Keeping poultry

Yorky

Yorky

RIP 21/01/2024
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[This post and following few moved from another thread to form a new topic (MG)]

I came across this today.......

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In addition to being larger, duck eggs have a slightly higher yolk-to-white ratio than chicken eggs. A duck egg consists of 11% shell, 55% egg white (albumen), and 34% yolk. A chicken egg consists of 10% shell, 58% egg white, and 32% yolk.
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Yorky said:
I came across this today.......

In addition to being larger, duck eggs have a slightly higher yolk-to-white ratio than chicken eggs. A duck egg consists of 11% shell, 55% egg white (albumen), and 34% yolk. A chicken egg consists of 10% shell, 58% egg white, and 32% yolk.
Click to expand...
A lot of those figures don't really apply to most chicken breeds, only to the commercial ISA breed that lays itself to death within 18-24 months of life. Most heritage breeds of chooks will lay for anything upwards of 8 years and live for 8-12 years. As for sunlight, my girls are only getting 11hrs right now at best and have just started laying again for the season. One thing we have noticed since ending with the commercial eggs and going back to our heritage breeds is how much larger our yolks are compared to the commercial chooks. In fact just about every one of those stats only applies to ISA chickens not heritage or even backyard breeds. My chooks will happily go wading in my lawn given half a chance.

This is my oldest girl (over 8 years old). She no longer lays but all of my other girls do including the over 7 year old. She happily waded into the lawn to hunt for worms coming to the surface despite the torrential rain at the time.

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Yorky, I agree with SatNav - although I haven't been raising chooks as long as she - I got my first batch in 2018, so that makes my oldest 4 years old - she still lays.

With the proper breeds - and I researched what to get for my locale - you can get very cold-tolerant types of chickens. I have had very little bird loss - and almost always it has been predation since I try to free range, although this year it has been bad so I have cut back on free ranging.
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
A lot of those figures don't really apply to most chicken breeds, only to the commercial ISA breed that lays itself to death within 18-24 months of life. Most heritage breeds of chooks will lay for anything upwards of 8 years and live for 8-12 years. As for sunlight, my girls are only getting 11hrs right now at best and have just started laying again for the season. One thing we have noticed since ending with the commercial eggs and going back to our heritage breeds is how much larger our yolks are compared to the commercial chooks. In fact just about every one of those stats only applies to ISA chickens not heritage or even backyard breeds. My chooks will happily go wading in my lawn given half a chance.

This is my oldest girl (over 8 years old). She no longer lays but all of my other girls do including the over 7 year old. She happily waded into the lawn to hunt for worms coming to the surface despite the torrential rain at the time.
Click to expand...
 
Mountain Cat said:
With the proper breeds - and I researched what to get for my locale - you can get very cold-tolerant types of chickens. I have had very little bird loss - and almost always it has been predation since I try to free range, although this year it has been bad so I have cut back on free ranging.
Click to expand...
We've also had a bad year for seeing foxes during daylight hours. Snakes killed some 9 sheep last summer/early autumn which didn't help because the carcass got left out for extended periods (as in several are now skeletons in the field). That also attacks birds of prey as well and we have plenty of eagles that could take even the biggest of my girls (all frost hardy/cold resistant breeds. The largest is 4½kg or 10lb. The eagle around here is the largest in Australia with a wing span in excess of 2m.

We've invested in a dedicated poultry electric fence. The solar recharger (or energiser) is one that recharges from UV rather than direct sun and I can watch the foxes walk down the side of the fence and ignore my chooks inside it. They don't like climbing flexible fencing, so even though they can and do scale 6 foot high metal fences (I've seen them do this with frightening ease), they have only tried once to get over this fence and got zapped on their underneath parts. They've not tried it again (no fur caught in the fence). So we now operate a system whereby my chooks can come out into the electric fence area from dawn (it's 100m long so it's a large enclosure of over 600m² for 13 chooks). Then if we are home, at 10am or whenever we get home, they can free range until they take themselves to roost at dusk. Both gates are automatic. The one leading from their roost into the electric fence area is on a daylight sensor and we've programs how much light is needed before it opens after a 5 minute delay (so it doesn't promptly close again if the sun goes behind a cloud during dawn/dusk etc). The second automatic gate opens and closes on a timer system. We've bought it all separately over the years. The automatic gate (sensor driven one) came first, then the electric fence when we moved here 4 years ago. It has saved us from losing the entire flock on more than one occasion.
I'd certainly recommend them and despite my concerns about the new solar powered energiser not being mains rechargeable, and an exceptionally cloudy dull summer, autumn and now winter, it has always received enough UV to keep zapping the fence (the fox won't know if the fence is charged or not, they simply loath flexible fencing and snakes won't pass over the fence if it is zapping so it also keeps them out). My girls have enough hiding places in addition to the roost that eagles are not an issue to date.
 
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