecking order will be challenged, and each bird in the flock must now establish a relationship with the newcomer. Choosing a time to introduce new birds that is least stressful on the flock may make the transition easier. If yours is a commercial enterprise, it’s best to overturn the entire flock at one time. Started pullets from April can take the place of the old layers in the fall, when those birds are close to completing their first year of laying. I find it useful to switch breeds from year to year, so I can tell which are the new birds and which are the old. If you are just introducing one or two new birds to the flock, put them in the coop at night, and then carefully observe the new birds to be sure that they have access to food and water. In free-ranging operations, transitioning new birds into the flock tends to be smoother because of the extra space allowance, though clipping the wings of the new chickens may prevent chasing them out of trees, horse barns, or haylofts.
White Leghorn hens, in foreground, and a variety of other chickens roost in the coop. The fifty laying hens lay about two dozen eggs per day.
The modern commercial poultry industry is highly specialized to reduce waste, labor, and overhead. Size, volume, and marketing potential dominate management decisions, and profitability depends on efficient production of large quantities of eggs on a few large farms. Capital investments are enormous in these poultry plants, leaving most small-farm managers out of the running for competition.
A meat bird hen rescued from a date with a butcher examines the nesting boxes at Fat Rooster Farm.
On the other hand, a small-scale project, which targets niche markets, can be sustainable and add to a homestead or farm in a number of ways. First, the addition of poultry products to other agricultural crops offered could attract customers that may otherwise turn to other sources for eggs. Second, poultry manure is often overlooked as a benefit of raising chickens, and the addition of this nitrogen-rich fertilizer will enhance soils and benefit other crops. Lastly, creating value-added products from eggs can increase revenue.
TO SUCCEED WITH YOUR POULTRY OPERATION, YOU MUST:
IDENTIFY YOUR MARKET. Who will you sell to? Local food co-ops? Neighbors? At farmer’s markets or at your own farmstand? Be sure to discuss details and delivery, expectations, and your price with potential customers.
FIND A NICHE THAT IS UNIQUE TO YOUR OPERATION. Our niche is heritage-breed chickens that lay a myriad of colored eggs. We carefully mix each dozen so that it contains at least one chocolate brown or olive green egg. Customers will choose our eggs over our neighbors’ just for their appearance.
CREATE VALUE-ADDED PRODUCTS TO INCREASE YOUR PROFIT. Consider making quiche, pickled eggs (see Chapter Nine), or pre-packaged containers of egg salad for sale. Be sure to review your local rules and regulations, as many states require prepared food licenses and commercial kitchens to make these products.
KEEP YOUR COSTS LOW ENOUGH AND YOUR OPERATION EFFICIENT ENOUGH TO REALIZE A PROFIT. This last is key to a successful business venture. Specifically, tracking flock production, feed costs, feed conversion (the amount of feed used to produce a dozen eggs; a good number is 4 pounds of food per dozen eggs produced), and feed efficiency (the cost of feed spent to produce a dozen eggs) will help keep your operation in the black.
For example, in a flock of 40 hens, one hen is lost on day 6 of the month of March and one is lost on day 10, for a total of 46 hen-days lost (31 days in March, subtract 6 = 25 hen-days lost; 31 days in March, subtract 10 = 21 hen-days lost for a total of 46). Forty hens multiplied by 31 (the number of days in March) = 1,271 hen-days, minus 46 (the number of hen-days lost) = 1,225 hen-days divided by the total number of eggs for the month. A good average flock production will range from 15 to 20 dozen eggs per hen per year.
If production statistics sound too complicated, and you are keeping chickens purely for the fun of it, you can still take in some revenue from what you produce. The difference is that you won’t deem the operation a failure if it’s not profitable.
Perdue, a Dark Brahma pullet, basks in the fall sunlight at Brianne Riley and Matthew Taylor’s home. When the couple was married in mid-October, they included their chickens in their vows.
One of two Buff Cochin pullets owned by Brianne Riley and Matthew Taylor of Shelburne, Vermont scratches amongst the leaves in the yard. Riley said customers to the antique shop she runs on the weekends like to visit with the chickens.
